Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/171

 from one of the parallel passages in the Nihongi, where the Chinese characters kiochiu (emptiness) occur instead of Takama no hara ni. But this would scarcely be sufficient to prove that the ancient Japanese possessed the highly abstract idea of ‘space,’ and it is more natural to suppose that they meant the blue sky which they saw over their heads. Hirata has a fanciful theory about Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi and the other two gods inhabiting the Pole star, which is not usually accepted by other Shintôists. In the Koshi-Den, on the authority of a parallel passage in the Nihongi, he substitutes the word “existed” (mashiki) for “originated” (narimaseru), and draws thence the inference that these gods never had a beginning, but the passage from which the word masu is taken refers not to Ame-no-mi-naka-nushi and the other two gods, but to Umashi-ashi-kabi-hikoji and deities of later origin. The difficulty of supposing that Ame could ever have meant the sun, lies in the fact that it certainly signifies the sky or heaven, in which sense it is employed in forming the name of the primeval god, as Hirata himself states. Hirata says that the upper part of heaven is the pole-star, which must therefore have been the location of the three gods. Heaven is limited on the outside, as is proved by the statement that Susanowo no mikoto made the circuit of its boundary. Kami, translated by ‘god,’ is the same as kabi, compounded of the demonstrative root ka and bi or hi, a word applied to whatever is miraculous and supernatural, which is seen in musubi, termination of the names of the creator and creatrix. In the Tamano Mi-hashira he derives kami from kabimoye, ‘sprouting growing,’ but later he became convinced that this etymology was erroneous. Kamurogi and Kamuromi, which are titles of the creator and creatrix, are derived from the continuative form of the root Kami, ro a particle, and gi and mi which are used in forming the names of male and female deities. Motoöri has suggested that gi is a contraction of wo-gimi, male