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Discource About Jindai Moji (The Script of the Divine Age) in Tokugawa Japan

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1 Discource about jindai moji (the script of the divine age) in Tokugawa Japan Why did the discours about jindai moji appear during the Tokugawa period? Elizaveta Zyrenkova JAP4691 – Master's Thesis in Modern Japan/60 credits/Spring 2019/ Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages (IKOS) UNIVERSITETET I OSLO 20.05.2019 2 3 Discource about jindai moji (the script of the divine age) in Tokugawa Japan 1. Why did the discours about jindai moji appear during the Tokugawa period? 2. What are the main pre-Meiji works that claim that jindai moji existed? What exactly do they say about jindai moji? 3. Do they present jindai moji alphabets? If so, what kind of alphabets are those? 4. What did the creators of jindai moji discourses or alphabets want to say? What did they want the jindai moji they “found” to prove? Supervisor: Marcus Jacobus Teeuwen 4 © Elizaveta Zyrenkova 2019 Discource about jindai moji (the script of the divine age) in Tokugawa Japan Elizaveta Zyrenkova http://www.duo.uio.no/ Trykk: Reprosentralen, Universitetet i Oslo 5 6 Summary It is a well known fact that the contemprorary Japanese is written with hiragana, katakana and the Chinese characters. There is a theory that claims that an ancient alphabet existed in Japan before any of the aforementioned writing systems. This alphabet is often refered to as kamiyō moji or jindai moji. This theory has emerged during the 14th century in Japan but it recieved most attention during the Tokugawa period. This master thesis focuses on works on jindai moji that were written during the Tokugawa period. I seek to answer auestions such as: What is jindai moji? What did Tokugawa scholars have to say about it? How do different alphabets that claim to be the jindai moji compare to each other? But most importantly: Why did jindai moji recieve so much attention exactly during the Tokugawa period? This master thesis presents five works on jindai moji that were written during the Tokugawa period (one of which is written by the famous Kokugaku scholar Hirata Atsutane), two works on jindai moji that were written during the 14th century and one work on jindai moji that was written during the early Meiji period. These works vary greatly and my main point is that different authors had a very different approach to the jindai moji. Some only used jindai moji it as a supporting argument for some kind of theory, while others were more interested in comparing different alphabets that claim to be the jindai moji. Also at the beguinning of the Tokugawa period the discuassion around jindai moji was connected to the idea of the sankyō itchi (unity of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto) while as we approach the end of the Tokugawa period the discource around jindai moji becomes more nativist. One of the works on jindai moji that was written during the Tokugawa period (Iroha Monben) has never been translated to English language before. This master thesis includes my full translation of it (Chapter 4). Also I discuss a book called «Alphabets from the heavenly kingdom» (Chapter 8) that features 19 different examples of the alleged jindai moji. I found this book at the Akiruno city document archive. Accoarding to the archive I am the first customer ever to take an interest in this book. This might be the first time this book has been used in a reseach dedicated to jindai moji. 7 8 Foreword/ Acknowledgments The topic of jindai moji does not receive much attention in the media. It is also difficult to find any articles or books dedicated to this topic. When I first got introduced to this topic by my supervisor Mark Teeuwen I could not believe that despite the fact that I have been studying the Japanese language for eleven years, I have never heard about jindai moji. Several studies have been made on the nativism during the Tokugawa period as well as on the koshi-koden. However I could not find any studies that specifically focused on the discourse around jindai moji that emerged during the Tokugawa Japan. Therefore I decided to take a look on the jindai moji during the Tokugawa period specifically. I could not express my gratitude toward my supervisor enough, as he was the one who introduced me to many of my sources, as well as he was the one who suggested that I take a trip to Japan to find more about the topic. I would also very much like to thank Linda Aas who helped me greatly with correcting my grammatical and spelling mistakes in this master thesis. English is not my first language, therefore it was absolutely crucial. I would also like to thank my friends, family and my former Japanese teachers who supported me in my decision to take a master degree in Japanese language and later supported me during the time when I was working of this master thesis. Especially I would like to thank my grandfather Vladimir Ageev who has always believed in me. 9 10 Table of contents Introduction chapter: What is jindai moji? Why did the discource about jindai moji appear during the Tokugawa period? .................... 11 Chapter 2: Jindai moji before the Tokugawa period ........................... 21 Chapter 3: Description of Tokugawa Japan. Taiseikyō........................ 25 Chapter 4: Iroha Monben .................................................................... 34 Summary of the first four chapters ..................................................... 46 Chapter 5: Hotsuma Tsutae. New interpretations og the divine age narratives in the ancient texts ......................................................... … 48 Chapter 6: Hirata Atsutane and Kanna hifumi den ............................. 57 Chapter 7: My trip to Akiruno. Akiru moji ........................................... 63 Chapter 8: Alphabet from heavenly kingdom. Toshizawa Uzen…….…70 Summary of chapters 5-8 .................................................................... 76 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 78 11 Introduction chapter: What is jindai moji? Why did the discours about jindai moji appear during the Tokugawa period? This master thesis is about jindai moji. “Jindai moji” can mean several different things. The word “jindai” refers to “The Age of the Gods” chapters in Kojiki and Nihon shoki, (before Emperor Jinmu). “Moji” is a common Japanese word for letters. Therefore jindai moji can roughly be translated as «letters of divine age». At the same time it seems that the exact meaning of the word “jindai moji” was not specified during the Edo period when most works on jindai moji were written. Therefore I would like to start with listing all the meanings that the term jindai moji can have. The accession of Emperor Jinmu is traditionally dated as 660 BC therefore “jindai moji” can mean “ancient letters created in Japan before 660 B.C.” Currently the Japanese language is written with Chinese characters, combined with two authentically Japanese syllabary systems (hiragana and katakana), Latin letters and Arabic numerals. According to those who claim that jindai moji has existed in Japan before 660 B.C. jindai moji are letters that apparently existed in Japan before any of the aforementioned writing systems and they are currently not in use. It is unclear if the jindai moji alphabet included letters only, or if it included both letters and numerals. Those who study jindai moji, it seems, rarely focus on that particular aspect of jindai moji. As a Japanese language lover myself, I soon found myself interested in this theory – that Japan has a long forgotten ancient alphabet but that is no longer in use. However as I started to research this topic I soon started to realise that the existence of such an alphabet is unlikely. So why continue researching this topic? Even if such an alphabet has never existed there are still several different reasons to research this topic. Among those reasons is the fact that there are reasons why certain people during certain times have claimed that jindai moji letters exist. It could be interesting to find out what those reasons could be. Another reason to research the topic is the fact the jindai moji alphabets actually do exist. But most likely those alphabets are far less ancient that they claim to be. Who made those alphabets and why is another interesting topic for research. Finally as someone generally interested in languages I could not resist taking a closer look at the alphabets themselves. The alphabets that claim to be jindai moji do come in all shapes and forms. There are at least twenty of them and I was lucky enough to find a book where the majority of those alphabets are listed with some information about places where those alphabets were originally found. Earlier I have said that jindai moji can mean several different things. First of all, the word “jindai moji” stands for alleged ancient Japanese letters. But “jindai moji”, it seems, can also 12 mean the “ancient Japanese language” itself. Some of those who wrote books on jindai moji (such as for example “Taiseikyō” published in Edo in 1679, “Iroha Monben” published in Kyoto in 1763, “Hotsuma Tsutae”, distributed in 1760s etc.) seem to use the term jindai moji both when referring to ancient Japanese letters and when referring to a language that was used in Japan at the time when jindai moji letters apparently were in use. It is worth noticing that many scholars seem to use the term jindai moji as an umbrella term for all the alphabets that claim to be jindai moji. So far I have not seen any scholar discuss which of those alphabets could be “the real one”. It is of course important to remember that there is no actual “real one” as it is unlikely that an ancient alphabet called jindai moji has ever existed. Jindai moji is also an idea of important political value. Quite a few of those who have written books on the subject of jindai moji (for example “Shaku Nihongi” published in 1301, “Nihon shoki jindai kuketsu” published in 1367, “Taiseikyō”) have never actually showed the alphabets to their readers or even discussed such alphabets from a language perspective.
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