Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 15

Before beginning to read Japanese history it is necessary to know something of the chronology followed in its pages. There have been in Japan four systems for counting the passage of time. The first is by the reigns of the Emperors. That is to say, the first year of a sovereign's reign—reckoning from the New Year's day following his accession—became the 1 of the series, and the years were thenceforth numbered consecutively until his death or abdication. This method might be sufficiently accurate if the exact duration of each reign were known as well as the exact sequence of the reigns. But no such precision could be expected in the case of unwritten history, transmitted orally from generation to generation. Thus, while Japanese annalists, by accepting the aggregate duration of all the reigns known to them, arrive at the conclusion that the first Emperor, Jimmu, ascended the throne in the year 660 B.C., it is found on analysis that their figures assign to the first seventeen sovereigns an average age of 109 years.

The second system was by means of periods deriving their name (nengo) from some remarkable incident. Thus, the discovery of copper in Japan was commemorated by calling the year Wado (Japanese copper), and the era so called lasted seven years. Such a plan was even more liable to error than the device of reckoning by reigns, and a specially confusing feature was that the first year of the period dated retrospectively from the previous New Year's day, so that events were often recorded as having occurred in the final year of one period and in the opening year of another. This system was originally imported from China in the year A.D. 645, and is at present in use, the year 1910 being the forty-third of the Meiji (Enlightenment and Peace) period.

The third system was that of the sexagenary cycle. This was operated after the manner of a clock having two concentric dials, the circumference of the larger dial being divided into ten equal parts, each marked with one of the ten "celestial signs," and the circumference of the smaller dial being divided into twelve equal parts each marked with one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. The long hand of the clock, pointing to the larger dial, was supposed to make one revolution in ten years, and the shorter hand, pointing to the small dial, revolved once in twelve years. Thus, starting from the point where the marks on the two dials coincide, the long hand gained upon the short hand by one-sixtieth each year, and once in every sixty years the two hands were found at the point of conjunction. Years were indicated by naming the "celestial stem" and the zodiacal sign to which the imaginary hands happen to be pointing, just as clock-time is indicated by the minutes read from the long hand and the hours from the short. The sexagenary cycle came into use in China in 623 B.C. The exact date of its importation into Japan is unknown, but it was probably about the end of the fourth century A.D. It is a sufficiently accurate manner of counting so long as the tale of cycles is carefully kept, but any neglect in that respect exposes the calculator to an error of sixty years or some multiple of sixty. Keen scrutiny and collation of the histories of China, Korea, and Japan have exposed a mistake of at least 120 years connected with the earliest employment of the sexagenary cycle in Japan.

The fourth method corresponds to that adopted in Europe where the number of a year is referred to the birth of Christ. In Japan, the accession of the Emperor Jimmu—660 B.C.—is taken for a basis, and thus the Occidental year 1910 becomes the 2570th year of the Japanese dynasty. With such methods of reckoning some collateral evidence is needed before accepting any of the dates given in Japanese annals. Kaempfer and even Rein were content to endorse the chronology of the Chronicles—the Records avoid dates altogether—but other Occidental scholars* have with justice been more sceptical, and their doubts have been confirmed by several eminent Japanese historians in recent times. Where, then, is collateral evidence to be found?

*Notably Bramsen, Aston, Satow, and Chamberlain.

In the pages of Chinese and Korean history. There is, of course, no inherent reason for attributing to Korean history accuracy superior to that of Japanese history. But in China the habit of continuously compiling written annals had been practised for many centuries before Japanese events began even to furnish materials for romantic recitations, and no serious errors have been proved against Chinese historiographers during the periods when comparison with Japanese annals is feasible. In Korea's case, too, verification is partially possible. Thus, during the first five centuries of the Christian era, Chinese annals contain sixteen notices of events in Korea. If Korean history be examined as to these events, it is found to agree in ten instances, to disagree in two, and to be silent in four.* This record tends strongly to confirm the accuracy of the Korean annals, and it is further to be remembered that the Korean peninsula was divided during many centuries into three principalities whose records serve as mutual checks. Finally, Korean historians do not make any such demand upon our credulity as the Japanese do in the matter of length of sovereigns' reigns. For example, while the number of successions to the throne of Japan during the first four centuries of the Christian era is set down as seven only, making fifty-six years the average duration of a reign, the corresponding numbers for the three Korean principalities are sixteen, seventeen, and sixteen, respectively, making the average length of a reign from twenty-four to twenty-five years. It is, indeed, a very remarkable fact that whereas the average age of the first seventeen Emperors of Japan, who are supposed to have reigned from 660 B.C. down to A.D. 399, was 109 years, this incredible habit of longevity ceased abruptly from the beginning of the fifth century, the average age of the next seventeen having been only sixty-one and a half years; and it is a most suggestive coincidence that the year A.D. 461 is the first date of the accepted Japanese chronology which is confirmed by Korean authorities.

*Aston's essay on Early Japanese History

In fact, the conclusion is almost compulsory that Japanese authentic history, so far as dates are concerned, begins from the fifth century. Chinese annals, it is true, furnish one noteworthy and much earlier confirmation of Japanese records. They show that Japan was ruled by a very renowned queen during the first half of the third century of the Christian era, and it was precisely at that epoch that the Empress Jingo is related by Japanese history to have made herself celebrated at home and abroad. Chinese historiographers, however, put Jingo's death in the year A.D. 247, whereas Japanese annalists give the date as 269. Indeed there is reason to think that just at this time—second half of the third century—some special causes operated to disturb historical coherence in Japan, for not only does Chinese history refer to several signal events in Japan which find no place in the latter's records, but also Korean history indicates that the Japanese dates of certain cardinal incidents err by exactly 120 years. Two cycles in the sexagenary system of reckoning constitute 120 years, and the explanation already given makes it easy to conceive the dropping of that length of time by recorders having only tradition to guide them.

On the whole, whatever may be said as to the events of early Japanese history, its dates can not be considered trustworthy before the beginning of the fifth century. There is evidently one other point to be considered in this context; namely, the introduction of writing. Should it appear that the time when the Japanese first began to possess written records coincides with the time when, according to independent research, the dates given in their annals begin to synchronize with those of Chinese and Korean history, another very important landmark will be furnished. There, is such synchronism, but it is obtained at the cost of considerations which cannot be lightly dismissed. For, although it is pretty clearly established that an event which occured at the beginning of the fifth century preluded the general study of the Chinese language in Japan and may not unreasonably be supposed to have led to the use of the Chinese script in compiling historical records, still it is even more clearly established that from a much remoter era Japan had been on terms of some intimacy with her neighbours, China and Korea, and had exchanged written communications with them, so that the art of writing was assuredly known to her long before the fifth century of the Christian era, to whatever services she applied it. This subject will present itself again for examination in more convenient circumstances.

ENGRAVING: YUKIMIDORO (Style of Stone Lantern used in Japanese

Gardens)