The OTHER Heavenly Grandson

Welcome to our 24th episode, and our 1 year anniversary!

This episode we get to talk to a much overlooked figure:  Nigi Hayahi no Mikoto--elder brother to Hiko Ho no Ninigi no Mikoto, grandson of Takami Musubi no Mikoto and Amaterasu Omikami, and the first Divine Descendant to come down and rule in Yamato.

So why don't we know more about this figure?  And what does it say that there were apparently two Heavenly Grandsons?  We'll go over this story and try to unwrap a little bit of the mystery, as best we can these many centuries past.

For more go to: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-24

Rough Transcript

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 24:  The OTHER Heavenly Grandson.

Alright, so we are still in the Age of the Gods, or at least that’s what these chapters are called in the Nihon Shoki: that era of myth where the Chroniclers didn’t even try to put some kind of fanciful dates on it, just leaving it in the realm of fanciful legend.  While some of these stories may have a kernel of truth or reflect movements and conflicts between various people, the stories are really so jumbled as to make it extremely difficult to figure out what happened when and even if they are in the correct order—let alone whether or not they are supposed to be linked together in the first place.  Rather, they appear to have been joined through a combination of best guesses by various chroniclers using the known “Truth” of the divine descent of the Royal Family, combined with a healthy dose of Chinese myth to use as its Frog DNA, Jurassic Park-style, to fill in missing pieces or help determine how things should fit.

Recently in this story, we’ve been following the lineage of the Heavenly Grandson, Ninigi no Mikoto, and, let’s face it, Ninigi and his immediate successor are hardly the paragons of virtue one would expect.  They seem to traipse about the land with a confident arrogance that comes with their divine status, and people are falling over themselves to hand over their land, magical jewels, and daughters. In return, they disrespect their wives, and curse their own brothers.  But they are the Heavenly deities, there ain’t no privilege like Heavenly privilege.  Even direct descendants of Izanagi himself, the Mountain and Sea deities, are falling over themselves to give them their daughters as wives and marry into the esteemed lineage.  After all, this was the line of Amaterasu and Takami Musubi, who wouldn’t want a piece of that action?  And of course, Ninigi and his line had been granted the earthly realm by his divine grandparents, so of course it was only natural that people should submit to his authority.  I mean, it isn’t like anyone else had been designated as the Divine Descendant, right?

Right?

Right…. About that.

Well, to  begin with, you might remember that Hiko Hononinigi was not technically the first person chosen for the task of ruling the land.  Initially that job was given to his father, Oshihomimi, but he took one look at the place, declared it a fixer-upper, and decided to nope out, passing the job over to his son.

Except…

This is where the Kojiki, Nihonshoki, and Kujiki all differ on exactly what happens next.  I didn’t go into it back then because this story really is something different.  The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki do get around to telling parts of the story eventually, but its really buried in other sections.  The Kujiki’s version has details that really don’t appear anywhere else.  And let me emphasize this—there are unique items in the Kujiki’s story that none of the other Chronicles have.  We don’t’ know where the information came from, but even detractors admit that they were pulling from ancient records that were equivalent to the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki’s source material. Therefore, perhaps this give us a clue as to some of the things that the Chroniclers may have deliberately left out of the official histories.  Perhaps from records that just weren’t approved, or maybe the scribes thought it would be too confusing—which is saying something, given all the variant stories that the Nihon Shoki does choose to include.

So, as I said, this story doesn’t really unfold in its entirety anywhere else, and it goes something like this: 

As we had talked about previously, Oshihomimi was dragging his feet getting ready, like a kid that doesn’t want to do his chores.  Heck, as he was supposed to be getting ready to go down he decided to take a break to get married and have a child.  And really, can you blame him for not wanting to leave the literal Plain of Heaven?!?  And so, as we’ve seen elsewhere, we are told that Oshiho Mimi took to wife Yorozu Hata Toyo Aki Tsushi Hime, aka Taku Hata Chichi Hime, older sister to Omoikane, making her daughter to Takami Musubi and, in some accounts, Kami Musubi as well. 

Omohikane, you may remember, came up with the plan for getting Amaterasu out of the Rock Cave, and made many helpful—and not so helpful—suggestions for subduing the earthly realm in the first place.

So far, so good—this is going much like the stories in the other Chronicles.  Except that in this version Oshihomimi and Takuhata Chichi Hime had not one, but two sons.  You see, in this story Ninigi was actually the second son, and he had an older brother named  Amaterasu Kuniterasu Hiko, Ame no Hoakaru kushi-tama Nigishi Hayahi—or just Nigi Hayahi, for short.  Man, there really is something in this family for long names.  Next will be his son, Jugemu jugemu… nah, we’ll just stop there—and if you don’t get the reference, look up Katsura Sunshine on YouTube and prepare for some nice Rakugo, or Japanese sit-down comedy.

Anyway, after this long distraction, Oshihomimi recommends that instead of having him going down, they should actually send this eldest son, Nigi Hayahi, who is apparently a full-grown adult at this point, because clearly Takama no Hara operates on a Night Valeian sense of time.  In fact, he wasn’t just full-grown, but he had married his first wife, Ame no Michi Hime, and he had a son of his own, Ama no Kago Yama, whom we will hear more of later. 

Since Nigi Hayahi was not just a descendant of Amaterasu but *also* a descendant of Takami Musubi, then, just like Ninigi, his younger brother, he was also known as the Royal Grandson, aka the Grandson of Heaven, and it was he, not Ninigi, who is originally provided the Royal decree and he is kitted out with the most lavish of gear and entourage, like the reincarnation of a character in a real Monty Haul campaign in D&D.  To start with he was given the 10 Heavenly Precious Symbols and Treasures, which are:  The Mirror of the Ocean, the Mirror of the Shore, the Sword of Great Length, the Jewel of Life, the Jewel of Resurrection, the Jewel of the Foot, the Jewel of Return, the Cloth of the Serpent, and the Cloth of Various Things.  He is also given the 10 words to heal small aches and pains or, you know, bring the dead back to life.  Also known as the Furu Words, they are “Hito Futa Miyo, Itsumu Na Na Ya Koko No To Wo.”  So congratulations, you now know the words to bring back the dead which are coincidentally the same as the old Japanese numbers.  Yup, this is really just the numbers one through 10, perhaps more commonly repeated as “Hitotsu, Futatsu, Mitsu, Yotsu, Itsutsu, Mutsu, Nanatsu, Yatsu, Kokonotsu, To’o”.  That’s supposed to be accompanied by some kind of dancing, but the instructions aren’t exactly clear.  So maybe I just helped ease the pain in your little toe or maybe I just triggered the zombie apocalypse, though given that it is 2020, I guess that would just be par for the course.

Now, I can’t help but notice that these gifts are all slightly different than what Ninigi brought down, and it is much more than just a mirror, sword, and jewels.  In fact, the number 10 appears to be the order of the day—and who knows.  Maybe when they sent down Ninigi no Mikoto, later, they only had three things left to send with him.

“Uhh.. let me take a look in back here… ummm… I’m sure we didn’t give your brother everything. We do have this mirror and jewels that your grandmother liked, and this sword that your great-uncle got from something’s tail—I’m pretty sure all the blood has been cleaned off of that.  Yeah, there you go, kid!  Some heavenly symbols for you.  Now go get’em, tiger!”

So anyway, loaded down with all of his heavenly loot, Nigi Hayahi descended from heaven with his entourage.  And what an entourage it was.  Now, to be fair, the Nihon Shoki does give quite a few different variations of Ninigi’s entourage as he descended, but let’s take a look at who came down in this first wave.

Well, to start with there is a list of 31 (possibly meant to be 32) people who came down to serve Nigi Hayahi, including his son, Kago Yama and various deities we’ve heard of before, such as Ame no Uzume, Ame no Futotama, Ame no Koyane, and even Sukuna Bikona, who had apparently come back from the Eternal Land for this, or something.  In reality, it is basically a huge listing of over 30 ancestral deities for different families, providing them some tenuous link to the royal lineage, much as we find in the other chronicles.

Then on top of the 30-plus escorts, there are five royal vassals—the “Tomo no Hito”, who were all ancestors of various be:  kinship groups made up of worker communities dedicated to some kind of goal or production.  In this case it is ancestors of two branches of the Mononobe—whom, interestingly, Nigi Hayahi is said to be ultimate ancestor of—as well as the Kasanuibe, the Inabe, and the Tochibe.

There are then five escorts, who appear to have possibly been designated as servants to the king, and possibly mortals, not celestial deities.

Then there are 25 men of the “Ame no Mononobe”—the Heavenly Mononobe family—who came armed with weapons.  This is not surprising as the Mononobe were the family group in the court generally charged with defense and military matters.

Finally, are all the crew for the Heavenly Rock Boat, by which they would descend.

Some of these same individuals would later follow Ninigi down—implying, I guess, that they had gone back up.  Clearly, as I’ve said, this is drawn from various records that used the ancestral kami as a means to demonstrate various families’ closeness to the royal lineage, and so if they aren’t in the one story they must be in the other.

So, with a cast of thousands—or at least approaching one hundred—Nigi Hayahi finally made his way down. Taking the Heavenly Rock Boat he landed with his retinue at the Ikaruga Peak in Kawachi Province, on the west side of the Nara Basin, just east of modern day Osaka.  And really, doesn’t this just make sense?  No side trip to Kyushu on this one.  From there he moved to Mt. Shiraniwa in Yamato, where he met and married his second wife Mikashikiya Hime.  It seems that Ame no Michi Hime decided to follow the example of her father-in-law, Oshihomimi, and stayed up in Takama no Hara.

Now it turns out that Mikashikya Hime wasn’t just some random woman that Nigi Hayahi picked up along the side of the road.  She was actually the sister to a local chieftain, later identified as Nagasune Hiko of Tomi.  One could even make the argument that she may have been a chieftain herself—perhaps part of a brother and sister pair, like how Himiko’s brother supported her government. 

We don’t get much of their life from there, but we do know that after some time Nigi Hayahi and Mikashikiya Hime had a child, but before the child was born, Nigi Hayahi passed away, and so he did not make it back to Takama no Hara. 

Man, if only there was someone with the 10 words that could bring back the dead, you know?

So, after a while of not hearing anything, Takami Musubi was getting worried.  Nigi Hayahi hadn’t reported back in some time and he sent Hayakaze, or Swift Wind—no relation to She-Ra’s equine companion, I’m pretty sure, though I do kind of like that imagery—Anyway, Swift Wind was sent down to check on things and order Nigi Hayahi to return and make a report.  Unfortunately, Swift Wind found that Nigi Hayahi had passed away, or, as these Chronicles like to say, “concealed himself”. 

Well, Takami Musubi was overcome with grief, and ordered his grandson brought back up to Takama no Hara where he was mourned for 7 days and 7 nights with copious amounts of weeping and wailing. 

But Remember, Nigi Hayahi was a Divine Descendant, so he wasn’t about to let something like death stop him, and sure enough he came back to earth in the dreams of his wife, Mikashikiya Hime, and he told her to give the Heavenly symbols to their child, who was named Umashimaji.  These heavenly symbols were not, as one might expect, the same items as what Nigi Hayahi came down with, but instead he told her to give him the feathered bow and arrows and then three other items:   The robe, the belt, and the bracelet.

Finally, he asked to be buried in the village of Shiraniwa in Tomi—her brother-in-law’s territory.

With Nigi Hayahi’s death, we are told that Nagasune Hiko helped his nephew, Umashimaji, take the throne, and he was thus ruling in that area, which we know of today as Yamato.

So let’s take a brief moment to pause here and examine this.  What exactly is going on?  Is this really found only in the Kujiki?  Why?

Well, this isn’t only found in the Kujiki, exactly—the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki do mention Nigi Hayahi, but only in relationship to the conquest of Yamato by Ninigi’s own offspring, Ihare Hiko.  Now, a bit of a spoiler alert, but pretty soon we’ll start to talk about this Prince Ihare, also known today as Jimmu Tenno, who is credited as the first Japanese sovereign in the line running down to the modern Imperial Household.  When he decided to come east he found that the central land, Yamato, was already populated, and that they claimed to have their own heavenly regalia.  Leading to a mass of confusion and subsequent beat-downs.

Now, Nigi Hayahi does make a brief appearance in the Kojiki, showing up after Ihare-Hiko kills off his main opposition, Nagasune-Hiko—the one and the same as the late Nigi Hayahi’s brother-in-law, though in the Kojiki timeline, the marriage between Nigi Hayahi and Mikashikiya Hime doesn’t happen until after Nagasune’s death.  Nigi Hayahi comes down to bestow several heavenly gifts upon Ihare, and then proceeds to take Nagasune’s sister as his wife and give birth to the ancestor of the Mononobe, Umashimaji.

In the Nihon Shoki, the story is likewise referenced in Ihare’s conquest, and Nagasune’s resistance to the Heavenly Child is justified through his loyalty to Nigi Hayahi, who had come down to Yamato in the Heavenly Rock Boat and married his sister.  He even shows Ihare evidence that his brother-in-law was, in fact, designated as the Heavenly Grandson in the form of Heavenly feathered arrows, possibly those that Nigi Hayahi had his wife give to their son.  However, surprise, surprise Ihare then demonstrates his own Heavenly lineage in a similar fashion.  Theoretically, this should have been enough to have Nagasune capitulate, but he had already set his resistance in motion.  In the end, Nigi Hayahi comes down and kills his brother-in-law and submits to Ihare as the rightful sovereign.

So what’s going on here?  Are there really two Heavenly Grandchildren?  This certainly isn’t something that you hear too much of outside of this story.  John Bentley suggests that Nigi Hayahi actually does represent an earlier deity—possibly even an earlier royal lineage in the Yamato area.  If he really is the father of Umashimaji, the ancestor of the Mononobe Clan, this may be another one of those stories that is perhaps a little problematic for the royal dynasty, but could not be kept out without pissing off some of the more powerful members of the court.  Remember, the Mononobe were connected to the military, and there are few ways to tank your reign faster than alienating your own army.

Furthermore, there is a good case that the Kujiki—or at least the form that we have of it in the Sendai Kuji Hongi—was prepared specifically for the Mononobe family, or at least based heavily on their records.  The Mononobe family appear to have been powerful ritualists at court, as well as largely responsible, as I just mentioned, for military affairs, at least early on.  Their clan shrine, Isonokami, was said to be quite important back in the day, as we’ll see in the stories.  By the time that the Chronicles were being written down, of course, they were still powerful, but perhaps not quite as powerful as they had once been.  We’ll talk about this more in future episodes, I’m sure.

Now, the specific details are interesting in that despite numerous similarities between the descent of Ninigi and the descent of Nigi Hayahi, there are still quite a few differences—this is not just a matter of changing the names to protect the guilty.  For one thing, there is no haggling with Ise, and Nigi Hayahi comes straight down to the Yamato area to settle.  There are no stories of conquest, and the whole thing is a bit anti-climatic.  Nigi Hayahi seems to make his way with marriage politics, marrying into the local elite structure, rather than just expecting everyone to hand over the land.  Also in the first telling of the story, the Kujiki makes an abrupt turn in the narrative here, returning back to the story of Amaterasu attempting to send Oshihomimi back down once again.  You could almost remove this entire section and the story would seem to be little different from what we find in the Nihon Shoki and Kojiki, although, later in the Kujiki they devote an entire book to the stories of Nigi Hayahi’s descendants following both the line of his earthly wife as well as a second, earlier line from a wife in Heaven, where he apparently had time to marry and sire a child before leaving.  Why he didn’t take his wife with him, who can say?  Of course, later both Ame no Kagoyama and his mother would join Ame no Uzume and others following Niningi no Mikoto on his way down.

Bentley suggests that Nigi Hayahi, the older of the two Heavenly Grandchildren, is specifically invested with the shamanistic and spiritual authority.  He is given the 10 items, as well as the 10 words, and he sets down directly in the Nara Basin with no conflict, even though he brings an entourage capable of defending him if necessary.  Meanwhile, as we’ll see later, Ninigi descends to Kyushu, and there he and his descendants live until *his* grandchild, Ihare Hiko, makes his way up to Yamato, subduing anyone who opposes his rule, demonstrating his military power.  Eventually he comes and takes the land of Yamato, which Nigi Hayahi’s son ends up giving him by taking out his own uncle, Nagasune Hiko.

And there in lies the crux of the matter, Bentley suggests.  You see, much of this mirrors the story of Sovereign Naka no Ohoe, aka Tenji, his son Ohotomo, known as Koubun, and Naka no Ohoe’s bother, Ohoama—also known as Temmu, whose dynasty was putting all of this together.  As we’ve touched on before, Ohoama came to the throne through a civil war that overthrew his nephew.  This was called the Jinshin War, or Jinshin no Ran, named for the zodiac sign of the year in which it occurred: 672. 

Similarly, the lineage of Nigi Hayahi ceding power to the line of Ninigi may have provided some precedent, perhaps helping to legitimize Ohoama’s claims to the throne.  That doesn’t entirely explain why it shows up in the Kujiki but is glossed over in the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, though,

But more on that in future episodes.  For now, let’s examine a few other elements found in this story.

To begin with, let’s look at the geographic locations. Whereas the locations of the Ninigi myth are almost entirely found in southern Kyushu, with the exception of Saruta Hiko in Ise no Kuni, the entire area where Nigi Hayahi’s story is taking place in is in the Yamato region—no archipelago-spanning theatrics required to get from one place to another.  While it is certainly possible that the various features mentioned were actually so-named after the places in the story, it is still clear that the idea in the 8th and 9th centuries was that this story had taken place there, and that Nigi Hayahi had come directly to the Yamato region.

First off he arrives at the peak of Ikaruga in Kawachi province—Kawachi being known as a long-time homeland and stronghold of the Mononobe clan, who claim descent from Nigi Hayahi, though there are actually quite a few uji that were associated with that area and with Nigi Hayahi, as well.  Certainly the town of Ikaruga has some claim to antiquity, as it is home to, among other things, the Buddhist temple of Horyuji, which was founded in 607, and whose Kondou, or main hall, is famous as the world’s oldest wooden building.  And of course, there are numerous kofun in the area.

Following the northern hills—or low mountains, depending on your definition—for a little more than 10 kilometers to the north—a good 3 hour walk or so—you reach the next location mentioned, which is Mt. Shiraniwa, in modern Ikoma city.

The area of Tomi is also a bit of a question.  The traditional burial place of Nigi Hayahi seems to be in the same Shiraniwa region, with a grave traditionally attributed to him on the top of the mountain at the end of that range.  This is all situated in the northwest of the Nara basin, which would make sense.  However, there are several areas called Tomi, Torimi, or Tobi all throughout the ancient area of Yamato, from the town of Torimi, a little south of the Shiraniwa area, to Mt. Tomi in Sakurai, just south of Mt. Miwa.  These all use the same kanji as used in the Nihon Shoki.  It is possible that Tomi refers to the entire area that we think of as the Nara basin and the early heart of Yamato.  However, I should also point out that some scholars suggest that Tomi may have been a derivation from a Korean placename, and as such may have been used after the fact in the Yamato basin.

Regardless of exactly where they were, to the people of the 8th century these would seem to have been familiar places to them, providing a clear indication that Nigi Hayahi descended to the Yamato region and his son, Umashimaji, was ruling there.  Of course, all of this is apparently fiction and does not clearly accord with what we know from the Chinese accounts nor the archaeology, except perhaps in broad strokes.  Without anything concrete to anchor the story to, we have to assume that this entire thing is fiction, but still intriguing for what it tells us about the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries.

Of course, as myths, we still wonder what their origin might be.  Going back to the idea of the mountain peak, we already discussed, with Ninigi’s descent, that the idea of descending to a mountain peak was hardly original to the Japanese stories, and similar origin myths are recorded on the Korean peninsula, and in Southeast Asia.  In fact, though it doesn’t seem to have been written down until its appearance in the Samguk Yusa in the 13th century, the story of legendary Dangun of Korean mytho-history has a few hauntingly similar themes.  For example, his grandfather was called the “Lord of Heaven” and his father descended to Baekdu Mountain, formerly known as Mt. Taebaek, with his various ministers.  He was also given three heavenly symbols to take with him.  He himself was styled the “Heavenly Grandson”—sound familiar? 

By the way, this mountain, also called Chang Bai Shan in Mandarin, sits on the modern border between China and North Korea, and features prominently in North Korean propaganda about their own ruling dynasty, as the second Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il, was “officially” born on the same mountain, which demonstrates how even today the symbolism of such things continues to permeate and affect even modern culture.

There is another myth in the Samguk Yusa, less directly related, having to do with Mt. Kuji, and referred to in the myths of Kara, or Gaya.  The Gaya confederacy formed in the area where archaeological evidence shows some of the strongest connections with the archipelago, forming out of the Pyonhan area and lasting until the 6th century, and its leading state appears to have been located at the mouth of the Nakdong river, near modern Busan, which appears to have been the jumping off point for the archipelago during Himiko’s time.  In this story, there was a golden case with a red coverlid that descended to the mountain, with six golden eggs, which turned into six boys.  The eldest, Suro, was invested as the first king of Gaya.  While not exactly the same, we still see in this story the descent of the eventual ruler down to a mountain, this time with five others—which puts me in mind of how Ninigi descended with the ancestors of the five great houses. Also, the case containing the eggs had a red coverlid, possibly similar to the way that Ninigi came down shrouded in a royal coverlet.  Possibly a coincidence, but who knows.

Of course, it probably shouldn’t be too surprising that there would be similarities, given the number of people that immigrated from the peninsula to the Japanese archipelago, particularly in the 5th and 6th centuries, which may have been when many of the myths took the general form in which we know them, today.

It is possible that various lineages throughout the archipelago had similar origin stories—perhaps adapting the same story over and over again for different lineages.  Obayashi Taryo, a Japanese ethnologist, who wrote extensively on matters of myth, legend, and story across Japan and East Asia, suggests something of an Ur-myth, wherein the hero descends from heaven, often to a mountain peak, with symbols of a hunter—bow and arrows—and some heavenly authority.  They have a child, and then they pass away, often returning back to Heaven in the process, and their descendants are then the actual earthly progenitors of some lineage or dynasty. Now Just insert the kami of your choice, here.  We do know that descent from a Heavenly kami was hardly unique to the royal family, as we are constantly being introduced to various ancestral deities.

Russell Kirkland has even suggested that the royal lineage of Yamato may have, shall we say, borrowed, the structure  of their own story from the Mononobe, adding in other elements important to them, but perhaps also explaining why Nigi Hayahi wasn’t completely written out of the story altogether.

Besides this idea of some divine ancestor arriving on a mountain top, there is also the issue of regalia. We’ve noted the prevalence of regalia items previously as well, and it strikes me that it may have been common custom across different lands, such that the rulers of any given area would be expected to have one or more sacred objects that somehow were seen as legitimizing their reign.  We’ve talked about it before, but here we have a very clear example of items given to legitimize Nigi Hayahi’s reign, and they are not the same as those given to Ninigi no Mikoto.  And then the items that Nigi Hayahi asks to pass on to his own son are again different, possibly indicating that section came from a different story.  The items that Umashimaji receives includes a bow and heavenly feathered arrow, which puts me in mind of the items that were given to Ame no Wakahiko when he was told to come down and subdue the land.  That story also shares a similarity in how Ame no Wakahiko’s body is eventually carried back up to Heaven on the Swift or Divine Wind, as was Nigi Hayahi’s.

Of course, we know that mirrors, swords, and jewels all appear as grave goods from the Yayoi period on, which would appear to indicate some level of prestige associated with them, and it would be easy to understand that certain items might be used as an indicator of status, eventually transitioning into objects of legitimization for ruling elite, and becoming ritual objects of the state.  It strikes me that this may not have only referred to items that conveyed royal authority, but it may also have applied to items of chiefly regalia as well.  Of course, “chief” and “king” were probably not all that different, early on, except, perhaps, in the scope of their territory.

A few other things in this story, some of which I glossed over, but that continue to point to, well, something going on.  First is his name.  I mean, obviously we can see the similarities been Nigi and Ninigi, one would think. But more than that, one of the names or titles that he is given is basically Ho no Akari, which was also the name given to one of Hiko Hohodemi’s brothers—at least in some of the stories.  Ho no Akari is basically “the Brightness of the Fire” and matches with other Fire/Sun themed names that we’ve seen.

Also, there is the timing of everything.  Of course, Nigi Hayahi supposedly descends before his younger brother, Ninigi, but then there are three generations, at least, before someone decides to leave Kyushu.  And yet, theoretically over in the Yamato basin they are still only one generation from Nigi Hayahi: Umashimaji.  And of course Nagasune Hiko is there through it all.  Clearly there are some temporal shenanigans going on here, even accounting for the Methsulean lifespans of the characters in these stories—just more evidence of why none of this is considered “history” or even “protohistory” but perhaps more appropriately as “mythohistory”—and even that may be giving it too much credit.

This all seems to point to the idea that many of the concepts weren’t fully set in stone by the court until much later.  Indeed, we can see, for instance, that inheritance was not necessarily through the oldest son, and there is evidence that it need not even be within the immediate family.  There are many scholars who propose that the royal lineage of Yamato is anything but a single unbroken line, but rulership may have rotated amongst a handful of important lineages.  To me, this would fit in with the idea of Himiko being chosen to rule, and not necessarily ruler simply through her immediate parents.  Likewise after Himiko there appears to be another, male ruler, with whom people are not pleased, and only after him is a relative of Himiko then put on the throne.  Many scholars assume that the early rulership of Yamato was actually something that was passed back and forth between several chiefly lineages, and the entire idea of a single, unbroken lineage is a fabrication of the 6th century and later.

So where is all of this coming from?  I mean, we have some references in the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, but here I’m much more explicitly pulling from the Kujiki.  Or, more accurately, the Sendai Kuji Hongi, as translated by John Bentley.  So what is this source and why do we care?

I honestly can’t remember if I mentioned much about the Kujiki, before, and if I did it was more than a few episodes ago.  Anyway, I would suspect that most people, even if they were familiar with the Nihon Shoki, the Kojiki, and even the Fudoki, may never have heard of the Kujiki at all, or they may have believed that it once existed, but was now completely lost.  So what is it, then?

Well, according to the Kujiki itself, it was actually written before either the Nihon Shoki or the Kojiki—there is actually some claim that it was originally authored by the legendary Prince Shotoku Taishi himself in the 7th century.  In fact, for ages it was lauded as such and thought to be the oldest extant history in Japan—the text rescued from the fires of the burning Soga mansion, and thus equal, if not superior, to the Nihon Shoki or Kojiki.  It certainly seems to have a more complete history, for those things it covers, than either of the other two Chronicles.  But if that is the case, why have so few heard of it?  Why is it that the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki get all the press?

Well for that you can thank the Edo period scholars—in particular Imai Arinobu, who was in the employ of Tokugawa Mitsukuni.  Mitsukuni was cousin to the Shogun and a member of the Mito Tokugawa, one of the three cadet households of the Shogunal family, called upon to provide heirs if the main shogunal line happened to run dry.  Mitsukuni may only have been a shogunal cousin, but he did become the daimyo of the Mito domain, and through his resources he gathered scholars in 1657 and commissioned the Dai Nihonshi, or Great History of Japan.  This effort would create a whole school of Japanese historical and religious studies known as Mitogaku, and, well, we could spend several episodes talking about its influence.  Suffice it to say he and his scholars held up pro-Imperial views of the nation that would eventually exert significant influence on the Sonno Joi movement, which spurred many to action in the Bakumatsu period, culminating in the end of the shogunal government and rise of the Meiji Period.

Oh, and if any jidaigeki fans out there feel they recognize Mitsukuni’s name, that may be because he is the protagonist in the popular series, “Mito Komon”, which ran from 1969 right up until 2011, presenting a fictionalized account of Mitsukuni traveling incognito around the country, bringing justice to the downtrodden.

Circling back to the Kujiki, however, it was Mitsukuni—the real Mitsukuni—and Arinobu who declared that the Kujiki was inauthentic—an imitation, at best, and possibly an outright forgery.  Since then, numerous scholars have agreed with their findings.  Rather than an authentic, 7th century history, it was argued that it must have been created during the Heian period at the earliest, copying and rearranging the previous texts.  Indeed, many of its stories share copious details with both the Nihon Shoki and the Kojiki, as well as another document, the Kogo Shui, developed largely to justify the grievances of the Imbe who felt their power and influence as ritualists was waning.  In many cases these aren’t merely similarities, but passages that can be correlated one-for-one in either document, with only the most minor and insignificant of changes.

However, there are some passages that are not found in any of its supposed predecessors, and while some may assume these are entirely fraudulent, others, such as the later Edo period scholar, Motoori Norinaga, believed that they should be accepted as segments lifted from ancient texts that are no longer extant.  William George Aston appears to have approached the text somewhat cautiously during his own translation of the Nihon Shoki, and references it occasionally, but not in great depth.

Recently, however, John Bentley has not only provided a translation of this work, but has made his own investigations into its authenticity, and by his account it does appear to be an 8th century work, possibly from an unpublished manuscript, that draws heavily on many of the same sources as the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki, but includes passages from other sources as well and arranges everything in a much more novel way.

Comparing the different chronicles, you can see how they differ from one another.  If you look at the organization of the Kojiki, it is more or less a single narrative, as one would expect from someone copying down a single oral account, but it is also generally considered the least accurate. Meanwhile the Nihon Shoki’s main narrative is considered the most orthodox, but various myths are rife with contradictions from variant stories, which may have been added in after the fact.  It is organized into the two chapters of the Age of the Gods, followed by individual chapters for each of the sovereigns, until the reign of Temmu, all in a conveniently timestamped manner, with dates—fictitious or otherwise—for all of the chapters of the supposedly historic period, starting at the ludicrous date of 667 BCE.  The Sendai Kuji Hongi, on the other hand appears to be somewhere in between both of these, at least to me, and is the least straightforward in terms of its chronology.  It is actually composed of 10 books, and while each book retains some notion of internal consistency, much of the material is covered in multiple books.  So, for example, the information on Nigi Hayahi is present in the following books:

•              Book Three: The Original Record of the Heavenly Deity, which gives a description of his descent and all of the associated throng of people who accompanied him, as well as all the loot he brought down with him.

•              Book Five: The Original Record of the Heavenly Grandson, which briefly covers Nigi Hayahi’s descent, but then goes into much greater detail on his two sons, and their lineages, down to the Ohari and Mononobe uji

•              Book Six: The Original Record of the Royal Grandson, which focuses largely on Ninigi and his progeny up until Ihare Hiko’s ascension to the throne—spoiler alert—in Yamato.  Here, Nigi Hayahi is mentioned more in line with accounts in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki as background material on Umashimaji and his uncle, Nagasune Hiko.

Book Five, following the descendants of both sons of Nigi Hayahi covers the entirety of history effectively twice.  Once from the older brother, Ame no Kago Yama through to the 7th century descendants in the Ohari family—though generally only following a single line, fortunately—and once from Umashimaji all the way down to the 7th century Mononobe descendants.  And then Book Six takes you back to the Age of the Gods and the descent of Ninigi and we run through it all over again.

This type of narration does tend to lead to some inconsistencies, possibly due to the fact that they were lifting the material from different source records.  Sometimes names are different from one section to another, and other times there are questions about the timeline, such as between the four generations of Ninigi, Hiko Hohodemi, Ugaya Fukiaezu, and Ihare Hiko versus the two generations of Nigi Hayahi and Umashimaji.  Of course, the source material seems to handwave this away given that we are in the transition period from the age of the gods, when people are still said to live for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  Nonetheless, it is a quite noticeable discrepancy.

One thing that does shine through pretty clearly is that connection to the Owari and Mononobe uji.  The Mononobe family comes through quite clearly, in fact, if you really think about how many of the individuals in the story are connected to the Mononobe.

As we go through the rest of the Chronicles, I encourage you to look there for more on the Mononobe and their story.  I suspect that they were a powerful part of the early Yamato court, and not simply those who handled weapons and served as warriors.  Just like any powerful court family, they were ritualists, and may even have been one of the ruling families.  Later, their influence waned, but it was not gone, and there are those who believe that this particular work was mean, in part, as pro-Mononobe propoganda, while still glorifying Temmu’s line and paying lip service to the official histories.

Anyway, that’s some background, and hopefully you learned something new.  Next time someone asks you about the descent of the Heavenly Grandson—you know, that popular conversation topic at any family gathering, usually brought up just after someone mentions politics or religion—well, now when someone asks that question, you can cheerfully ask:  “Which one?”  And hopefully avoid your drunk auntie’s latest tirade about the kids these days.

Next episode we’ll get back on track with the Orthodox mytho-historical account as we follow Ihare Hiko as he marches eastward out of Kyushu and takes his place in Yamato.

Until then, thank you for all of your support.  If you like what we are doing, tell your friends and feel free to rate us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more we have information about how you can donate through our KoFi site over at our main website, SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode.  Questions or comments?  Feel free to Tweet at us at @SengokuPodcast, or reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.

That’s all for now.  Thank you again, and I’ll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan.