Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/172

 prince, and mi of me-gimi, female prince, but nothing can be safely asserted on this point. With respect to the statement that these three gods ‘concealed their bodies,’ Motoöri’s suggestion that it signifies their incorporeality is not to 0 be admitted, for Taka-mi-Musubi no kami is represented as saying that Sukunabikona no kami “passed between his fingers,” and if he had a hand, he must have had a body, so that the tradition must be accepted in all its literal meaning.

Diagram 2 in both works represents space bounded by a circle, with three blacks spots as in diagram 1, and underneath them a smaller circle inscribed ‘ichi-motsu,’ or Thing. Hatori supports this by the following quotations from the Nihongi; “In the beginning of heaven and earth, there was a Thing in the great sky, whose shape cannot be described.” “Before heaven and earth had originated a thing originated in the midst, like as it were a floating cloud on the sea, without any point of attachment.” “In the beginning of heaven and earth, a thing like the sprout of a rush originated in the great sky”; again “a thing like floating fat originated in the great sky.” Hirata quotes from his own compilation a similar passage, without any reference to the rush-sprout. Hatori ascribes the origin of this Thing to the creator and creatrix, who gradually formed the sun, earth and moon out of it, and brought various gods into existence at different stages. The fact of these creative acts being performed by the two deities named is known from a revelation made by the god of the moon, who in the year 487 entered into the body of a man, and declared to one Abe no Omi Kotoshire that “his ancestor Takami-musubi no kami created heaven and earth. People and lands must consequently be presented to him.” And in the same year the sun goddess made a similar revelation to the same Abe no Omi, in which she declared that Takami-musubi no kami was her progenitor. The comparison of the Thing to floating fat and floating cloud simply refers to its indefinite position, and involves no statement as to