Formative and Alternative Reading of Scripture: IchijKaneyoshi’s Interpretation of the Nihon shoki in Fifteenth-Century Japan*

Tokumori Makoto

Abstract: The Nihon shoki,or Chronicles of Japan,was originally compiled in 720 as the official history of the origin of Japan and the imperial family.Since then,up to and including modern times,numerous recurring lectures and interpretations of the narrative have established it as an authoritative text.This paper focuses on Ichijō Kaneyoshi’s fifteenth-century interpretation of the text,titled Nihon shoki sanso.He provided a valuable contribution to the conception of the first two volumes of the Nihon shoki (named“The Age of the Gods”) as self-sufficient world scripture through comparison with discourses of Buddhism,Confucianism,and other texts.Nevertheless,the retrospective approach to interpreting scripture adopted by the eighteenth-century scholar of the classics,Motoori Norinaga,constituted the mainstream approach to the Kojiki,another ancient narrative compiled in 712,as well as to the Nihon shoki.Kaneyoshi’s comparative reading of scripture remains unorthodox in studies of the Nihon shoki.

Keywords: Ichijō Kaneyoshi;interpretation;intertextuality;Kojiki;Nihon shoki;Nihon shoki sanso;Motoori Norinaga

1.Introduction

This paper deals with the history of interpretations of the early Japanese narrative the

Nihon shoki

(《日本書紀》),or Chronicles of Japan.The

Nihon shoki

was compiled and presented to the emperor in 720,originally as a history of the origin of Japan and the imperial family.The first two volumes describe the Age of the Gods: the creation of heaven and earth,the emergence of the gods,the descent of the Sun Goddess’s grandson,and the era of his two successors,who were descendants of a god.The following twenty-eight volumes of this book present the history of the subsequent reigns of the emperors who succeeded them until the end of the seventh century,the period just prior to the compilation of the work.Ever since the

Nihon shoki

was compiled,for a long time,it has intermittently been the subject of lecture series and been given numerous interpretations to be an authoritative text,first within the imperial court,and later in temples and shrines as well.And after the text was published in woodblock printed editions and circulated widely in the mid-seventeenth century,private scholars came to play a major role in its interpretation.With these explications made in each historical period,the

Nihon shoki

has been influential up to present.A notable example in modern times is found in the

Dainihon teikoku kenpō gige

(《大日本帝國憲法義解》),or

Commentaries on the Constitution of the Empire of Japan,

edited by drafters of the Constitution in 1889. Itō Hirofumi,a chief drafter of the Constitution,is mentioned as the author of the publication,but it was actually compiled as a semi-official commentary of the Constitution by the committee formed of three of the drafters (Itō Hirofumi,Inoue Kowashi and Itō Miyoji) and other scholars of law and bureaucrats.See 稲田正次：《明治憲法成立史》下巻， 東京：有斐閣，1962年，第882—883頁。［Inada Shōji, (History of Establishment of Meiji Constitution),vol.2,Tokyo: Yūhikaku,1962,882-83.］ The drafters referred to the mythological narratives of the

Nihon shoki

and another ancient text that was presented eight years prior,the

Kojiki

(《古事記》),or

An Account of Ancient Matters

, Gustav Heldt’s translation.ō no Yasumaro,,trans.Gustav Heldt (New York: Columbia University Press,2014).especially on the articles concerning the emperor as sovereign.Take for example Article 1 of Chapter 1,“The Emperor,”and a part of the commentary on it:

第一條 大日本帝國ハ萬世一系ノ天皇之ヲ統治ス

（...）本條首メニ立國ノ大義ヲ掲ケ、我カ日本帝國ハ一系ノ皇統ト相依テ終始シ、古今永遠ニ亙リ、（...）統治ハ大位ニ居リ、大権ヲ統ヘテ國土及臣民ヲ治ムルナリ。古典ニ天祖ノ勅ヲ挙ケテ「瑞穂國是吾子孫可王之地、宜爾皇孫就而治焉」ト云ヘリ。又神祖ヲ稱ヘタテマツリテ「始御國天皇」ト謂ヘリ。日本武尊ノ言ニ「吾者纏向ノ日代宮ニ坐テ大八島國知ロシメス大帯日子淤斯呂和気天皇ノ御子」トアリ（...）

［ARTICLE 1 The Empire of Japan shall be reigned over and governed by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal.］

［At the outset,this Article states the great principle of the Constitution of the country,and declares that the Empire of Japan shall,to the end of time,identify itself with the Imperial dynasty unbroken in lineage,and that the principle has never changed in the past and will never change in the future,even to all eternity....By“reigned over and governed,”it is meant that the Emperor on His Throne combines in Himself the sovereignty of the State and the government of the country and of His subjects.An ancient record mentions a decree of the Heavenly Ancestor saying“The Country of Goodly Grain is a State,over which Our descendants shall become Sovereigns: You,Our descendant,go and govern it.”And the Divine Ancestor was also called“Emperor governing the country for the first time”(Hatsukuni-shirasu Sumera-mikoto).A Prince named Yamato-take-no-Mikoto said,“I am a son of the Emperor Otarashi-hiko-Oshiro-Wake,who resides in the palace of Hishiro at Makimuku,and who governs the Country of Eight Great Islands.”］

To lay the foundation for the emperor’s sovereignty,the drafters of the Constitution referred to the mythical ordinance of the goddess of heaven (天祖Heavenly Ancestor),who compels her grandson to govern the country in the narrative of the

Nihon shoki

.The name of the first emperor that follows (神祖;Divine Ancestor) is also cited from the

Nihon shoki

as proof of the observance of this decree.The prince’s words cited from the

Kojiki

serve the same purpose.This is evidence that the

Nihon shoki

performed a politically vital function in modern Japan’s period of nation-state formation.And it shows that the recurring interpretations of the

Nihon shoki

over roughly one thousand years have effectively elevated the early-eighth-century text to the level of scripture in modern times.One point to clarify here is that the present paper refers to the history of interpretations of the

Nihon shoki

in a broader sense that includes interpretations of the

Kojiki

.After the two books were compiled in the early eighth century,while the

Nihon Shoki

had been valued highly as the first of the official histories, The was not compiled as the official history.the

Kojiki

had long been considered the most valuable reference book for the study of the

Nihon shoki

until MOTOORI Norinaga’s (本居宣長) voluminous commentary of the

Kojiki

emerged at the end of the eighteenth century.As we will see later,we can consider that Norinaga also studied the

Kojiki

from the perspective of interpreting the

Nihon shoki

——and in fact,his interpretations of the

Nihon shoki

played an essential role in his annotation of the

Kojiki

.These facts enable us to consider Norinaga’s commentary as a work that helps to shift the weight from the

Nihon shoki

to the

Kojiki

within the long tradition of interpretations of the

Nihon shoki

.Returning to the main topic,in order to establish how the narrative came to be considered as scripture,we can focus on ICHIJō Kaneyoshi’s (一條兼良) interpretation of the

Nihon shoki

in the mid-fifteenth century.He took up the first two volumes of the

Nihon Shoki

,named“The Age of the Gods”(神代),and produced a comprehensive interpretation of that whole narrative.His interpretation sheds light on the designation of the text as scripture in the long history of studies of the

Nihon shoki

.Kaneyoshi was a high-ranking aristocrat who had held the position of regent twice in the imperial court during a turbulent age that preceded a period of political chaos,and he was also a distinguished scholar once called“a man of talent outstanding in five hundred years.”by his contemporary. 永島福太郎：《一條兼良》,東京：吉川弘文館，新裝版，1988年，第1頁。［Nagashima Fukutarō,,new edition,Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan,1988,1.］He was familiar with Japanese classical literature,Chinese classics and Buddhism,and was said to have unparalleled knowledge of the practices and customs of the ancient imperial court.He gave lectures on the

Nihon shoki

at the imperial court,and compiled a commentary of the

Nihon shoki

based on these lectures titled

Nihon shoki sanso

(《日本書紀纂疏》);Collected Commentaries on the

Nihon shoki

(hereafter cited as

Sanso

) in 1457. 宮川葉子：《一條兼良の『日本書紀纂疏』成立前後：成仁親王元服との関連を中心に》，《ぐんしょ》第44冊，1999年。［Miyagawa Yōko,“Ichijō Kaneyoshi no Nihon shoki sanso seiritsu zengo: Fusahito shinnō genpuku tono kanren wo chūshin ni”(Before and After Appearance of : Centering on the Relation to a Ceremony to Mark Prince Fusahito’s Coming-of-Age),in ,vol.44,1999.］

2.The Medieval Situation of the Nihon shoki

In order to understand the characteristics of Kaneyoshi’s interpretation,let us survey the understanding of the

Nihon shoki

in medieval Japan from the eleventh to early fifteenth centuries.There were several commentaries on the text prior to Kaneyoshi’s.One of them is a voluminous and important work called

Shaku Nihongi

(《釈日本紀》;Interpreting Nihongi),completed by URABE Kanekata in the late thirteenth century.“Nihongi”(日本紀) is an alternative name for the

Nihon shoki

that

prevailed in medieval times.Kanekata compiled the private records of lectures on the

Nihon shoki

held within the imperial court in the ninth and tenth centuries,and arranged them together with his and his father’s commentaries,which provided a valid basis for later studies and applications of the

Nihon shoki

.However,

Shaku Nihongi

,as well as other commentaries,simply extract several words or phrases from the text,and provide commentaries to them.They have little intention of clarifying the relationships between each part and the whole,or the whole as a body made up of parts.This is what Kaneyoshi would go on to do.As far as the use of the

Nihon shoki

as a reference is concerned,it had always been considered the most authoritative source in the formation of new mythological discourses or commentaries on other classic texts,but it is actually rare that the

Nihon shoki

was directly referred to in these discourses.Most quotations from the

Nihongi

were actually not directly from the

Nihon shoki

.This is partly because it was difficult for most of these writers to gain access to the text of the

Nihon shoki

,but it may probably be due even more to the fact that they did not necessarily need the text as such,but only the foundation of its authority in order to create their new texts.Here,for example,is a paragraph from a commentary on the Chinese preface to the first official anthology of the early tenth century,

Kokin wakashū

(《古今和歌集》,A Collection of Japanese Poems Ancient and Modern) written by Buddhist priest Shōmyō (勝命) in the mid-thirteenth century 勝命：《古今和歌集序注》，小島憲之、新井栄蔵校注註：《古今和歌集》，《新日本古典文學大系》，東京：巖波書店，1989年，第380頁。［Shōmyō,“Kokin wakashū jochū”(Commentaries on Chinese Preface to a Collection of Japanese Poems Ancient and Modern),in ,collated and annotated by Kojima Noriyuki and Arai Eizō,in (New Anthology of Classical Japanese Literature),Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten,1989,380.］:

（上略）然而神世七代、時質人淳、情欲無分

國常立尊 陽神

日本紀云、アメツチヒラクルハシメ、ウカヒタ丶ヨヘルナカニ、ヒトツノモノアリ、カタチアシカヒノコトクニシテ、神トナレリ、コレヲクニノトコタチノミコト丶マウス、神ノヨノハシメナリ、アシカヒハ、アシノツノクメルナルヘシ

［But in the Seven Generations of the Age of the Gods the times were unsophisticated and people were simple.The realm of emotions was not distinguished.］

【Commentary】Kuni-toko-tachi-no-mikoto,yang god Nihongi says,When heaven and earth began,there existed one thing in their floating about.It,in shape like a reed-shoot,became changed into a God.This is called Kuni-toko-tachi-no-mikoto.It is the beginning of the Age of the Gods.A reed-shoot is a reed sprouting forth.” The Chinese Preface is translated by Leonard Grzanka.See Laurel Rasplica Rodd and Mary Catherine Henkenius,trans., (Princeton: Princeton University Press,1984),379-380.Quoted commentary is translated by the author referring to W.G.Aston’s 1896 English translation of the () (Tokyo: Charles E.Tuttle,1972).

Shōmyō states that this paragraph is quoted from the

Nihongi

but this is actually not so.The description is similar to the account of the beginning of the Age of the Gods in the

Nihon shoki

but different from it.It is cited from the editor’s explanatory notes on

Nihongi kyōen waka

(《日本紀竟宴和歌》),Japanese poems at celebratory banquets,for the completion of lectures on the

Nihon shoki

,which is supposed to have been edited by FUJIWARA Akisuke (藤原顕輔) in the twelfth century. 西宮一民：《日本上代の文章と表記》，東京：風間書房，1970年，第319—333頁。［Nishimiya Kazutami, (Composition and Writing in Early Japan),Tokyo: Kazama Shobō,1970,319-33.］ Also see Matthieu A.J.Felt,“Rewriting the Past: Reception and Commentary of Nihon shoki,Japan’s First Official History”(PhD diss.,Columbia University,2017),38-60.By attributing the note to the

Nihongi

and bringing it together with the other quotations (abbreviated here),Shōmyō creates a new Nihongi of his own,which could be disseminated and referred to as an authoritative account of the beginning of the Age of the Gods in the commentaries that followed. 神野志隆光：《 平安期における日本紀―勝命古今序注をめぐって》，《日本文學》45-47,1998年。［Kohnoshi Takamitsu,“ Heianki ni okeru Nihongi: Shōmyō Kokin jochū o megutte”(Nihongi in Heian Period: Concerning Shōmyō ), 45-47 (1998).］Returning to the topic of the

Nihon shoki

in the medieval period,it should be added that even when part of the actual

Nihon shoki

was referred to,it was usually mixed with Buddhist and Chinese classical discourses to construct new texts,which are thus deeply connected with the religious movements in the same period.Under their hegemonic Buddhist discourses,the Buddhist priests tried not to suppress indigenous gods of Shintō (神道),but to subsume them as the manifestations of the Buddhist deities.On the other hand,the doctrines of Shintō creeds were formulated with a strong stimulus,mainly from Buddhist schools,and later a movement also developed to subsume Buddhist deities and discourses into an integral Shintō doctrine. 義江彰夫：《神仏習合》，東京：巖波書店，1996年。［Yoshie Akio, (Syncretic Fusion of Shintoism and Buddhism),Tokyo: Iwanami shoten,1996.］ and 伊藤聡：《神道とは何か：神と仏の思想史》，東京：中央公論社，2012年。［Itō Satoshi, (What is Shintō: Intellectual History of Gods and Buddha) ,Tokyo: Chūō kōronsha,2012.］Thus from either Buddhism or Shintō’s point of view,the

Nihon shoki

’s narrative of the indigenous gods became the one to be supplemented by Buddhist discourses.Some examples will be taken below.

3.Kaneyoshi’s Attempt to Interpret the Nihon shoki

In this context,Ichijō Kaneyoshi arguably turned the

Nihon shoki

into a kind of world scripture,which he thought it should be.The features and significance of Kaneyoshi’s attempt to interpret the

Nihon shoki

are classified into the following two points.Firstly,one of the features of his attempt is to grasp the significance of the narrative of the Age of the Gods as a whole.He did so by segmenting the text into sentences as units,giving headings to every unit and mentioning the multilayered relationships among the units in order to interpret the whole narrative as a multilayered and consistent composition.This method is not unique to Kaneyoshi.It is rather a common one used by Buddhist scholars to analyze the sutras.That Kaneyoshi applied this method to the

Nihon shoki

suggests that he was trying to establish this ancient text as a kind of scripture,just like the sutras.It is his working hypothesis that the

Nihon shoki

,at least the narrative of the Age of the Gods,is a consistent and complete text;the

Sanso

itself is an attempt to demonstrate that this hypothesis is true.As mentioned above,such a claim had never been made in any preceding commentaries on the

Nihon shoki

.With respect to the preceding analysis,it is also idiosyncratic that Kaneyoshi established the attitude of concentrating on the literary Chinese text of the

Nihon shoki

as such.That may sound strange,but most previous interpreters were prone to attributing less value to the text itself than to the supposed proto-narrative over or behind the text.This is an important problem with the Japanese scripture,one that is related to the status of writing.The

Nihon shoki

is written in literary Chinese.Nevertheless,it had been thought that the primary narrative had been given orally in Japanese and was later transcribed in literary Chinese.The project of inferring the proto-narrative in Japanese language from the present text in Chinese characters had thus been one of the main concerns in interpreting the

Nihon shoki

.In the

Sanso

Kaneyoshi rejects this idea of a proto-oral text.It is true that he admits that expressions of the

Nihon shoki

are clearly based on Japanese language.But he also points out that other expressions are reasonably taken as coming from Chinese originally.That means that the present text itself is the original

Nihon shoki

as a whole.Thus Kaneyoshi never inquires about a proto-

Nihon shoki

in the

Sanso

.He is the first to take this approach to the

Nihon shoki

,an approach that is deeply connected to his thorough analysis of the composition of the

Nihon shoki

as a whole.Secondly,another outstanding feature of the

Sanso

is that Kaneyoshi tries to present correspondences between the

Nihon shoki

narrative and Buddhist,Confucian and Taoist discourses.As mentioned earlier,there were many kinds of new syncretic Shintō and Buddhist discourses in Kaneyoshi’s period.And in other commentaries on the

Nihon shoki

,that narrative tended to be complemented with those discourses.We can say generally that Kaneyoshi’s attempt to relate passages and sentences of the

Nihon shoki

with the writings of the other religious or metaphysical teachings is another product of this syncretism.But,to be more exact,in this cultural climate Kaneyoshi actually excludes any syncretic understanding of the

Nihon shoki

.Rather he tries to distinguish the

Nihon shoki

from the other discourses and show correspondences among them.Let us take one scene from the

Nihon shoki

as an example.This is a scene in which two gods begin to create the world The following consideration concerning the discourses on this scene is based on part of my earlier study,徳盛誠《清原宣賢『日本書紀抄』試論：『日本書紀纂疏』との連関から》，新川登亀男，早川萬年編，《史料としての『日本書紀』―津田左右吉を読み直す》，東京：勉誠出版，2011年。［Tokumori Makoto,“Kiyohara Nobukata Nihon shoki shō shiron: Nihon shoki sanso tono kanren kara”(An Essay on Kiyohara Nobukata’s : Concerning Its Relationship with ),in ( as a Historical Material: Rereading Tsuda Sōkichi’s Works).Edited by Shinkawa Tokio and Hayakawa Mannen.Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan,2011.:

伊奘諾尊·伊奘冉尊、立於天浮橋之上、共計曰、底下豈無國歟、廼以天之瓊矛、指下而探之。是獲滄溟。……