Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/106

 for their task of history-making was familiarity with Chinese ideographic script and with the literature of the Middle Kingdom. Could anything be more natural, more inevitable, than that they should search the pages of that literature for information about the early ages of their nation's existence; or that they should place implicit reliance upon all the information thus acquired? A child, when it sits down to transcribe the head-lines of its first copy-book, does not think of questioning the logic or morality of the precepts inscribed there. Shotoku and Umako were in the position of children so far as Chinese historical records were concerned. From the annalists of the kingdom at whose civilised feet the whole semi-barbarous world sat, they learned that, prior to the year 700, islands lying in the region of Japan had been known as the habitation of genii and immortals, and with immortals and genii the Prince and the Prime Minister peopled the Japanese Islands.

Sinologues have shown that these primitive Japanese annals contain internal evidence of extensive reliance on Chinese sources. The posthumous names—that is to say, the historical names—given to the forty-two emperors from Jimmu to Mommu (697 ), are all constructed on Chinese models; the name "Jimmu" itself is an exact imitation of the title chosen by the Toba Tartars for their remote ancestor; the war-like lady whose alleged invasion of Korea stands