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Rh the basis of the Shinto religion, and acquiring more and more of a historical character as it proceeds, until it comes to a close in A.D. 628.

The Kojiki, however valuable it may be for research into the mythology, the manners, the language, and the legends of early Japan, is a very poor production, whether we consider it as literature or as a record of facts. As history it cannot compare with the Nihongi, a contemporary work in Chinese; while the language is a strange mixture of Chinese and Japanese, which there has been little attempt to endue with artistic quality. The circumstances under which it was composed are a partial explanation of the very curious style in which it is written. We are told that a man named Yasumaro, learned in Chinese, took it down from the lips of a certain Hiyeda no Are, who had such a wonderful memory that he "could repeat with his mouth whatever was placed before his eyes, and record in his heart whatever struck his ears." Yasumaro's task was not an easy one. He himself in his preface describes his embarrassment. The phonetic syllabaries, known as the Katagana and Hirakana, which correspond to our alphabet, had not then been invented. The only choice open to him was to use the Chinese ideographic symbols, giving them their proper meaning and construction—in other words, to write pure Chinese—or to make each Chinese character represent merely the sound associated with it regardless of its meaning. The result of this latter course would be a Japanese text.

By the former method it was impossible to write down Japanese poetry, proper names, and a quantity of phrases and expressions for which there existed no adequate Chinese equivalent; while if a separate Chinese character