Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/104

 had he not simultaneously made this great linguistic acquisition.

But, as stated above, the Japanese had long been admiring and marvelling at the ideographic script, and had long been studying it solely for the sake of the literature to which it gave access, before they succeeded in using it to transcribe their own language. That they seem to have done during the sixth century, for towards its close they began to compile the first records of their country's history,—began to reduce to writing such tales as had been handed down by tradition during the preceding twelve hundred years. A celebrated litterateur, statesman, and religionist, Prince Shotoku, and an equally celebrated Prime Minister and patron of Buddhism, Soga no Umako, essayed this maiden historiographical task. Their work did not survive, but there is no doubt that much of its contents found a place in the Kojiki and Nihongi of the eighth century, the oldest Japanese annals now extant.

Here an interesting question suggests itself. According to the most conservative estimate, China had possessed a written history for at least nine hundred years before the first Japanese envoys reached her shores. Does her history show that she knew, or thought she knew, anything about the Japanese before they introduced themselves to her notice by means of ambassadors? Of course it is quite plain that the two nations