Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 12

It is necessary to revert now to the unfinished work of the classical compilers, as they may be called, whom the Emperor Temmu nominated in 682, but whose labours had not been concluded when his Majesty died in 686. There is no evidence that their task was immediately continued in an organized form, but it is related that during the reign of Empress Jito (690–696) further steps were taken to collect historical materials, and that the Empress Gemmyo (708–715)—whom we have seen carrying out, in 712, her predecessor Temmu's plan with regard to Hiyeda no Are—added, in 714, two skilled littérateurs to Temmu's classical compilers, and thus enabled them to complete their task, which took the shape of a book called the Nihongi (Chronicle of Japan).

This work, however, did not prove altogether satisfactory. It was written, for the most part, with a script called the Manyo syllabary; that is to say, with Chinese ideographs employed phonetically, and it did not at all attain the literary standard of its Chinese prototype. Therefore, the Empress entrusted to Prince Toneri and Ono Yasumaro the task of revising it, and their amended manuscript, concluded in 720, received the name of Nihon Shoki (Written Chronicles of Japan), the original being distinguished as Kana Nihongi, or Syllabic Chronicles. The Nihon Shoki consisted originally of thirty-one volumes, but of these one, containing the genealogies of the sovereigns, has been lost. It covers the whole of the prehistoric period and that part of the historic which extends from the accession of the Emperor Jimmu (660 B.C.) to the abdication of the Empress Jito (A.D. 697). The Kojiki extends back equally far, but terminates at the death of the Empress Suiko (A.D. 628).