Tag: Tenson Korin

Japan by Train 29: Kagoshima

April 10, 2023 / John D. / 0 Comments

This is part of an ongoing series about travelling the length of Japan by train, and consists of passages with a Shinto or spiritual flavour. They are extracted from a longer book version due to be published by Stone Bridge in January 2024.

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Amaterasu statue in Ise Museum
(All photos by J. Dougill)

For those so inclined, Japanese mythology is fascinating. The stories are the stuff of fantasy, yet the myths continue to sustain the ruling class by fostering mystique about heavenly origins. Emperor Hirohito may have renounced divinity at the end of WW2, but the coronation of the present emperor included a rite symbolising descent from the sun goddess (Amaterasu). The country’s premier shrine, Ise Jingu, still honours her as ancestor of the imperial family.

The myth of heavenly descent is known as Tenson Korin. It tells of how the sun goddess instructed her grandson to descend to earth, and how he touched down on a mountain peak called Mt Takachiho in southern Kyushu. This has long puzzled me. It is generally assumed that the early rulers of Japan, the Yamato clan, emigrated from the Korean peninsula. If that is the case, then surely they would ‘descend’ onto a mountain in northern Kyushu. Why should Mt Takachiho be singled out for this momentous event?

Faced with this puzzle, I concocted my own theory. It was sparked by the arrival of the first Europeans to Japan, for three Portuguese traders were caught in a storm while travelling along the coast of China, and their badly damaged ship was swept along by the Kuroshio Current to the Japanese island of Tanegashima. The same current flows towards Kinko Bay, in which Kagoshima is situated, and at the end of the bay Mt Takachiho is visible.

Because of the current, there are many links between coastal China and southern Kyushu. Japan’s earliest rice cultivation, imported from China, is found here, and archeologists have unearthed skeletons from around this time resembling those of Jiangsu Province. In addition, early myths about Amaterasu and silk weaving are similar to those of the Yangtze River delta.

At this point enter Xu Fu, a Chinese alchemist. According to accounts, he was sent by China’s first emperor in search of an elixir for immortality. The first mission ended in failure, following which around 210 BC he was granted sixty large boats, together with soldiers, crew and 3000 boys and girls equipped with various skills, This time he never returned, and in later years it was assumed that he had reached Japan. How intriguing, I thought. Could the Kuroshio Current have taken Xu Fu’s armada to the foot of Mt Takachiho? Could he be the inspiration for the heavenly descent?

Not far from Mt Takachiho lies the town of Miyazaki and access to the Inland Sea. This prompts thought of the route of conquest taken by the Yamato clan, who migrated from Kyushu to the Nara basin. The mythology related in Japan’s earliest written works tell how Emperor Jimmu, Japan’s legendary first emperor, led the expedition.

Kashihara Shrine picture book story of Jimmu: here he sets out on his expedition

Now here is a very odd ‘coincidence’. If you travel to the small town of Shingu on the Kii Peninsula, there are sites associated with the arrivals by sea of both Jimmu and Xu Fu. Just south of the town is a beach where Emperor Jimmu supposedly landed. And in the town itself is a creek where Xu Fu is said to have arrived. In Japanese Xu Fu is known as Jofuku, and in Jofuku Park is a grave where the Chinese alchemist is allegedly buried.

Chinese style gate at the entrance to Jofuku Park in which is supposedly the grave of Xu Fu, aka Jofuku

The legends of Xu Fu and Jimmu both date from early Yayoi times, when Japan underwent great cultural change. Could it be in fact that the two legendary figures were modelled on the same person? It would mean that Japan’s imperial ancestors came from China in search of immortality, landed beneath Mt Takachiho, made their way across the Inland Sea to Shingu, then proceeded overland to Yamato in the Nara Basin.

The more I thought about my idea, the more convincing it seemed. But when I tried it out on specialists in mythology, I found little support. Alas and alack, there Is nothing new under the sun, and I discovered one day that a Japanese professor by the name of Ino Okifu had come up with the very same theory. Wikipedia claims the idea has been discredited, though it offers no explanation why, and as far as I am concerned the theory remains a tantalising possibility. To the world at large Kagoshima may be a volcanic city where the Last Samurai died, but to me it is a gateway to the mythological past.

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For more on the same subject, see postings for the China connection (Parts 1-3) by starting here.

The China connection (3)

April 8, 2020 / John D. / 0 Comments

Ino Okifu
It was after speculating about Jofuku and Jimmu that I was startled to find, courtesy of Wikipedia, that I was by no means the first to think that their stories may have overlapped. It turns out that a scholar named Ino Okifu had come to a similar conclusion, though the Wikipedia page goes on to say that his theory of Jimmu being based on Xu Fu (Jofuku) has been rebutted.

Xu Fu statue in Weihai, Shandong (Wikicommons)

It seems Ino Okifu was a Waseda University student, who spent much of his life abroad and as a historian was concerned about the atrocities committed by the Japanese in WW2. It fuelled a desire to disprove the notion of divinity surrounding the imperial line. His theory presumed that Xu Fu was a powerful figure with medical expertise, who fell out with Emperor Qin and was sent on a fool’s errand in quest of mythical Panglai (an island paradise known as Horai in Japan). Fearing that he would be executed on his return, Xu Fu chose to settle in Japan instead, and amongst the advanced knowledge that he introduced were elements of Taoism, which shaped the formation of early Shinto.

Artist’s impression of the invading warrior who became Japan’s first emperor known as Jimmu

If Ino Okifu had a vested interest in presenting his theory, then so did his detractors in refuting it. They included conservatives who wished to maintain the notion of Japanese uniqueness, as well as nationalists eager to preserve the mystery surrounding the emperor’s origins. (Even today imperial graves remain off-limits to archaeologists.)

While it is clear there were close ties between Kyushu and Korea in ancient times, it is less clear how much direct influence China had on Japan, particularly in the development of rice culture. The Kokugakuin Encyclopedia of Shinto gives an indication of the complexity…

It is not clear to what extent immigrants from China contributed to the development of rice cultivation culture, or even before that whether that foundation we could call the East Asian cultural sphere had extended as far as Japan. However, as concerns customs related to rice cultivation, it can be assumed that was a certain degree of commonality from the start throughout East Asia in general. Rather than saying that agricultural rituals or ancestor veneration practices (sosen sūhai) related to cultivation were influenced by imported cultural elements, it is better to think of them as a common denominator throughout the East Asian cultural sphere. It is extremely difficult to discuss questions of influence in the earliest periods.

East China showing coastal links with Kyushu
(courtesy Australian National University)

Cross currents
Given the above, the situation is evidently unclear. Nonetheless there are links with China which give pause for thought. DNA testing of Japanese rice from 2200 years ago, just when Xu Fu came to Japan, show the origin to be China’s Yangtze Delta (see here). It should be noted too that rice arrived in Miyazaki relatively early compared to the rest of Japan.

Yayoi skeletons from the BC period in Kyushu resemble those of China’s Jiangsu Province and differ from the Kumaso of south-east Kyushu and the Korean type of northern Kyushu. Though Japanese language origins are a controversial area, linguists such as Christopher Beckwith (2004) maintain that the ‘the original homeland of the speakers of the Japanese-Koguryo language may have been close to South China.’

Model of a Yayoi woman at National History of Science

It is widely acknowledged that the rituals of purification and cleansing with which Shinto is concerned originated in Taoism. What’s more, such aspects as turtle shell divination, which involved roasting and ‘reading’ the cracks, was an imported court custom, and the Qin emperors had a jade royal seal to go along with their bronze mirrors and swords as a show of authority. (Japan’s regalia, along with a mirror and sword, includes a magatama jewel made of jade, which in China signified inner beauty and immortality.)

A charmed sword discovered in the mausoleum of the Qin Dynasty, which has a history of 2200 years without accumulating rust.

Much of Japanese mythology, such as the weaving princess, shows clear links with southern Chinese agricultural myths, and Chinese historical records mention expeditions to Japan. Folk memory too suggested ties, and as late as the 16th century the missionary scholar Joao Rodriques in This Island of Japon claimed that Hyuga (modern Miyazaki) was the first part of Japan to be settled, notably by people from Fukien and Chekiang Provinces (modern Fujian and Zhejiang). ‘The people were cast up there by a storm, as still happens even now,’ he wrote, bringing the Kuroshio current to mind once again.

Model of a Yayoi ritual at Yoshinogari in northern Kyushu

Mythology by its very nature is what you make of it, and the intermingling of early Chinese, Korean and Japanese cultures cannot be easily unpicked. Even the very identity of the Yayoi people is uncertain. Let us end then with a quotation from Wikipedia, which states with references that, “The most popular theory is that they [the Yayoi] were the people who brought wet rice cultivation to Japan from the Korean peninsula and Jiangnan near the Yangtze River Delta in ancient China. This is supported by archeological researches and bones found in modern southeastern China.”

So was Jofuku a prototype for Jimmu? It seems not implausible that some folk memory of him was interwoven with later myths of invading forces. Perhaps it’s not so far-fetched as it might at first seem. After all, how else would one explain divine descent onto Mt Takachiho?

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For Part One of this series click here, and for Part Two here.

Model of clan leader and retinue at Yoshinogari in northern Kyushu, indicative of the advance in civilisation that Yayoi Japan represented. Did folk memory conflate the arrival of Xu Fu with the conquest of Jimmu to explain the cultural advance?

The China connection (1)

March 29, 2020 / John D. / 2 Comments

Mt Takachicho in southern Kyushu
(photos by John Dougill)

Mythological mystery
There are many fascinating mysteries in Japanese mythology, and one in particular has intrigued Green Shinto for years. Why would the heavenly deities choose to descend on Mt Takachiho in the south of Kyushu? Out of the hundreds of mountains available to them, why choose that one? (The mountain should not be confused with the town called Takachiho in northern Miyazaki, which also claims mythological links.)

The question is all the more vexing given the standard interpretation that the present imperial lineage ‘descended’ from Korea across the Sea of Japan. The boat journey from Busan to Hakodate has some convenient islands along the way at which to stop and refuel, notably Tsushima and Ikijima, so one can easily imagine how in ancient times it offered a convenient means of passage into Japan.

But if the ancestors of the imperial family came by this route, why would the mythology have them arrive at the other end of Kyushu? It’s all the more strange when one considers that there are taller mountains in Kyushu, such as nearby Mt Karakunidake, from which it’s possible to see the Korean homeland (indeed, karakuni is an alternate reading of the kanji for Korea).

Kagura featuring Ninigi no mikoto who descended from heaven to land on Mt Takachiho

To find out more, I made a trip some years ago to Takachiho to investigate the tenson korin (heavenly descent by Amaterasu’s grandson Ninigi no mikoto). There’s a shrine at the base with flat land called Takachiho-gawara where Ninigi no mikoto is said to have arrived, though one presumes this is simply the convention of establishing shrines on the lower slopes of mountains onto which kami descend. (In this way the place of worship is not only made accessible to villagers, but the sacred mountain behind it offers a focus for prayer.)

When you climb Takachiho, which at one point has a narrow ridge with sheer drop, you find Ama no Sakahoko (heavenly spear), a trident stuck into the summit. According to legend, Ninigi no mikoto supposedly thrust the three-pronged spear into the ground on his arrival from heaven (Takamagahara). How long it’s actually been there no one seems to know for certain, though Sakamoto Ryoma mentioned it in letters in 1866. Nonetheless, the question remains as to what exactly prompted the heavenly deity to descend on this particular peak.

The spear known as Ama no Sakahoko at the summit of Takachiho (courtesy mapio.net)

Kuroshio
The first Europeans to step on Japanese soil arrived in 1543 in the form of two (possibly three) Portuguese merchants aboard a Chinese junk. The ship was making its way along the coast of China for trading purposes when it was blown off course by a vicious storm, during which it was badly damaged and no longer able to steer a course. Left to drift with the prevailing current, it was deposited in a welcoming bay in the island of Tanegashima. In this way, through the whims of the weather, history was made. (A model of the Chinese junk stands today on the headland where the boat was stranded.)

The bay in Tanegashima where the first Europeans arrived

The current that brought the Europeans to Japan is known as Kuroshio. It flows from the east coast of the Philippines, past Taiwan and along the east of Japan to merge into the North Pacific. It is to the Far East what the Gulf Stream is to Europe, sending a steady flow of relatively warm water northwards to dissipate in colder seas. In this way the west of Britain and the east of Japan benefit from clement conditions and an enriched marine life.

Six years after the arrival of the Portuguese merchants, Francis Xavier arrived in 1549. He had set out from Malacca on a Chinese junk, not particularly seaworthy, and the boat followed the Kuroshio current past Tanegashima into Kinko Bay in southern Kyushu to where the town of Kagoshima stands opposite the volcanic island of Sakurajima.

Painting of Xavier coming to convert the locals, accompanied by Japan’s first Christian known as Yajiro

Following in Xavier’s wake, I took the modern-day jetfoil from Tanegashima to Kagoshima. On the way it passes Cape Sata on the southernmost tip of Kyushu, and once round the headland there come calmer waters as the ship enters the long expanse of Kinko Bay, extending inland for twenty-five miles. Lined with rocky sides and wooded hills, it makes a welcoming backdrop to arriving boats, and in the distance at the end of the bay stands a large mountain – Mt Takachiho.

Given the position of the mountain, it seemed that here was an answer to the puzzle as to why the heavenly deities had picked out Takachiho. In ancient times boats setting out from the east coast of China would have been drawn by the Kuroshio current towards Kyushu and Kinko Bay. And if they had settled in the area, it would have been Chinese custom to take the ‘mother mountain’ as their tutelary guardian. Rather than ‘descending’ from Korea, the mythical incomers would have arrived from Eastern China.

Chamberlain’s translation of *The Kojiki* opened up the stories of Japanese mythology to foreigners such as Lafcadio Hearn

Mythological support
The mythical origins of Japan are set out in two books in the early eighth century, Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720). By general consent, the former was a glorified piece of propaganda to provide emperors with divine status. The latter, with its alternative versions of events, was considered more like an official history. (For more on this topic, see here.)

For the following reading of the mythology, I’m indebted to the scholar Robert Wittkamp, who has sought to explain why the Nihon shoki has two books but the Kojiki only one. His supposition is that in contrast to the single imperial dynasty spelt out in the Kojiki, the Nihon shoki seeks to draw a distinction between the Takami Musuhi line in Book One and the Amaterasu line of Book Two.

Given this lineage break, it would seem quite possible that the Yamato dynasty integrated into their Korean tales the memory of an earlier ‘descent’ onto Kyushu. It is common after all for clans and tribes to mythologise their first arrival on foreign shores, and you find this in Okinawa for example with Kudaka Island claimed as the arrival point of the Ryukyu people and sanctified by the wonderful Sefa Utaki.

It may well be then that following immigration from Korea, the stories of descent onto Takachiho were conflated with the mythology of the sun going into hiding. It was through the creative work of Hieda no Are and O no Yasumaro (d. 723) that the competing stories were skilfully woven together into the Amaterasu myth as we know it today.

Following the compilation of the myths and legends in the early eighth century, the Kojiki story was largely disregarded in favour of Nihon shoki. It was only a millennium later with the Kokugaku Movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that Kojiki came to be regarded as of wider significance. With the establishment of State Shinto under the Meiji government, the fictions of the concocted mythology were regarded as fact, and Takachiho along with spurious graves of early emperors treated as sacred ground.

(In Part Two a suggestion is made as to who might have actually ‘descended’ onto Mt Takachiho.)

Myth Understanding

June 8, 2019 / John D. / 1 Comment

Our friend, the scholar Robert Wittkamp, has posted an illuminating paper on academia.edu posing the question, ‘Why does Nihon Shoki possess two books with myths but Kojiki only one’? (Click here to see the original paper. Last year he published a longer work on the subject in German: Robert F. Wittkamp, Arbeit am Text: Zur postmodernen Erforschung der Kojiki-Mythen, Gosenberg: Ostasienverlag 2018.)

Kagura featuring Ninigi no mikoto, who first descended from heaven to Japan

My initial reaction to Robert’s question was that the answer must be because Nihon Shoki (720) is a historical record of episodes with variant readings, whereas Kojiki (712) is a slimmed down propaganda piece to bolster the mythological roots of the imperial family. The former would obviously be longer than the latter.

However, Robert’s paper answers the question in a much more layered and informed manner. He begins by dividing the myths into two main groups: the southern line from South China, Polynesia and the Pacific, as against the Northern Line from Siberia, Korea and North China.

The southern line is horizontal and concerns the kuni tsu kami who inhabited Japan in early Yayoi times. Their origins lay overseas, hence there are sea myths with paradise somewhere beyond the horizon (one can read about them in Carmen Blacker’s Catalpa Bow).

The northern line, however, is vertical in orientation, with descent from ‘heaven’ (i.e. Korea) by ama tsu kami. This type of myth has roots in Siberian shamanism and looks upwards or downwards to origins. They are more recent in time, arriving as conquerors. To my surprise, Robert suggests this occurred in the fourth century when there was upheaval on the continent with sixteen kingdoms in northern China and a request by Paekche to help fight Koguryeo. (I would have presumed it happened much earlier than that, with the coming of the new Yayoi civilisation in the centuries around year 0.)

Chamberlain’s translation of The Kojiki was the first to open up the stories of Japanese mythology

As Robert notes, important to an understanding of Japan’s myths is the situation of the rulers who ordered their compilation (Tenmu and Jito). They ruled at a time before the title of tenno (emperor) was used and they aspired to greater authority, being dependent on the support of powerful families and feudal clans. (Though Robert doesn’t mention this, Temmu was a usurper and therefore on shaky ground in terms of legitimacy.) By showing ancestral alliances and subordination in the past, it was hoped that the myths would bolster the standing of the rulers.

A key episode in all this is the episode in the myths known as Tenson Korin, when the heavenly kami descended onto Japan. There exist six different versions of this event – one in Kojiki, the main version in Nihon Shoki togetther with four different variants.

Today it is generally assumed that Amaterasu gives the order to her grandson Ninigi-no-mikoto to spread the benefits of their civilisation to earth (a colonial rationale still used today by powerful countries to invade the weak). However, as Robert points out, three of the six extant versions feature Takami Musuhi as issuing the command (Nihon Shoki main version, plus variant 4 and 6). In these three versions it is Takami Musuhi who is the great ancestor of the imperial line. The names of descendants are different. (The usual reading is Takami Musubi, but Robert who is an expert in early Japanese texts prefers Musuhi.)

Ame no Uzume whose dance drew a curious Amaterasu from her cave

According to Robert, “Kojiki adds the elements of the two lines together. Consequently it can be described aa ‘ntegration type'”. Later it integrates too the Ise myths into the Amaterasu theme to make one overall narrative, fixing her as the great ancestral spirit. An intriguing conclusion to be drawn from this is that Kojiki may well have been a later compilation than Nihon Shoki, even though it was published eight years earlier.

The question about why Nihon Shoki has two books and Kojiki only one still remains, however. Here Robert suggests that the answer has to do with Nihon Shoki drawing a difference between the Takami Musuhi line in Book One and the Amaterasu line of Book Two. Kojiki on the other hand “tries to connect them and to create a single and coherent narrative.”

At the same time Kojiki puts much greater stress on promoting ties with distant clans away from the capital. The Izumo myths are an example. Robert goes into detailed statistics about the difference between the ancestral groups mentioned in the two books, and his conclusion is that, ‘The Kojiki puts much weight on the powerful groups around Yamato and demotes the muraji and banzo groups close to the Court”.

And here, brilliantly, Robert solves one of the most intriguing puzzles about the myths: why for many long centuries was the Kojik almost totally forgotten (interest was only revived by the historical work of the Kokugaku scholars in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)?

The answer Robert suggests is that the Fujiwara clan, who rose to dominance after the publication of the myths, did not care for their relatively lowly level played by their ancestors in the myths. The book was therefore put to one side and neglected by nearly all save the imperial household.

The rock cave myth still continues today to play a vital role in Japanese culture and imperial legitimacy