The Sumu-Sanu Myth. Notes and Remarks on the Jimmu Tenno Myth

Abstract

1) The present author does not refer in particular to the research of contemporary Japanese scholars and their work in mythological subjects before 1945. It was permeated with nationalistic trends or avoidance of the problem of the origin of the Imperial family in the mythological period. A Western reader may find valuable information about the modern nationalistic interpretation of the Japanese myths in The National Faith of Japan: A Study of Moder-n Shint6 (London, 1938) by D. C. Holtom. However, a student of the prehistory of Japan may find in the Kokutai no Hongi, compiled in 1937 by the National Spirit Cultural Research Institute, the most dangerous use of mythology, see Kokutai no Hongi, Cardinal Principles of the National Entity of Japan (2nd ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1949) by John Owen Gauntlett with an introduction by Robert King Hall. Strange to say, prominent historians, professors of the T6kyo Imperial University, like Kuroita Katsumi, Hisamatsu Sen'ichi, and others belonged to the Committee of the NSCRI. The present Emperor of Japan by his rescript issued on New Year's Day, 1946, denied the divinity of the Emperor of Japan. 2) For the English translation of the Kojiki we shall refer to Basil Hall Chamberlain's The Kojiki or Records of Ancient Matters, second edition with annotations by W .C. Aston, published with the permission of The Asiatic Society of Japan, T6ky6, by J. L. Thompson & Co., Ltd., Kobe, 1932; henceforth abbreviated as ETK. 3) For the English translation of the Nihonshoki we shall refer to W. G. Aston's Nihongi, Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. Translated from the original Chinese and Japanese, 2 vols., London, published for the Society by Kegan Paul, French, Trubner et Co., Ltd., 1896, as the Supplement I of the Transactions and Proceedings of The Japan Society, London; henceforth abbreviated as ETN.