Early Japanese and Korean Historical Thought

Early Japanese and Korean Historical Thought

The story of Japanese historical writing begins with the influence of China and Korea and appears

to have concluded in our own time with the impact of the West. History developed considerably

later in Japan than in China, and then not in the same forms, despite the frequent use of Chinese

as the language of composition. Historical writing can be found in the Japanese archipelago

from the seventh century C.E. The emperor Temmu had ordered compilation of a chronicle in

681 in order to correct errors in and conflicts between imperial genealogies and the traditional

origin tales of various great families The earliest extant texts are two official historical works, the

Kojiki (Record of ancient matters, completed 712 C.E.) and Nihon shoki or Nihongi (Chronicles

of Japan [Nihon], comp. 720 C.E.). These were both commissioned in 711, ostensibly by the empress

Gemmei, as the preface to the Kojiki stated. Both texts relayed a powerful mythology of the

creation of the world and the subsequent foundation of the empire by the first human monarch,

Jimmu or Jinmu, a direct descendant of the sun goddess—belief in the emperor’s divine ancestry

would continue to be taught in twentieth-century Japanese schools. The Nihon shoki was composed

in Chinese in an attempt to imitate Chinese historiography. The Kojiki was written in a

commonly used mixture of Chinese and Japanese that grew unfamiliar to readers in later centuries,

which led in part to the work’s being neglected until the 1700s. By 901 C.E. the Nihon

shoki had been augmented by five other Chinese-language works that with it form the Six National

Histories (Rikkokushi).

In some ways, however, the Chinese system of historical writing, and in particular the use of

the dynasty as the basic unit of the Standard History, was ill-suited to Japan. From the Japanese

point of view, all emperors belonged to the same dynasty, being directly descended from the sun

goddess via Jimmu—the Kojiki in particular stresses the continuity of the imperial line rather than

the cycle of dynastic rise and decay immanent in the Chinese Standard Histories. This linealism,

and a degree of resistance to Chinese cultural dominance in spite of the influence of Confucianism,

ensured that while its language was initially borrowed, the edifice of Chinese historical writing

was not reconstructed wholesale, even in officially sponsored chronicles such as the Azuma

kagami, a late-thirteenth-century product of the first, Kamakura, shogunate or military government,

which is presented as if it were a diary compiled as events occurred. Moreover, beginning

in the eleventh century during the Heian period, a different type of history, written in Japanese,

began to appear in the Rekishi monogatari or historical tales, which were composed by independent

scholars and departed considerably from the national histories; at least one of these, the Eiga

monogatari (c. 1100), was composed by a woman. Many works in this genre were biographically

organized; a number, such as the Gunki monogatari, dealt principally with war and were often recited

orally (not unlike the Homeric epics, which they resemble in military values) before being

committed to writing. Examples include the fourteenth-century Taiheiki (Chronicle of great peace).

Most widely read among medieval Japanese historical writings were the Gukansho by the priest

Jien (c. 1220), the Eiga monogatari and the twelfth-century Okagami or Great Mirror.

Following several centuries of imperial decline, the Tokugawa Bakufu (1603–1868) was established

whereby shoguns ruled the country on behalf of a figurehead emperor through regional

daimyo or warlords. During this era, Japan was kept rigidly secluded from outside influences. Historical

thinking achieved higher intellectual prominence to the extent that Ogyu Sorai (1667–1728)

could confidently proclaim that history was “the ultimate form of scholarly knowledge.” Official

history-writing in the mode of the Six National Histories continued to flourish, often tied to a

particular shogunal “domain” or feudal territory—the pro-imperial Dai Nihon Shi (Great history

of Japan, begun in 1657 and only completed in 1906) was, for example, initiated in the Mito domain.

Much of this work began to depart from the imperial mythology of Jimmu since it did

nothing to support the case for shogunal primacy over a puppet emperor. Among shogunal officials,

Arai Hakuseki (1657–1725) stands out for his Tokushi yoron (Essays on history), a series of

lectures on the past intended to instruct the shogun through example while making use of a wide

variety of sources and largely ignoring the early origin myths. Arai painted a progressive picture

of Japanese history that validated noncentralized governance; it also subordinated individual action

and choice to inevitable historical trends. Two generations earlier, Hayashi Razan (1583–

1657), an unabashed admirer of Chinese historical texts, had set the stage for a Neo-Confucian

philosophy of history strongly allied to the shogunate. A number of private scholars were also

HISTORIOGRAPHY