Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing 0674060652, 9780674060654

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Realms of Literacy EARLY JAPAN AND THE

HISTORY OF WRITING

Harvard East Asian Monographs 335

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University The Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University were inaugurated in 1962 to bring to a wider public the results of significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia.

Realms of Literacy EARLY JAPAN AND THE

HISTORY OF WRITING

David B. Lurie

Published by the Harvard University Asia Center and distributed by Harvard University Press Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London, 2011

© 2011 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College Printed in the United States of America

The Harvard University Asia Center publishes a monograph series and, in coordination with the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Korea Institute, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and other faculties and institutes, administers research projects designed to further scholarly understanding of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, and other Asian countries. The Center also sponsors projects addressing multidisciplinary and regional issues in Asia.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lurie, David Barnett Realms of literacy : early Japan and the history of writing / David B. Lurie. p. cm. -- (Harvard East Asian Monographs; 335) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-674-06065-4 (alk. paper) 1. Japanese language--Writing--History. 2. Chinese characters--Japan. 3. Written communication--Japan--History. 4. Writing--Japan--History. I. Title. PL528.L87 2011 495.6'1109--dc22 2011012158 Index by the author, with the assistance of Matthieu Felt Printed on acid-free paper Last figure below indicates year of this printing 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11

To my parents, and to the memory of Peggy Friedman (1949–2006) and of Kawahira Hitoshi (1947–2006)

Preface and Acknowledgments

Over the many years spent working on this book, I have often been asked the following two questions: When did writing first come to Japan? And when did the ancient Japanese begin to write their own language? This study provides answers to both of these questions, but it also aims to show that neither of them is a particularly useful way to approach the history of writing and literacy in early Japan. In treating ‘writing’ as a phenomenon that resists simple narratives of singular inception or straightforward transmission, I draw on contemporary thinking about the history and sociology of multiple literacies. The result is an account of plural origins, in which determining the ‘first’ appearance of writing depends on how it is defined and its various applications approached. By insisting on the multilingual nature of the ‘Chinese’ script, which crossed and complicated language boundaries in real time as well as over long periods, this book presents an unfamiliar picture of writing in Japan and the wider region around it. Attention to the history of reading, and to the varied ways in which writing has been linked to language, shows that there are overlaps and intersections between uses of writing that have traditionally been separated into categories like foreign and native or Sinitic and vernacular. As suggested by its subtitle, this book is about specific periods of Japanese history, but many of its arguments also apply to writing and literacy as general phenomena. In the simplest terms, it emphasizes how often the workings of these crucial technologies are determined by their cultural and social contexts.

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Preface and Acknowledgments

For various reasons interdisciplinarity has become such a shibboleth in the contemporary academy that I hesitate to lay claim to it. But, as directly addressed in the first and final chapters, writing is a phenomenon that presses against, and pushes across, the admittedly porous boundaries of the academic disciplines as they are currently constituted. There are times when this book trespasses into territory claimed by art history, religious studies, or archaeology, but for the most part it wanders along the mutual borders among history, linguistics, and literary studies. This is an area that until the late nineteenth century would have been unproblematically the domain of ‘philology,’ a label I would gladly use were it not for the unwelcome implications it still carries for scholars of Western antiquity (not unlike those that plague its cousin, ‘Sinology’). It would be foolish to dismiss the many benefits of the process of differentiation and specialization that produced the modern disciplines that carved up philology’s territory. As Freud points out in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, without some sort of filter to apply to incoming stimuli, consciousness (and by extension knowledge itself ) would be impossible. I have tried to maintain the insights that could only come through the filters applied by literary studies, linguistics, and history, but I have also tried to overlap and combine them in ways that seem to me to be demanded by the nature of writing itself. Doing so inevitably involves omissions and uneven emphases. Exacting readers with firmer disciplinary allegiances than my own may well question my lack of attention to reconstructions of the phonology and morphology of earlier forms of spoken language, to the makeup of particular political institutions and social formations, or to the aesthetic and thematic dimensions of belletristic works. Ultimately it is not for me to judge whether the accomplishments of the pages that follow justify these—and many other— omissions. I can only ask my readers to consider this project not in terms of how well it conforms to disciplinary standards, but rather in terms of how faithful it is to the complexities of its subject. Much of this work is unavoidably technical, though nonetheless it presents a selective overview, not a comprehensive survey. I know I share with many other academic writers the hope—fantasy is a more unkind word—that scholars and students with specializations far from my own might find this book worthwhile. I have tried to keep such readers in mind: it should be possible for those unfamiliar with the Japanese

Preface and Acknowledgments

ix

language and the Chinese writing system to read the more general discussions, skim or skip those that present undesirable detail, and still follow the overarching arguments and analytical claims of this study. To the extent that the book falls short of this goal, it is due to my own shortcomings and not the putative inapproachability of my topic, for I am certain that the interest and importance of the history of early Japanese writing are of far greater magnitude than its difficulty. Given the inherent visuality of the subject, I regret that this work is not more extensively illustrated. Nonetheless, the particular aspects of writing that most concern me are apparent in the modern typeset transcriptions provided for all cited texts, so the relative paucity of figures has little impact on the fundamental arguments of the book. The lack of images stems not from restrictions imposed by my publisher (which has been very accommodating) but from copyright regulations and limits on my ability to deal with them. There are a number of resources to supplement the figures that have been included here: to name two prominent ones, Seeley 1991 has a good sampling of black-and-white images, and Kobayashi Yoshinori 1998 has lavish color photographs that illustrate almost every aspect of the history of Japanese writing. Additional images, with captions and page references, are available on the website http://realmsofliteracy.net, which also contains errata, addenda, and other materials related to this book. Rushing through revisions that have seemed at once endless and insufficient, it has been comforting to reflect that a premise of this book is that the autonomy of individual texts is almost entirely illusory. This work exists only because of the inspiration and assistance provided by innumerable people, from my family to writers and editors I have never met. Its most important debts are those catalogued in the notes and bibliography; in a sense the whole book is a tribute to the delight and inspiration I have been afforded by the scholars I cite. But I owe much in ways that are not apparent from the apparatus of the work itself. The starting point of this book was my 2001 Ph.D. dissertation, and I remain thankful to all of those who helped me with that project. The intervening years have only deepened my gratitude to the two advisors who guided me through its research and writing. In the past decade, Haruo Shirane has been a supportive and encouraging friend and col-

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Preface and Acknowledgments

league, and has done more than anyone to shepherd me through the publication process; the book has benefited greatly from his criticism and suggestions. Having the opportunity to study with Kōnoshi Takamitsu was among the greatest strokes of luck of my career, and I am proud and grateful that he has continued to honor me with his advice and encouragement since the end of my initial sojourn in Tokyo. The comments provided by the members of my dissertation committee (Ryūichi Abé, Wayne Farris, Martin Kern, and Henry Smith) served as an invaluable road map as I began work on the larger project that eventually became this book, while Gari Ledyard and Tim Wixted each read the entire dissertation and provided suggestions no less helpful and extensive than those of the committee members. Early drafts of portions of the book, and the revisions and expansions that led up to the present version, were written in New York, but the manuscript first began to take shape during a year in residence at the School of Historical Studies of the Institute for Advanced Study. I am very grateful to the Mellon Foundation for funding the fellowship for assistant professors that made that stay possible, and also to the faculty and staff at the School of Historical Studies, especially Terrie Bramley, Caroline Walker Bynum, Patricia Crone, Nicola Di Cosmo, Roberta Gernhardt, Heinrich von Staden, Sharon Tozzi-Goff, and Marian Zelazny. The dissertation research that served as the point of departure of this book was funded by fellowships from the Japan Foundation, the Social Sciences Research Council, and the Itoh Foundation. At Columbia I have benefited from Macdonald and Hettleman Summer Research Fellowships, and I also received generous financial support from symposia and workshops sponsored by the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo, Nara Women’s University, and the Department of Comparative Literature and Culture of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Komaba, which made possible several trips to Japan to present papers and assemble research materials. I have benefited from the kindness and generosity of all who invited me to present elements of this project in various forms and contexts, but I am especially indebted to the organizers, funders, and participants of the European-American Young Scholars Summer Institute on the Concept of Language in the Academic Disciplines at the National Humanities Center and the Wissen-

Preface and Acknowledgments

xi

schaftskolleg and the Advanced Seminar on the Shape of Script at the School for Advanced Research. The staff of Columbia’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures have been enormously helpful over the years. I am particularly grateful to Anna Astrakhan, Gina Bookhout, Jeffrey Cousino, Petya DeVallance, Christine Han, Tracy Howard, Julie Jo, Tamara Kachanov, Kim Kroft, Joseph Rome, and Yuiko Yampolsky. David Wang was warmly supportive in the earliest stages of the project, and Bob Hymes kept me on track institutionally and inspired me with his catholic interests and deep knowledge of linguistic thought. At the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Madge Huntington and Daniel Rivero provided crucial help and advice. Carol Gluck has been a fierce supporter of this project and a penetrating critic of its various earlier forms, especially in the year I was at the IAS. Also at Columbia, I owe much to the professionalism and patience of the librarians and staff of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, especially Alexander Brown, Alexander Donovan, Kenneth Harlin, Amy Heinrich, Rich Jandovitz, Ria Koopmans-de Bruijn, Yasuko Makino, John McClure, Mihoko Miki, Sachie Noguchi, and Rongxiang Zhang. I am also grateful for the help of librarians at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, Waseda University, Hokkaido University, and the University of Tokyo. In the epigraphs to Chapter 1, the excerpt from WINNIE-THEPOOH by A. A. Milne, copyright 1926 by E.P. Dutton, renewed 1954 by A. A. Milne, is used by permission of Dutton Children’s Books, A Division of Penguin Young Reader’s Group, A Member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York NY 10014. All rights reserved. Christian de Pee capped off years of support and encouragement by sending me the passage that appears as an epigraph to Chapter 3. It is from “Jeeves and the Chump Cyril,” from The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse, published by Hutchinson. Reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd. The title of that chapter was inspired by a quote from Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler that appeared in Geoff Dyer’s The Ongoing Moment. In the epigraphs to Chapter 7, the excerpt from “Frazzle” from SEARCH PARTY: Collected Poems of William Matthews, Copyright © 2004 by Sebastian Matthews and Stanley Plumly, is reprinted by per-

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Preface and Acknowledgments

mission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. I am especially grateful to the friends and colleagues who read all or part of various drafts. The reader reports for the Harvard University Asia Center and the Weatherhead East Asian Institute were enormously helpful; the book owes much to their critical comments and suggestions. Paul Anderer was good enough to read the first chapter and show me ways to improve its expression and argumentation. Michael Como, who has warmly supported me and this work since its early stages, and whose own scholarship has taught me much about early Japan, read several chapters and provided friendly encouragement at a particularly low point. Conversations with Torquil Duthie, and his excellent dissertation, helped me with many aspects of the project, but he was also kind enough to read through the entire manuscript, catching errors and suggesting much-needed revisions. Joshua Fogel found several mistakes in Chapter 2, Mack Horton pointed out aspects of Chapter 6 that needed to be reworked, and Zev Handel and William Boltz flagged a number of problematic passages in Chapter 7. Winnie Olsen edited and improved several chapters. Rebecca Jordan-Young was unfailingly generous and insightful at a time when we were both struggling with our books; the scope and significance of her project also helped me keep a sense of perspective about my own. William Hammell has been a model editor: I am deeply thankful for his extraordinary conscientiousness and flexibility. I thank all of my students over the past nine years, especially those in my kanbun classes and in the seminar I taught on the history of writing in East Asia in Fall 2004. I am also grateful to the many colleagues at Columbia University and Barnard College who created such a wonderful working environment. Among those who supplied references, responded to talks and presentations, helped me obtain materials, assisted with computer problems, and generally provided inspiration and encouragement are: Ryūichi Abé, David Bialock, Ross Bender, Robert Borgen, Kim Brandt, David Branner, Ranabir Chakravarti, Soonyoung Choi, Anne Commons, Lewis Cook, Edwin Cranston, Wiebke Denecke, Wayne Farris, Bernard Faure, Fukuda Takeshi, Peter Golden, Jennifer Guest, Bob Harrist, Hirasawa Kanako, Steve Houston, Ted Hughes, the late Malcolm Hyman, Ludmila

Preface and Acknowledgments

xiii

Hyman, Inui Yoshihiko, Ed Kamens, Kanazawa Hideyuki, Donald Keene, Ross King, Peter Kornicki, Eugenia Lean, Gari Ledyard, Indra Levy, George Lewis, Li Feng, Yukio Lippit, Lydia Liu, Ted Mack, Victor Mair, Don McCallum, Michael McCarty, Melissa McCormick, Joseph McDermott, Matthew McKelway, Misaki Hisashi, Max Moerman, Mōri Masamori, Kate Nakai, Jamie Newhard, Ogawa Yasuhiko, Herman Ooms, Hyun Ok Park, John Phan, Joan Piggott, Greg Pflugfelder, Daniel Poch, Christian Ratcliff, Paul Rouzer, Bruce Rusk, Sayoko Sakakibara, Sakamoto Nobuyuki, Richard Salomon, Conrad Schirokauer, Shang Wei, Shinkawa Tokio, Henry Smith, Ivo Smits, Lisa Son, Brian Steininger, Ariel Stilerman, Victoria Stoilova, Tomi Suzuki, Tateno Kazumi, Talbot Taylor, Tanaka Yukari, Ron Toby, Toeda Hirokazu, Tokumori Makoto, Aldo Tollini, Jeremiah Trinidad-Christensen, J. Marshall Unger, Niek Veldhuis, Charlotte von Verschuer, Sophie Volpp, Jason Webb, Stanley Weinstein, John Whitman, Leila Wice, Kären Wigen, Tim Wixted, Yamanaka Akira, and Katherine Zieman. For their loving support I am deeply grateful to Jonathan and Maxine Lurie, Debbie and Jason Silbergleit, Daniel and Katherine Lurie, Carol Neustadt, Ruth Alpers, Hori Yukiko, and Ron and Toshiko Yamamoto. I have no words to thank my wife, Hikari Hori. Without her willingness to sacrifice her own time and neglect her own research, her unstinting support and encouragement, and her refreshingly forthright refusal to feign interest in the project itself, I would have gone off the rails long ago. Our daughter Chiyo was born as I started writing in earnest and has grown in the intervening years, which I suppose means that this book is now in kindergarten. Her own experiences with literacy in multiple languages, and her enormous production of pseudoinscriptions (as well as, recently, more ‘legible’ writings), have paralleled my attempts to make sense of similar phenomena in other times and places. A few months ago she sympathetically told me: “I made a book once and it was really tiring.”

Contents

Maps, Tables, and Figures Conventions Introduction Part I: Literacy and Power 1

Shards of Writing?: Early Fragments and the Nature of Literacy

xvii xix 1 13 15

The Hirota Shell Artifact 17 Writing Lessons: The Politics of Plural Literacies 20 Great Discovery or Just a Smudge? 40 Coins and Contexts 52 Mirroring Text 56

2

Kings Who Did Not Read: Scribes and the Projection of Power from the First to the Sixth Century CE Peripheral Diplomacy and the Inscription of the ‘Chinese World Order’ 69 Writing Between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago 83 Scribes in Service to the Yamato Kings (Fifth-Sixth Centuries CE) 88 Court Scribes in Early Japanese Histories 105

67

xvi 3

Contents A World Dense with Writing: Expanding Literacies in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries

115

The Emergence of New Literacies in the Mid-Seventh Century 119 Buddhism and Writing 131 Context, Material, and the Breadth of Early Japanese Writing 150

Part II: Writing and Language 4

Kundoku: Reading, Writing, and Translation in a Single Script

167 169

Language and Writing in Chinese and Japanese 170 Back to the Beginning? The Seventh and Eighth Centuries 184 Early Korea and the Spread of an ‘East Asian’ Script 195 A Variety More Stylistic than Linguistic 204

5

Governing in Prose: Written Style in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki

213

Parallel Inscriptions in the Main Hall of Hōryūji 214 A Vernacular Voice for Ancient Matters: The Kojiki 225 Localizing a Universal Rhetoric: The Nihon Shoki 232 Written Style and Authority in the Eighth Century 242

6

The Poetry of Writing: The Man’yōshū and Its Contexts

254

Flowers of Naniwa: Spelling Verse Syllable by Syllable 261 The Diversity of Writing in the Man’yōshū 268 Context, Choice, and Stylistic Difference 287

7

Japan and the History of Writing

312

Writing and Language in Japanese Culture 313 Overcoming the Bilingual Fallacy 323 The Extended Nature of the ‘Chinese’ Script 334 The Latin of East Asia? 342 Myths of Efficiency and the Diversity of Literacies 353 Envisioning a World History of Writing 357

Reference Matter Endnotes

367

Bibliography

421

Index

477

Maps, Tables, and Figures

Maps 1.1

Sites mentioned in Chapter 1

47

2.1

Sites mentioned in Chapter 2

73

3.1

Sites mentioned in Chapters 3–5

122

7.1

Development of scripts in Asia

347

Tables 1.1

Inscriptions from the second to the fifth century CE

48

6.1

Contents of the Man’yōshū

269

6.2

Modes of early Japanese inscription

273

7.1

Six classes of the Shuowen jiezi

335

Figures 1.1

Hirota site ‘mountain’ shell artifact

19

1.2

Katabe site ‘inscription’

50

1.3

Xin huoquan coin

53

1.4

Domestic mirror with pseudo-inscription

62

2.1

Na seal inscription

73

2.2

Seven-Branched Sword

86

2.3

King’s Bestowal Sword inscription

89

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Maps, Tables, and Figures

2.4

Eta-Funayama sword inscription

93

2.5

Sakitama-Inariyama sword

95

2.6

Suda Hachiman mirror

101

3.1

Traditional genealogy of late sixthto late eighth-century rulers

119

3.2

Naniwa palace mokkan

123

3.3

Śākyamuni mandorla inscription

133

3.4

Fuhon coin

148

3.5

Taga Fortress stele

152

4.1

Kita-Ōtsu glossary mokkan

187

4.2

Yamanoue stele

193

5.1

Hōryūji Main Hall Shaka inscription

217

5.2

Hōryūji Main Hall Yakushi inscription

219

6.1

Comparative length of logographic and phonographic styles

297

Conventions

In the technical aspects of this work I have done my best to be as consistent as possible, but to borrow the words of Erving Goffman (1961, xiv), my larger goal has been to make “different coats to clothe the children well,” not “a single splendid tent in which they all shiver.” Traditional unsimplified character forms ( J. kyūtaiji 舊體字; C. fantizi 繁體字) are used in all citations of terms and names and almost all quotations. This practice should not pose significant problems for scholars of Japan, even those more accustomed to modern materials, and it accommodates those whose primary fields are Chinese or Korean studies. Some of my sources use modern simplified forms. Where these reflect an overall editorial policy (as in the Shinpen Nihon bungaku zenshū) I have silently amended them to the traditional forms; where they represent an attempt to preserve graphic distinctions in the original handwritten materials (as in the Jōdai mokkan shiryō shūsei) I have quoted them unchanged. In transcriptions of inscriptions from objects with multiple sides, a large nakaguro dot (・) indicates the beginning of a new side. An empty square (□) indicates a case where a character in an inscription is not readily legible; where I follow speculative suggestions about the identity of such graphs they are added as smaller glosses above the square. Double-column interpolated notes in works such as the Kojiki and Nihon shoki appear in smaller type.

xx

Conventions

In dates, intercalary months are preceded by an asterisk. All uncited translations are my own. Although there are those who argue that distinctive terms should be used untranslated, I have in most cases opted for English equivalents. The index serves as a glossary of these, but here I will briefly justify my choices for two particular terms that have been subject to a great deal of terminological controversy (uji and tennō). I translate uji 氏 as ‘lineage group,’ although a more traditional rendition of the term is ‘clan.’ Anthropologists generally use ‘clan’ to refer to groups claiming descent from a common ancestor, which is not inconsistent with a loose definition of uji, but many historians of Japan object to this English term, perhaps because of its associations with exogamy and actual unilineal descent. In early Japan an uji was a royally sanctioned group of noble lineages bearing a common surname, claiming the same distant ancestor, and associated with a particular form of court service; the relations among these constitutive lineages were fluid and involved a variety of fictive, as well as real, kinship connections. The term tennō 天皇 emerged as the title of the ruler of Japan (itself newly named) in the late seventh century. Although it has traditionally been translated as ‘emperor’ (which remains the official title of the modern Japanese tennō), several scholars have objected to this on the grounds that it creates a misleading impression of the nature of tennō authority and of the state they ruled. There are counterarguments to these objections, but here I opt for the translation ‘sovereign.’1 The Sinified posthumous titles (kanfū shigō 漢風諡號) by which the traditional early sovereigns are known were first created in the mideighth century. This means that locutions such as Jomei Sovereign 舒明天皇 (trad. r. 629–41 CE) are doubly anachronistic. Although early works such as the Kojiki and Nihon shoki use the title ‘sovereign’ for all early rulers, I have generally avoided applying it to those with whom it ——— 1. For an early discussion of these and other terminological issues, see Hall 1983. Yoshie 2003a and 2003b provide helpful summaries of relatively recent scholarship on the term uji; a discussion of its translation equivalents took place on the online PMJS discussion list (http://www.pmjs.org/) in August 2008. For opposing perspectives on the translation of tennō as ‘emperor’ see Piggott 1997, 8–9 and Batten 2006, 147–48.

Conventions

xxi

was associated only retrospectively: everyone before Tenmu 天武 (r. 672–86 CE). However, because of their brevity and familiarity, I employ the Sinified posthumous titles throughout. Weights and measures are translated with traditional English terms (for which I relied on the chart of “treaty port English translations” in Wilkinson 2000, 236–37). I use the metric system for the lengths and weights of extant objects. Transcriptions of Chinese use the pinyin system; those of Korean use McCune-Reischauer. In the rare cases that it is necessary, specific reconstructions of earlier forms are cited. The romanization of Japanese texts is more complex, making use of three different systems: (1) (2)

(3)

Modern Japanese (MJ; usually abbreviated as J): modified Hepburn system, as used in the Kenkyūsha New Japanese-English Dictionary. Classical Japanese (CJ; based on the language of the capital during the Heian period [roughly the ninth through twelfth centuries]—sometimes referred to as Late Old Japanese—which thereafter served as a standard written language): modified kunrei system, as employed in Vovin 2003. Old Japanese (OJ; the language reflected in the Man’yōshū and other eighth-century sources, which includes distinctions between syllables that disappear in CJ): a further modified kunrei system that represents the so-called ha-gyō consonant as a ‘p’ and indicates the distinctive syllables with subscript 1 for the kō set and subscript 2 for the otsu set. (In the few cases where a romanized gloss is provided on a character, the subscript notations have been omitted.)

For example, the word for “house,” (written with the character 家) is romanized as follows: MJ ie; CJ ife; OJ ipe1. For MJ there is little need to justify the choice of the Hepburn system, which is the most widely used and familiar transcription method. The systems used for CJ and OJ are transcriptions of the phonographs (kana) used to represent Japanese at those stages of the language. They correspond to distinctions between graphs, and are not intended as phonetic renderings of actual pronunciations. For some OJ words, there are no extant phonograph inscriptions, so the nature of some syllables is unclear. In such cases the subscript number has been omitted, resulting in an ‘agnostic’ transcription. For a helpful discussion of alternate systems of OJ transcription, see Frellesvig and Whitman 2004; the opening discussion of romanization in Horton 2010 also provides a thoughtful

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Conventions

overview of some of the arguments about this subject in Anglophone studies of early Japanese language and literature. The numerous poems quoted in Chapter 6 follow standard Japanese scholarly practice in providing only hiragana glosses on the characters. I realize this will be objectionable to some readers, but those who need to know the OJ values of the words in these poems can easily determine them with references like Jōdaigo jiten henshū iinkai 1967, or with Ide and Mōri 2008. Words from these poems that are important to the discussion are romanized in accordance with the OJ transcription system described above, even though many of the readings applied to logographic characters in the Man’yōshū are not directly attested before the Heian period. Proper names are cited in modern forms, the only exception being cases in which a poem or some other passage is transcribed complete. When the Nihon shoki and other eighth-century sources include nonJapanese personal names, they are romanized in accordance with the traditional Japanese reading conventions (potential readings in Chinese or Korean, when relevant, are discussed in notes). Because so many of the locations to which this study refers are modern archaeological sites, they are cited with their modern placenames and administrative districts (prefectures). In cases where the premodern geographical equivalents are relevant they are supplied parenthetically. In the references used in the text and notes, the author-date system is used for citations of secondary sources. Primary source citations use abbreviated titles (e.g., KJK 266–68). The abbreviations, and the editions to which they correspond, are listed in alphabetical order in the first part of the Bibliography. Generally, the arabic numerals that follow the abbreviations refer to the page number in the cited edition. However, in accordance with conventions for commonly quoted works, or as necessitated by the nature of particular collections, there are some sources for which the arabic numbers refer instead to particular items, documents, or poems (e.g., JMSS 193). In such cases a note to that effect is included in the bibliographic reference. For longer works, inherent books (巻) are cited as arabic figures, followed by a colon, followed by the page (or poem, etc.) number (e.g., HHS 85:2821 or MYS 8:1658). For annalistic histories like the Nihon shoki or Shoku Nihongi,

Conventions

xxiii

all citations are to volume of modern edition (in roman numerals) and page number, followed by the date of the entry (e.g., NS II:133–35 [Bidatsu 1/5/15]). There are two levels of notes. The use of footnotes is unremarkable, but longer digressions and particularly detailed discussions are relegated to a second set of endnotes that are referenced in the footnotes. This practice is not unprecedented in English (see Beckwith 2009), and it is also similar to the system of supplementary notes (hochū 補注) used in many Japanese commentaries and scholarly works. Despite its unfamiliarity, this combination will hopefully incorporate the best aspects of both footnotes and endnotes; at the very least it will not be necessary for readers to refer to the back of the book simply to find citations of references.

Realms of Literacy EARLY JAPAN AND THE

HISTORY OF WRITING

Introduction

In the world history of writing, Japan presents an unusually detailed record of a transition to literacy. Extant sources attest to the social, cultural, and political contexts and consequences of the advent of writing and reading, beginning with the earliest appearance of imported artifacts inscribed with Chinese characters in the first century BCE. The first texts produced within the Japanese archipelago date to the fifth century, whereas the emergence of widespread literacies and the simultaneous rise of a full-fledged state took place in the seventh and eighth centuries. These developments are of obvious importance for the study of Japanese history and literature, and for the history of writing in the broader cultural sphere of East Asia, but their implications extend far beyond those fields. Deeper understanding of early Japanese inscription will transform comparative discussions of literacy and reading practices, and remake our sense of the wider patterns of the world history of writing systems. The early Japanese experience provides new perspectives on such crucial topics as the importance of ‘unread’ texts, the pragmatic contexts and varied natures of multiple simultaneous literacies, the relations between languages and systems of inscription, and the aesthetic dimensions of writing. Comparative studies of the place of writing in early societies often focus on the great scenes of invention (Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, Mesoamerica), but adaptation of an existing system has been a much more common advent of writing. Such adaptation has been conceptualized in largely alphabetic terms, and here as well attention to

2

Introduction

the non-alphabetic context of early Japan provides an essential corrective. This study is, first and foremost, a history of writing in early Japan, but as the subtitle suggests, it also aims to rethink the wider history of writing in general. The question of the first appearance of writing in the Japanese archipelago is an unexpectedly vexing one—not because of a paucity of sources, but rather because it is difficult to determine what it means to say that writing begins at a certain point. Pioneering and provocative work by theorists of a “Great Divide” drew attention to the social, cultural, and even psychological consequences of literacy, but subsequent critiques and counterarguments have called into question any straightforward opposition between ‘orality’ and ‘literacy.’ Just as the purported homogeneity of societies without writing has been denied, those in which it is present are increasingly seen as marked by a heterogeneous mix of differing relationships with texts. Such relationships are better described as plural literacies rather than as a singular literacy. This study starts with phenomena often dismissed as adjacent to ‘true literacy’: the use of written materials for such purposes as symbolizing social distinctions, political authority, or magical power. I describe such relations to texts as “alegible” rather than “illegible” because of the impossibility of establishing historically that a given text was not ‘read’ in our usual sense, but also because such relations do not necessarily precede or negate the ‘legible’ variety. (In ‘legible reading’ texts are closely coordinated with particular forms of language and integrated into patterns of human interaction that determine and are determined by changes in those linguistic forms.) The earliest written artifacts found in the Japanese archipelago date back to the first century BCE or so: Chinese coins and mirrors with short inscriptions. The placement of these objects in tombs, and the emergence of artifacts with brief, haltingly incised marks that seem to be derived from such inscriptions, suggest that writing served as a significant pattern denoting status or promising magical effects independently of the potential linguistic ‘content’ of the texts themselves. This is dramatized by the emergence, in the third and fourth centuries CE, of domestically produced mirrors bearing hopelessly garbled copies of imported inscriptions or even incomprehensible writing-like patterns that modern scholars call “pseudo-inscriptions.” Such items are often

Introduction

3

interpreted as signs of a preliterate society, but rather than fitting them into a narrative of orality followed by literacy, we should note that the readability of a text was simply not the major issue in the contexts in which those artifacts were being produced and employed. The role of the ‘unread’ at this early stage in the history of Japanese writing draws attention to the continuing importance of this class of relations to texts, even in contexts that also involve widespread acts of reading in the familiar sense. Such coexistence, which occurs worldwide in both premodern and modern contexts, involves familiar phenomena such as the use of graphs in amulets or logos, the magical power or social cachet of illegible inscriptions (whether in ancient books or on contemporary T-shirts and tattoos), and the aesthetic dimensions of writing considered as calligraphy or typography. In Japan, there are instances from the fifth century CE of inscriptions written on swords by scribes from the Korean peninsula, but despite their legible content (describing relationships of fealty and patronage between central kings and local elites), the nature of these artifacts and the contexts in which they have been excavated suggest little change in the function of writing. It is not until the seventh century that we see unmistakable signs of the emergence of newly instrumental literacies. Traditionally, this transition has been linked to the spread of Mahayana Buddhism, a text-based faith centered on vast numbers of sutras, commentaries, and treatises translated into or originally written in Chinese. Eighth-century historical sources date the transmission of Buddhism to the Japanese court to the mid-sixth century, and traditional hagiographic accounts depict the early seventh century as a period of burgeoning religious literacy. However, in recent years the authenticity or reliability of many of these sources has been called into question, and archaeology has revealed burgeoning quantities of economic and administrative documents beginning in the middle of the seventh century, with few signs of widespread writing and reading beforehand. This situation has obvious relevance to a long-standing problem in the world history of writing: the question of whether writing first developed (or was adopted) for religious or for administrative purposes. Even more importantly, the explosion of written material in seventh-century Japan, while obviously intimately linked to the concomitant process of state-formation, is strik-

4

Introduction

ingly varied in terms of content, style, and media. Rather than a uniform transition from orality to literacy, these materials reveal different modes of writing appearing around the same time and coexisting in a variety of configurations. Attention to this variety yields a vision of different realms of literacy; indeed, the most pressing problem in this context is not that of religious versus administrative use, or of oral versus literate culture, but rather of whether, and to what extent, we can argue for a unified history of writing at all when different social groups are simultaneously using texts in radically different ways. Especially in the context of traditional East Asia, where the dominant writing system is so different from the Western alphabet, discussion of the foregoing issues has usually been framed by notions of ‘efficiency’ and ‘ease of use,’ with the underlying assumption being that ‘true’ or ‘full’ literacy is impossible without a phonographic system comprising only a few dozen signs. For this reason, consideration of the history of Japanese writing has focused overwhelmingly on the emergence, from the ninth century onward, of graphically distinctive phonograph signs (ancestors of the modern kana syllabaries). Such an emphasis obscures the technical variety and sophistication of earlier systems as well as the extent of their application in everyday contexts of bureaucratic administration and record-keeping. Considering both the pragmatic contexts of such early written artifacts and the striking discontinuities among simultaneously existing realms of literacy, it is apparent that we must reevaluate notions of the overarching efficiency of particular writing systems, especially when those systems were the sole means of inscription available. It is also necessary to question links between the nature of those systems and the extent of putative ‘full’ or ‘partial’ forms of literacy. Our sense of the process of adaptation of a writing system from one linguistic context to another turns out to be highly dependent on the alphabet. Scholars of writing do acknowledge the profound structural differences between primarily phonographic systems of writing—such as the Roman alphabet, Semitic scripts like Arabic and Hebrew, the Indian Devanagari script, and the Korean alphabet—and those systems that rely heavily on logographs (signs for words or parts of words), such as the earlier cuneiform script, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, and Mayan glyphs. However, discussions of how the latter systems were adapted to write new, unrelated languages tend to emphasize the im-

Introduction

5

portance of the phonographic transcription of the sounds of those languages, in many cases unconsciously modeling that process on the relationship between texts in languages transcribed by the alphabet—for example, between English and French or German. It is true that phonographic transcription (and ensuing adaptation or invention of graphs and diacritics) plays an important role in the movement of writing systems to new linguistic contexts. Moreover, I have no intention of denying that the development of phonographic writing is an important process that recurred independently in disparate contexts. However, historians of writing should do more to avoid teleological assumptions about progress towards phonography, assumptions that are often implicitly linked to claims about the (Greek) alphabet as a guarantor of cultural superiority. The relevance of early Japanese writing to these issues is immediately apparent once we survey the technical dimensions of the aforementioned development of multiple literacies in the seventh century. The adaptation of Chinese characters to write the Japanese language is often described in phonographic terms: characters that represented Chinese words were associated with Japanese syllables that had pronunciations similar to the original words. This kind of adaptation did play a major role, but a different approach to writing was more important. Characters that represented Chinese words were associated with Japanese words that had similar meanings, and entire texts written in accord with Chinese vocabulary and syntax were vocally rearranged and read off as Japanese texts, in a process traditionally known as kundoku 訓讀 (literally, “reading by gloss”). This process, which combines reading and translation into a single integrated act, could be used to produce new texts as well as to comprehend existing ones. Rather than phonographic transcription, it was this method of reading/writing that dominated all modes of literacy in early Japan, from at least the mid-seventh century on. This means that we cannot describe texts arranged in accordance with Chinese vocabulary and syntax as being written ‘in Chinese’ (no matter what their origins), a conclusion that has profound implications for Japanese cultural history, which has been framed by a linguistic opposition between Chinese and Japanese. Furthermore, although lack of surviving material still precludes an equally detailed understanding of the situation in early Korea, it is almost certain that this method of reading/writing was pioneered by scribes in

6

Introduction

the sixth-century Korean states and then brought to the Japanese archipelago, which further expands the range of languages linked to the Chinese writing system at the time of its arrival there. Referring to ‘Chinese characters’ or ‘the Chinese writing system’ acknowledges the historical origin of that system in China (by the thirteenth century BCE), but a broader perspective on its subsequent use for writing and reading in multiple non-Chinese languages might lead to the adaptation of another term, such as ‘East Asian writing system.’ (Similar phenomena of adaptation appear later on in Vietnam, and also in central Asia, though the latter were comparatively short-lived.) Beyond this new vision of the history of writing in East Asia, it is also important to emphasize commonalities with phenomena in very different contexts, such as cuneiform graphs for Sumerian words being given Akkadian readings, or even the use of phonographically written Aramaic words as unit signs for linguistically unrelated Middle Persian words. Consideration of early Japanese writing and reading systems in such a comparative context threatens widely held assumptions about the place of phonographic adaptation in the world history of writing. Another significant aspect of writing in early Japan was the variety of aesthetic effects that it enabled. Discussion of the aesthetics of inscription has been largely limited to calligraphy (and the related field of typography), where artistic play with graphs involves types of expression, free from all but the formal requirements of legibility, that have been compared to those found in music or abstract art. Connections between the linguistic ‘content’ of the text and its calligraphic expression are possible (synaesthetic and conventional though they often are), but calligraphy fits into the aforementioned rubric of alegibility: uses of texts in which their reading is largely or entirely incidental. However, early Japanese literary texts written in the aftermath of the seventh-century expansion of literacies also exhibit another, very different aesthetic dimension. In both prose and poetry, authors or scribes frequently manipulate the links among Japanese words, the graphs used to write them, and the associations of those graphs in Chinese literary texts. In early historical writings (the eighth-century Kojiki 古事記 and Nihon shoki 日本書紀), stylistic differences resulting from this sort of manipulation are intimately related to contrasting strategies for legitimizing the new state and the recently emerged sovereigns who ruled it. In the

Introduction

7

Man’yōshū 萬葉集 (“Collection of Ten Thousand Ages”), a late eighthcentury poetry anthology, this kind of manipulation becomes a major mode of expression, to the point where it often pushes the reading/ writing system to the brink of incomprehensibility. Where calligraphy can be seen as external to the linguistic functioning of writing, these uses of graphs involve internal aesthetic effects. Such effects are by no means unique to early Japan: interplay between words and the graphs that inscribe them persists in Japanese literature of subsequent eras, and similar uses of writing are apparent in such Chinese practices as the selection of semantically appealing or pejorative characters for the phonographic transcription of non-Chinese words. Outside of East Asia, there are parallels in controversies over spelling reform, which often involve the aesthetic sensitivities of literate individuals exposed to mistakenly or unconventionally spelled words. Bringing a richer account of early Japan into contact with the world history of writing sheds light on both areas of study, but this interaction is not a simple matter of ‘applying’ theoretical perspectives to a collection of sources, or of using empirical data to complicate an abstract model. Because writing was such a fundamental part of the political and cultural transformations that took place in the Japanese archipelago during the first millennium CE, a clearer grasp of the comparative dimensions of literacy and script development illuminates not only what we make of sources, but also what we have conceptualized as sources in the first place. In the comparative history of writing and literacy, the specifics of the Japanese experience call into question a number of stillinfluential assumptions, affecting both overarching accounts of the historical development of inscription and also more technical discussions of the relations between script and language. This book is divided into two parts. The first, “Literacy and Power,” considers the development of multiple literacies, their interaction with the diverse material bases of writing, and the overarching political significance of writing as both a vehicle for and a reflection of temporal power. This part moves in roughly chronological order from the appearance of initial fragmentary graphs around the first century CE, through the emergence of a handful of domestic inscriptions in the fifth century,

8

Introduction

to the rapid expansion of widespread writing and complex literacies in multiple media during the seventh and eighth centuries. Chapter 1 (“Shards of Writing?”) surveys the earliest evidence of the presence of writing in the Japanese archipelago, during the first several centuries CE. Such evidence consists of brief inscriptions on imported artifacts such as coins and mirrors, but also of writing-like marks domestically incised or painted on potsherds and other durable media. Such early items make sense as starting points for a survey of Japanese inscription, but they also provide an opportunity to address fundamental theoretical and methodological issues, and so this chapter also introduces the book’s approach to basic questions of the nature of writing and literacy. The underlying argument is that thinking in terms of multiple, heterogeneous literacies helps us to understand not only early fragments, but the entirety of the history of Japanese inscription. This approach also provides a way of avoiding some of the more difficult problems connected with defining what writing is and how it has been (or should be) related to spoken language. Ultimately how writing is defined matters less than how thoroughly we take into account the full range of receptions and appropriations of texts and inscribed artifacts. A different kind of ‘beginning’ is explored in Chapter 2 (“Kings Who Did Not Read”), which takes up the links between a corpus of longer and better preserved inscriptions and the political changes that occurred in the Japanese archipelago as more powerful rulers emerged and interacted with kings and emperors in Korea and China. Just as the central imperial bureaucracy depended on written reports, records, and proclamations, traditional Chinese diplomacy used texts for detailed communication, as well as for symbolic expression of the dominance and legitimacy of the emperor and the submission of peripheral rulers. Such symbolism is most vividly exemplified by the seals that were used as insignia of the ranks with which ‘barbarian’ potentates were invested by the emperor, but mirrors and swords were also important media for the expression of authority through writing. Surveying the major surviving inscriptions from the first through sixth centuries CE, this chapter shows how this political mode of writing was adopted for communication between Korean rulers and the Yamato kings of the archipelago, and then taken up by those kings themselves as a means of expressing their own power and their relations with vassals and subordinate allies.

Introduction

9

Despite these developments, writing remained a rare and largely ‘opaque’ medium: it was monopolized by scribes of Korean origin who were controlled by the kings, and there is little evidence that much ‘reading’ occurred. Chapter 3 (“A World Dense with Writing”) shows how dramatically this situation changed in the mid-seventh century. Tracing the rapid emergence over a few decades of new media and new forms of written communication, most prominently wooden tablets known as mokkan 木簡, it argues that this transformation was the result of complex interactions among domestic political developments and foreign pressures connected with the rise of the Sui and Tang dynasties and the wars on the Korean peninsula that led to its unification by the state of Silla. Buddhism played an important role, but contrary to traditional accounts of this period, it cannot be seen as the determining factor in the expansion of new forms of literacy, not least because it itself incorporates a range of relations to writing, many of them just as ‘alegible’ as those predating the arrival of the new faith. By surveying the variety of media and modes of inscription that resulted from this seventh-century transformation, this chapter shows the diversity and complexity of early practices of writing and literacy, some tightly linked together, others largely separate in their functioning and social contexts. The second part of the book, “Writing and Language,” turns to the internal workings of writing, focusing in particular on the complex interactions between spoken languages and inscription. Central to this part, and to the entire book, is a discussion of kundoku, the system of logographic reading and writing that drove the seventh- and eighth-century expansion of literacies, and that has remained fundamental to Japanese writing until the present day. This discussion lays the groundwork for more detailed consideration of written style and its implications, as embodied in the three great classics of eighth-century Japan, and it also provides the point of departure for the book’s concluding consideration of broader themes in the history of writing. Chapter 4 (“Kundoku”) contains, or supports, most of the core arguments of this book. Beginning with a survey of the linguistic differences between Chinese and Japanese, it explains how kundoku serves as a method of reading and writing logographic texts. Individual characters are associated with Japanese words that have similar meanings to

10

Introduction

the Chinese words originally written by those characters, and then sentences are rearranged in reading to conform to Japanese grammar. The resulting practice, which combines aspects of reading and of translation, was central to Japanese inscription from the eighth through nineteenth centuries, but evidence from mokkan and other sources shows that it had much earlier origins: it was present in Japan from the beginning of the seventh-century expansion of literacy, and can almost certainly be traced back to techniques used in the Korean states as early as the sixth century. Given how widespread the practice was, it is impossible to distinguish between Chinese and Japanese writing in early Japan. Regardless of how thoroughly a text might conform to literary Chinese style and usage, it could potentially be read in Japanese (or Korean) rather than Chinese. Kundoku was also used to generate new texts as well as to read existing ones. The chapter shows that the resulting variety of inscription was a matter more of stylistic than of linguistic difference, and argues that this realization yields a much more subtle and convincing picture of the history of early Japanese writing. Though they cannot be conceptualized in terms of writing in different languages, there are profound stylistic contrasts among early Japanese works. Chapter 5 (“Governing in Prose”) addresses these contrasts by comparing two sets of parallel texts. An introductory section discusses the juxtaposition of continental precedents and local innovations in short dedicatory inscriptions from the prominent early temple Hōryūji 法隆寺, but the bulk of the chapter is devoted to the different written styles of the two eighth-century histories: the Kojiki (712) and Nihon shoki (720). Once kundoku is taken into account, much that was confusing about the differences between these works becomes clear. The prose of the Kojiki is largely logographic, and like mokkan and other quotidian writings it uses a mixture of Chinese and Japanese syntactical order; but because the work was clearly meant to be read through kundoku, this does not mean that it involves a mix of the Chinese and Japanese languages. On the other hand, the logographic prose of the Nihon shoki is consistent with literary Chinese usage and style, but it was not necessarily meant to be read ‘as Chinese.’ In both cases the nature of the works is clarified by original interpolated notes that specify kundoku readings. In place of a linguistic distinction, the chapter argues that these works employ contrasting styles. The Nihon shoki conforms to a

Introduction

11

transregional textual standard, and thus relies on a universal source of written authority, whereas the Kojiki pioneers a local style whose authority stems from its departure from the transregional standard. A concluding look at senmyō 宣命, royal proclamations of the eighth century, shows how yet another style serves as a source of authority, in this case one closely linked to the voice of the sovereign. Chapter 6 (“The Poetry of Writing”) addresses the inscription of poetry and the place of phonography in early writing, especially in the enormous Man’yōshū. There has traditionally been a strong association between vernacular poetry (uta or waka) and phonographic writing, in which words are spelled out syllable by syllable with characters used for their sounds. It is true that the poems included in the histories and those found on seventh- and eighth-century mokkan are written in this manner, as is the vast majority of poetry from the ninth century onward. But that is not the case in the Man’yōshū. Although a significant minority of the works it contains is written phonographically, as a whole the anthology is dominated by logography. The central concern of this chapter is why the various logographic styles of the Man’yōshū were selected over phonographic alternatives. In addition to the inherent authority of that principle for writing, examination of the technical dimensions of the inscription of poetry reveals that logography—and more fundamentally, the coexistence of logography and phonography—enables a range of internal aesthetic and expressive effects. Moreover, many of these effects depend on the contexts provided by poems, individually and as parts of anthologies or other collections. In addition to providing a new perspective on the emergence of literary writings in the seventh and eighth centuries, this survey of the inscription of the Man’yōshū undermines many preoccupations of traditional histories of writing, which have generally assumed that variety and complexity—as well as logography itself—are inefficient and inferior to simple phonographic systems. These criticisms are taken up and expanded in Chapter 7 (“Japan and the History of Writing”), which concludes the book with a discussion of the place of writing in the history of Japan and the place of Japan in the world history of writing. An opening section provides an epilogue, tracing the development of Japanese inscription from the ninth century until the present day. A major argument is that logography remained central even after the emergence of visually distinctive phonograph

12

Introduction

scripts (Heian kana 假名). This leads to a renewed consideration of the significance of kundoku, which shows it is impossible to conceptualize Japanese culture in terms of a linguistic opposition between Chinese and Japanese. Abandoning this “bilingual fallacy” is a prerequisite to understanding the real complexities of linguistic and textual difference in Japanese history. But kundoku has much broader implications: it inspires a reconsideration of the nature of the Chinese script and its place in the East Asian region. Chinese writing has always involved a mixture of logography and phonography, but the system—or rather, the system of systems—has taken on radically different forms at different times. The version adapted in Korea and Japan, which stabilized in China during the fourth and fifth centuries CE, included metalinguistic lexicographical and commentarial traditions that provided the matrix from which kundoku developed. The regional influence of Chinese writing has been conceptualized as a “character cultural sphere” or an “East Asian Latin.” Such formulations raise—but do not resolve—fundamental questions about the interaction of writing and culture. At a time when scholars of writing have largely abandoned assumptions about unilinear development toward increased phonography, the early Japanese experience surveyed in this book encourages us to question the notion of absolute differences in efficiency, and invites us to imagine a world history of writing less centered on the alphabet.

PART I

Literacy and Power

ONE

Shards of Writing? Early Fragments and the Nature of Literacy

“Can you read, Pooh?” he asked, a little anxiously. “There’s a notice about knocking and ringing outside my door, which Christopher Robin wrote. Could you read it?” “Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I could.” “Well, I’ll tell you what this says, and then you’ll be able to.” So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote: HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY. Pooh looked on admiringly. “I’m just saying ‘A Happy Birthday,’” said Owl carelessly. “It’s a nice long one,” said Pooh, very much impressed by it. —A. A. Milne Every sign by itself seems dead. What gives it life?—In use it is alive. Is life breathed into it there?—Or is the use its life? —Ludwig Wittgenstein

This chapter surveys the material traces of the earliest presence and production of inscribed artifacts in the Japanese archipelago. One cannot lightly designate the marks discussed here as ‘Japanese,’ nor even, necessarily, as ‘writing.’ Indeed, part of their value lies in how they force renewed consideration of these and other fundamental terms. Early

16

Shards of Writing?

fragments provide a seedbed for discussions of theoretical problems of literacy and writing that will continue to grow in subsequent chapters.1 The marks on these artifacts are unlikely to have been ‘read’ by anyone, at least in the commonly used sense of ‘reading.’ But it would be rash to deal summarily with them as early epiphenomena and move on to the richer fields of ‘full’ or ‘true’ literacy some centuries over the horizon. These fragments illuminate aspects of writing that pertain throughout history, up to and including the present. They also provide a helpful way of considering how writing and literacy have been concepttualized—and, often, misconceptualized—in modern scholarship. The study of writing has been dominated by paradigms of invention and diffusion intertwined with debates about the precise relations between inscription and the sounds of language. With a historiography at once interrelated to and independent from that of writing, literacy has traditionally been conceptualized as a unified phenomenon that has unequivocally transformed—even, constituted—civilization. This work joins others of the past several decades in questioning the structuring assumptions of both of these approaches. The full extent of my arguments and intellectual debts will unfold over the course of the entire book, but an initial accounting is encouraged by the nature of the materials taken up in this first chapter. The history of writing is not merely, or even mostly, the story of the invention and diffusion of improved technologies for the preservation of oral speech, and we treat literacy as a unified, content-based communicative practice only at the expense of much of its historical specificity in past—and present—societies. Attention to the contexts in which inscribed artifacts are produced and received (employed, stored, and discarded or destroyed) shows how frequently writing functions as a vehicle of worldly and spiritual power, and a symbol of affinities among objects and individuals, groups and places. These uses can occur along with, or in place of, the role of writing in language-based communication. It may seem that such functions are separable from ‘actual’ writing and reading, in specific historical or more abstract theoretical terms. But such uses of inscription are an essential part of literacy, in ways that ——— 1. On alternate points of departure for the history of writing in Japan, see endnote 1.1.

Shards of Writing?

17

are paradoxically more apparent on the temporal and geographical edges of the history of writing than in its more concentrated areas. Despite its emergence much earlier in the Central Plains of China, there is no evidence of the presence of writing in the Japanese archipelago until around the final century BCE, during the Yayoi period (ca. 900 BCE–ca. 250 CE). The first substantial domestically produced texts, examined in the following chapter, do not appear until the fifth century CE. Almost all of the extant inscriptions from the period in between were unearthed, from sites ranging from an island off southern Kyushu to northeastern Honshu. These are carved, cast, inlaid, or painted on various media, including shell, bronze, iron, gold, clay, and wood. (A flat shell artifact—one incised with a mark whose status as writing is illuminatingly subject to debate—provides a point of departure below.) The developments of these proto-historical centuries can be organized into a political narrative, but considered in conjunction with the historiography of literacy, it is clear that writing is at once part of that narrative and outside it in significant ways. This leads to the vexing problem of what can and cannot be called writing, a question more intertwined with the nature of reading than is generally realized. This chapter dwells alternately on problems of production and of reception. It is necessary to think, in the abstract, about reading before addressing writing. This discussion leads to an examination of the earliest fragmentary inscriptions produced in the archipelago, which in turn provide a context for considering the reception of legends and inscriptions on imported bronze coins and mirrors. Finally, we return to the problem of the production of domestic copies of such inscriptions. My initial emphasis on the materials discussed here stems less from their temporal priority than from the rich resources they provide for considering the continuities and discontinuities of writing and reading, as they have transformed and been transformed by the societies that encounter them. The Hirota Shell Artifact In September 1955, a powerful typhoon lashed the shores of Tanegashima, an island off the southern tip of Kyushu. Damage to the sand dunes at Hirota, on the southeastern coast, uncovered masses of human

18

Shards of Writing?

bones, pottery, and bits of carved shell. Excavation over the following three years revealed that the site was a complex of graves from the early centuries CE: the lowest of its three layers included simple burials, but the middle and upper strata held reburials of skulls and long bones. Among the artifacts included with the reburials were shell plaques with incised designs, one of which is a roughly 8-by-4-centimeter panel cut from a cone shell ( J. imogai 芋貝) bearing a simple figure of three vertical and one horizontal lines. 2 This mark appears to be the character for the word ‘mountain’ 山 written in the clerical script style (C. lishu 隷書) that emerged in China in the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE); if so, this small plaque is the only inscribed artifact from the site, and one of the small number of examples of Yayoi-period writing (see Figure 1.1).3 But the Hirota plaque is a puzzle. Apparently some sort of ornament, it was interred with the corpse of an individual who was important enough to merit reburial, but its context yields little more information about its origin and significance. The tropical range of the marine snail that bore the shell suggests the artifact was produced somewhere to the south of Tanegashima, perhaps in the Ryukyu islands, Taiwan, or the coast of southern China, but there is no reason to assume the raw material could not have been transported elsewhere before being shaped and incised.4 Of course, we can know little about its production and meaning to its audience and owner (in life or death). Based in part on the presence of the artifact itself, archaeologists posit that the individual it accompanied was a shamanic figure; some have even speculated that the character is an abbreviation for ‘[Daoist] transcendent’ 仙, suggesting the influence of religious practices from the Chinese continent (Mori Kōichi 1985a, 72).5 The inclusion of the artifact in the reburial ——— 2. ‘Shell plaque’ renders the archaeological term kaifu 貝符, also translatable as “shell pendant” (Yamamoto 2001, 25). For accounts of the Hirota site, see Kokubu and Morizono 1958 and Kanaseki 1966. 3. For a comparison of the Hirota shell mark to examples of Han-period calligraphy, see Okazaki 1988, 373–77; on the nature of the ‘clerical script’ style, see Qiu 2000, 113– 30. 4. For a survey of the archaeology of tropical shells, see Mishima 1977. 5. There is precedent for abbreviation of 仙 as 山 in Han-period mirror inscriptions (Kasano 1993, 218).

Shards of Writing?

19

Fig. 1.1 Hirota site ‘mountain’ shell artifact

implies that it had a symbolic or magical meaning. Moreover, we can surmise from its isolation from other written objects, and from the early period and remote location of its burial, that it is likely to have had talismanic or magical significance as a meaningful pattern without necessarily being ‘legible’ in linguistic terms.6 Fragments such as the Hirota shell artifact tend to provoke two opposing responses, each excessive in its own way. One, which might be termed ‘pessimistic,’ is to dismiss the mark as marginal to the problem of literacy, that is, as not even being writing, but rather a pattern coincidentally resembling a character, as the archaeologist Nakazono Satoru did in an article entitled “This is Not the Character for Mountain.”7 The other extreme is to optimistically interpret this single mark as indicative of the presence of other, more familiar uses of writing, extrapolating an unseen realm of broader literacy, as in the following passage from a survey of the earliest Japanese inscriptions: “We don’t know whether the ‘mountain’ character was incised on Tanegashima, or whether it was brought from the continent, but I think there were ——— 6. This is essentially the approach to the Hirota shell mark sketched out by Atsuji Tetsuji (1994, 210–13; 1999, 196–99). 7. “Kore wa yama no ji de wa nai” (Nakazono 1992); see also the response to Nakazono’s revisionist critique in Kokubu 1993.

20

Shards of Writing?

people who could read and write characters, and even clerical script, in the village of the Hirota site” (Okazaki 1988, 377). Similarly optimistic extrapolations often accompany accounts of discoveries of early artifacts in national newspapers such as the Asahi shinbun or Mainichi shinbun, where it is not unusual to see headlines heralding “Japan’s Oldest Writing.”8 Interest in early evidence of cultural achievement and journalistic enthusiasm for superlatives undoubtedly play a role in the prevalence of such optimistic interpretations, but they are also indicative of fundamental influences on the historiography of writing. Modern literates, especially the products of higher education who staff newspapers and universities, assume that their mode of living with writing and reading is normative, and furthermore that literacy is a unified phenomenon, in which the presence of any part can be expected to imply the existence of the remainder. When what is believed to be an aspect of this ‘literacy’ turns out to be unaccompanied by other components, this is explained as an anomalous case of ‘partial’ or ‘incomplete’ literacy. Because this conceptualization also underlies the insistence that isolated marks actually are not true writing, both pessimistic and optimistic approaches to ‘inscriptions’ like that of the Hirota shell implicitly rely on a unified, monolithic concept of literacy. But such artifacts have the potential to disrupt such a unitary sense of what ‘literacy’ is or should be. Writing Lessons: The Politics of Plural Literacies Humans have inhabited the landforms that are now the Japanese archipelago since at least 30,000 years ago, and possibly from much earlier.9 Dating from as early as the mid-fifteenth millennium BCE, distinctive archaeological cultures are found at sites throughout the archipelago. They take their name from regular patterns impressed with knotted rope ——— 8. “Nihon saiko no moji.” For versions of this ‘optimistic’ headline, see Asahi shinbun 1998a and Asahi shinbun 1996a. A reminder that this tendency is by no means limited to the Japanese press is Stephen Houston’s lament that “archaeologists have long observed that journalists—and those scholars supplying juicy copy—forever stress the earliest and the biggest. These attributes make for clear stories, without any need for tiresome academic hedging and exposition” (2004b, 10). 9. On the beginning of human history in the Japanese archipelago, see endnote 1.2.

Shards of Writing?

21

on characteristic pottery vessels: Jōmon 縄文 (ca. 14,500–ca. 400 BCE). Marked by a rich material culture including some of the world’s earliest ceramics, and eventually displaying dense settlements that subsisted on hunting, gathering, and some forms of cultivation, these cultures lasted over ten millennia, with much temporal and spatial variety. Apparently significant marks on durable surfaces (including but not limited to the eponymous pottery patterns) are a familiar feature of Jōmon sites and artifacts. If writing is located among such practices—and it is one of the arguments of this chapter that it has much in common with decorative, totemic, or talismanic marks—then a history of early writing, broadly conceived, might well begin here.10 However, there is no evidence from Jōmon sites of marks more narrowly identifiable as writing, which in this region, during this period, would mean Chinese characters. The first signs of their arrival in the Japanese archipelago did not come until some centuries into the succeeding archaeological culture, known—after the district of Tokyo in which its characteristic pottery was first found—as the Yayoi 弥生 (ca. 900 BCE–ca. 250 CE). Intensive agriculture—of rice in paddies, but also of other plants in dry fields—and metalworking (bronze and iron) are among the Yayoi technologies that appeared first in northern Kyushu and then spread to other areas in the three main islands (Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu). In a familiar pattern, food surpluses and competition for land and water spurred the intensification of social hierarchy and violent conflict, and the Yayoi period archipelago appears in the Chinese historical record as a place of small kingdoms warring incessantly with one another. Continuation of this political dynamic, along with further technological advances, led to larger and more powerful polities (as evidenced by massive burial mounds), with a degree of supra——— 10. In dating Jōmon from ca. 14,500 BCE I follow Habu 2004. New discoveries, and calibration of radiocarbon dating, have led to increasingly early dates for the first pottery in the archipelago, which most archaeologists use as the criterion for the beginning of the period (see Kuzmin 2006 for a critical survey of pottery origins in East Asia). For recent overviews of Jōmon archaeology, see Tatsuo Kobayashi 2004 and Underhill and Habu 2006, 134–40; for a speculative analysis of the significance of Jōmon patterns and symbols, see Naumann 2000.

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regional organization, in the subsequent Kofun 古墳, or Tomb, period (ca. 250–ca. 600 CE).11 Writing is commonly seen as one of the advanced technologies that aided the ruling elites of the Yayoi and Tomb periods in their acquisition and maintenance of power. Inscribed artifacts were one of the principal vectors of political legitimacy on the periphery of the Chinese empire, and scribes from the earlier-emerging states of the Korean peninsula were among the specialists whose control by the kings of the Tomb period was a key to power. In this sense, a narrative of writing’s introduction parallels the political narrative from Yayoi onward, with both leading toward the seventh-century emergence of a fully fledged state. Such a narrative is the domain of the following two chapters, but for now it is necessary to bear in mind its limitations. In a sense, the artifacts discussed in this chapter present a kind of counter-narrative, raising the difficult problem of the reception of writing by the people of the Yayoi and Tomb periods before the book turns to tracing the gradual growth of their rulers’ claims on the powers of writing. This is also a counter-narrative in the sense that it is not a narrative at all: the point is not the development of writing over time, but how the mysteries of certain isolated fragments provide insights into the nature of literacy. What did it mean for writing to appear for the first time in a society that heretofore had no contact with it? What should we make of the ‘readings,’ if we can call them that, performed by those who had no prior knowledge of texts? And how much does the great bulk of the state, looming over spatial and temporal horizons, overshadow these encounters? Passages from two twentieth-century classics—an anthropological memoir and an allegorical novel—provide points of departure for considering these questions and their implications for a history of ‘literacy’ in early Japan. READING FOR THE BARBARIANS

Perhaps the most famous chapter of Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques (1955) is the one containing his observations about the advent ——— 11. On the dates of the Yayoi and Tomb periods, see endnote 1.3.

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of writing in a society without prior experience of it.12 Traveling in the Amazon basin with a group of Nambikwara, he distributes “sheets of paper and pencils,” and eventually notices that they are “busy drawing wavy, horizontal lines. I wondered what they were trying to do, then it was suddenly borne upon me that they were writing or, to be more accurate, were trying to use their pencils in the same way as I did mine” (LéviStrauss 1992, 296). It is their chief alone who takes this practice further: No doubt he was the only one who had grasped the purpose of writing. So he asked me for a writing-pad, and when we both had one, and were working together, if I asked for information on a given point, he did not supply it verbally but drew wavy lines on his paper and presented them to me, as if I could read his reply. He was half taken in by his own make-believe; each time he completed a line, he examined it anxiously as if expecting the meaning to leap from the page, and the same look of disappointment came over his face. But he never admitted this, and there was a tacit understanding between us to the effect that his unintelligible scribbling had a meaning which I pretended to decipher; his verbal commentary followed almost at once, relieving me of the need to ask for explanations. As soon as he had got the company together, he took from a basket a piece of paper covered with wavy lines and made a show of reading it, pretending to hesitate as he checked on it the list of objects I was to give in exchange for the presents offered me: so-and-so was to have a chopper in exchange for a bow and arrows, someone else beads in exchange for his necklaces. . . . This farce went on for two hours. Was he perhaps hoping to delude himself? More probably he wanted to astonish his companions, to convince them that he was acting as an intermediary agent for the exchange of the goods, that he was in alliance with the white man and shared his secrets (296).

Irritated by this “piece of humbug” (297), Lévi-Strauss gets lost in the jungle, and after being rescued and returning to camp he sleeplessly mulls over the meaning of the episode: inserted here is a short, vivid essay on the links between literacy and power. This meditation centers on two interlocked arguments, one negative and one positive. The negative argument is the claim that “nothing we ——— 12. In thinking about this chapter from Tristes Tropiques, I have drawn on the discussion in W. V. Harris 1989, 38–42, and also, less directly, the well-known close reading in Derrida 1976, 101–40.

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know about writing and the part it has played in man’s evolution justifies” the idea that “its emergence could not fail to bring about profound changes in the conditions of human existence,” changes which “must of necessity be of an intellectual nature” (298). As the clauses “could not fail” and “must of necessity” make clear, the point here is not to dismiss the possibility of writing having a transformative effect on human thought, etc., but rather the necessity of such an effect.13 Lévi-Strauss’s second, positive argument involves his famous “hypothesis” that “the primary function of written communication is to facilitate slavery.” In other words, “the only phenomenon with which writing has always been concomitant is the creation of cities and empires, that is the integration of large numbers of individuals into a political system, and their grading into castes or classes” (299). He devotes a paragraph to considering, and ultimately dismissing, the possibility of empires without writing, but the more significant difficulty presented by the claim of a necessary correlation between writing and political domination is that it homogenizes vastly different modes of literacy. Significantly, the context that seems foremost in his mind is neither the Amazonian jungle nor the temples and monuments of early empires, but “the situation nearer home, [where] we see that the systematic development of compulsory education in the European countries goes hand in hand with the extension of military service and proletarianization. The fight against illiteracy is therefore connected with an increase in governmental authority over the citizens” (300). As William Harris points out, Lévi-Strauss’s “slavery” hypothesis “contains a degree of confusion between societal conditions in which a few use writing [. . .] to impose their will upon the majority, and conditions of mass literacy, in which the masses may indeed be manipulated via the written word [. . .] but in which the ordinary human being has at least a chance of exercising some mental, economic, and even political independence” (1989, 38). The body of Harris’s classic study makes clear ——— 13. “During the neolithic age, mankind made gigantic strides without the help of writing; with writing, the historic civilizations of the West stagnated for a long time. It would no doubt be difficult to imagine the expansion of science in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries without writing. But, although a necessary precondition, it is certainly not enough to explain the expansion” (299).

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that he does not reserve the possibility of such “independence” vis-à-vis writing only for societies with “mass literacy.” More importantly, in raising the problem of independence along with that of differing “societal conditions,” he indicates the real crux of the Tristes Tropiques episode. To understand why, we must look more closely at the links between the essay about writing and the incident with the Nambikwara chief. The essay section opens with the following interpretation of the chief’s behavior: Writing had, on that occasion, made its appearance among the Nambikwara but not, as one might have imagined, as a result of long and laborious training. It had been borrowed as a symbol, and for a sociological rather than an intellectual purpose, while its reality remained unknown. It had not been a question of acquiring knowledge, of remembering or understanding, but rather of increasing the authority and prestige of one individual—or function—at the expense of others. A native still living in the Stone Age had guessed that this great means towards understanding, even if he was unable to understand it, could be made to serve other purposes. (Lévi-Strauss 1992, 297–98).

The greatest irony of this famous episode is apparent here: Lévi-Strauss has derived a generalization about the historical significance of writing from an incident that he sees as extraneous to its essence. The chief’s performance, earlier described as a “farce,” is here analyzed as a case of writing being “borrowed as a symbol [. . .] while its reality remained unknown.” Lévi-Strauss acknowledges that “for thousands of years, writing has existed as an institution—and such is still the case today in a large part of the world—in societies the majority of whose members have never learnt to handle it,” but in his experience of village scribes in eastern Pakistan, “all the villagers know about writing, and make use of it if the need arises, but they do so from the outside, as if it were a foreign mediatory agent that they communicate with by oral methods” (298; emphasis added). At the end of the essay, he returns to the Nambikwara, concluding with the confession that “I could not help admiring their chief’s genius in instantly recognizing that writing could increase his authority, thus grasping the basis of the institution without knowing how to use it” (300; emphasis added). It is significant that between the description of the chief’s performance and the essay on writing comes a near-comic misadventure in which Lévi-Strauss, lost in the jungle, is rescued by two of the illiterate

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subjects of his study (for whom locating the gear he had foolishly lost “was child’s play” [297]). In a similar inversion, the power that he witnesses being exerted by the chief over his followers—however unstable it may be—is also exercised by the chief over Lévi-Strauss himself. The anthropologist experiences the writing lesson as a reduction of writing to a symbolic shadow of what it should be, but it is also true that the lesson has transformed writing into something the chief can control, not merely in relation to his subjects alone, but also including Lévi-Strauss, who plays the role that has been selected for him by the chief. Ignore for a moment the great historical frame around the French anthropologist, literally and figuratively armed with all the technological advantages of colonial power, and his near-naked ‘native’ subject. For the duration of the performance—and the gift exchange is said to have lasted “for two hours”—the chief was not “outside” a “foreign mediatory agent,” fumbling with a “borrowed” symbol “without knowing how to use it.” The wavy handwritten lines that were the basis of his performance were linguistically opaque, as were the lines of handwritten French that filled Lévi-Strauss’s field notebooks, but that opacity means the chief had been excluded from the “reality” of writing only if literacy is conceived of as inherently transparent.14 A scene from J. M. Coetzee’s novel Waiting for the Barbarians (1980) provides another perspective on the complex power dynamics of opaque writing. The nameless magistrate of an outpost on the edge of an unspecified empire is being interrogated by the sinister Colonel Joll, whose forces have been torturing and killing barbarians who roam the lands beyond the border. In ruins outside the settlement, the magistrate has discovered ancient slips of wood with undecipherable characters, and his interrogators have mistaken these for secret communications with contemporary barbarians. I look at the lines of characters written by a stranger long since dead. I do not even know whether to read from right to left or from left to right. In the long evenings I spent poring over my collection I isolated over four hundred different characters in the script, perhaps as many as four hundred and fifty. I have no idea what they stand for. [. . .]

——— 14. For more on images of ‘natives’ baffled by writing, see endnote 1.4.

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“He sends greetings to his daughter,” I say. [. . .] My finger runs along the line of characters from right to left. “[. . .] It is not easy to read his signature. It could be simply ‘Your father’ or it could be something else, a name.” I reach over into the chest and pick out a second slip. The warrant officer, who sits behind Joll with a little notebook open on his knee, stares hard at me, his pencil poised above the paper. “This one reads as follows,” I say: “ ‘I am sorry I must send bad news. The soldiers came and took your brother away.’ ” [. . .] “And now let us see what this next one says.” The pencil is still poised, he has not written anything, he has not stirred. “ ‘We went to fetch your brother yesterday. They showed us into a room where he lay on a table sewn up in a sheet.’” Slowly Joll leans back in his chair. The warrant officer closes his notebook and half-rises; but with a gesture Joll restrains him. “‘They wanted me to take him away like that, but I insisted on looking first. [. . .] I tore the sheet wide open and saw bruises all over his body, and saw that his feet were swollen and broken. “What happened to him?” I said. “I do not know,” said the man, “it is not on the paper.” [. . .] “Now let us see what the next one says. See, there is only a single character. It is the barbarian character war, but it has other senses too. It can stand for vengeance, and, if you turn it upside down like this, it can be made to read justice. There is no knowing which sense is intended. That is part of barbarian cunning” (Coetzee 1999, 108–9).

Like the Nambikwara chief’s performance, the magistrate’s charade gains meaning from the juxtaposition of two different relationships with writing: the transparent relationship—for want of a better term we can call it ‘legible’ for now—symbolized by the warrant officer’s notebook and the “paper” referred to in the barbarian ‘message,’ and the opaque relationship between the ancient characters and the magistrate’s ‘reading’ of them. This latter ‘reading’ is distinctive in that it is a politically charged act of resistance enabled by his interrogators’ initial expectation (or suspicion) that he is capable of legible reading of the mysterious writing. But my aim in introducing this passage is not to claim that opaque relations with writing always involve similar political nuances, of ‘resistance,’ for example. William Harris’s critique of the “Writing Lesson” raised the issue of “mental, economic, and even political independence” vis-à-vis modern legible practices of reading and writing. Despite the associations between ‘transparent’ literacy and the standardizing, record-keeping, and

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indoctrination that are essential to what Scott (1998) terms “seeing like a state,” the possibility of certain degrees of independence must be recognized. That is to say, domination may depend on legibility, but legibility does not necessarily mean domination. But the same decoupling of a relationship to writing from a particular political meaning is necessary in considering what I will provisionally call ‘alegible’ reception as well. Lévi-Strauss’s essay on writing took the Nambikwara chief’s performance as a claim to power over his subjects, and thus as an almost metaphoric confirmation from the “outside” of writing’s essential meaning, but the incident means something very different when the role of the anthropologist himself is considered more explicitly. Similarly, the magistrate’s performance of reading involves him in one relationship with his bureaucratic tormentors, and in different ones with the original writers of the mysterious characters and the absent barbarians whose “cunning” is recruited in a sarcastic, but still Orientalist, act of ventriloquism. These two passages draw our attention to the unexpected richness of ‘opaque’ texts, but they also warn us away from assuming there are simple historical meanings attendant on that opacity, or, for that matter, on more ‘transparent’ varieties of reading. Before considering more explicitly the ways in which ‘literacy’ has been theorized, it is worth devoting a bit more attention to this problem of ‘opacity’ or ‘alegibility.’ BETTER OFF UNREAD?

I will return to the relationship between language and writing; for now let me stipulate that what I have been calling ‘legibility’ involves marks whose linguistic reception—the reading—is semantically, if not phonologically, similar to that with which they would have been associated in the context in which they originated. Aspects of the reception of an inscription that do not necessarily involve this kind of reading can be provisionally termed ‘alegible.’ The term ‘illegible’ is best avoided because the important point is not that particular inscriptions could not be or were not read (which is unprovable), but rather that under certain circumstances, the inscriptions function regardless—that is, their legibility does not become an issue.15 ——— 15. For more on the neologism ‘alegible,’ see endnote 1.5.

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This distinction cannot be rephrased as ‘communicative’ versus ‘noncommunicative’ uses of writing, because ultimately no human artifact is ‘noncommunicative.’ As is already clear from the Hirota shell and the twentieth-century literary episodes discussed above, inscribed objects always signify in multiple ways that are loosely related to—and potentially independent of—their ‘content’: the material employed, the size and color of the inscription, the stylistic features of its graphs, and so on. Writing is also often associated with pictorial or symbolic visual designs with conventional meanings that overlap with or complement the meanings of the graphs themselves, and the impression created by these images or symbols can determine the reception of the inscription they accompany, even if this inscription is unread. Moreover, even written messages produced in contexts where they are widely and readily comprehended legibly by many members of the surrounding community—for example, street signs in a foreign city, or a newspapers in a minority language—have only alegible meanings for those unable to read them. In all of these cases, coming to terms with how a given piece of writing functions means working out its legible and alegible meanings, and considering the potential relationships between them.16 To cite a familiar modern example, over the past decade or so tattoos of Chinese characters have gained considerable popularity in the United States and elsewhere. Ideally the ‘legible’ readings these relatively durable marks have for people capable of reading in Chinese (or Japanese, or Korean, for that matter) are more or less consistent with the ‘alegible’ meaning the marks have for their bearers, who ‘know’ what they mean because someone has explained it to them, or because they requested a tattoo with that particular meaning. One way to describe the difference between the legible and alegible functions of writing would be to say that they respectively involve readership and spectatorship. Where the reader has prior knowledge of the component signs of an inscription, and responds to it, at least in part, by combining them, the spectator ——— 16. When there is no direct access to the communities that surrounded a body of writing, it is difficult to determine the extent to which the alegible functions of inscriptions were related—or unrelated—to their legible functions. This means that one cannot afford to ignore the ‘content’ of any early written artifact, even if there is little chance that content was directly accessible to the communities that employed and valued the artifact.

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responds to it as a whole. Spectators’ responses can range from a precise understanding of the ‘content’ of the alegible writing, as with the tattoo bearer who has ordered or been promised a particular character, to a vague sense of awe directed at marks believed to have supernatural power.17 It is not incidental that so many tattoo bearers refer to their characters as ‘symbols’: much that is troubling about this fad lies in this transformation of quotidian graphs to exotic glyphs, redolent with ‘Oriental’ wisdom (Brilliant 2004). As with the chief and the magistrate, determining the alegible meaning of a mark involves explicit or implicit claims to power. It may be that Lévi-Strauss is right to see this relationship as one that clarifies an inherent link between power and literacy, even if his slavery hypothesis is overstated. But before turning to a more systematic look at ‘legibility’ itself, a few more examples will show that the heterogenous relations to writing I am lumping together here as ‘alegible’ are exceedingly common: indeed, they are universal. It is striking how widespread ‘opaque’ uses of writing are, even in societies thoroughly penetrated by ‘transparent’ or instrumental varieties of literacy. As with the exoticism of the character tattoo, this is often a matter of graphic signification of cultural otherness, fetishized or not. Modern travelers’ accounts, from Lafcadio Hearn to Roland Barthes and beyond, abound with references to the tantalizing surface of East Asian writing whose ‘interior’ is inaccessible. Hearn wrote that “these ideographs have a speaking symmetry which no design without a meaning could possess,” and enthused phantasmagorically about “Chinese texts—multitudinous, weird, mysterious—fleeing by me, all in one direction; ideographs white and dark, upon sign-boards, upon paper screens, upon backs of sandaled men. They seem to live, these ideographs, with conscious life; they are moving their parts, moving with a movement as of insects, monstrously” (Hearn 1976 [1894], 3–4; 28). Barthes’s Empire of Signs (1982) is one long, sophisticated meditation, at

——— 17. For a large and illuminating compendium of Chinese character tattoos gone wrong, see Tian Tang’s website Hanzi Smatter. I am grateful to Jonathan Stockdale for suggesting the distinction between readership and spectatorship.

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once brilliant and creepy in its extreme self-consciousness, on this play of surfaces.18 I have already alluded to the ways modern urban environments foster similar experiences for both visitors and residents. Postcolonial, globalizing cityscapes can provide bewildering mixtures of differing scripts and written languages. But this is by no means a new development: cities and the empires governed from them have always been multilingual, a variety necessarily reflected in the ‘graphosphere’ of writing on signs, structures, and clothing.19 Multiple languages and scripts increase the chances that some of these instances of writing will be ‘opaque’ to many of those who encounter them, but the variable ‘transparency’ of the graphosphere pertains in actually or ostensibly monolingual contexts as well: for children, adults who cannot read, and nearsighted individuals; or with respect to distant signs or inscriptions, stylized graffiti tags, or unseen inscriptions (for example, labels on the bases of Egyptian portrait-sculptures). Obviously, knowing that writing is writing does not necessarily involve ‘reading’ it. Everyone within a graphosphere witnesses writing, so that those who cannot read are, willy-nilly, its denizens as much as those who can. Even the latter are capable of choosing, to some extent, whether or not to read a text, but it is never possible to avoid spectating one, as with books displayed in a ‘library’ room in a restaurant or arranged on shelves in furniture stores or catalog illustrations (Baker 1996). Display to indicate social affiliation or cultural distinction is a totemic function of writing, as in what Albertine Gaur refers to as the “corporate logo” function of differences in calligraphic style (2000). Such a function is part of the production and reception of all artifacts, but standards of beauty are somewhat, though of course not totally, independent from the social contexts of art objects. In the case of calligraphy, standards of visual beauty represent a source of authority and ——— 18. For a scathingly unsympathetic discussion of Barthes’s delight in unreadable writing, see Erbaugh 2002. 19. The term ‘graphosphere’ is from Armando Petrucci (1993, 46); for analyses of multilinguality in modern cities that touch on their complex graphospheres, see Blommaert, Collins, and Slembrouck 2005; Collins and Slembrouck 2005; and Backhaus 2007. Henkin 1998 is an illuminating account of the public space of writing in nineteenth-century New York.

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meaning potentially separable from any acts of ‘reading,’ at least in the common sense of the term. Calligraphy has pronounced affinities with abstract art (Ledderose 2000), and the tendency in modern calligraphy has been to move further away from legibility as a limit or structuring principle, resulting in abstract calligraphy that may be seen as having ceased to be a form of writing.20 The prominence of pseudo-Kufic decorative elements on pottery, textiles, and architecture in tenth-century Byzantine and Romanesque art is a related example of the decorative value of unread script, or perhaps better, of script-like marks.21 A similar role is played by text in art books (Kenner [1971] vividly describes the unreadability of the Kelmscott Chaucer) and in the various strains of concrete poetry and the like in avant-garde and modernist writing. Magical, or talismanic, effects of writing are another class of effects with little or no reliance on conventional acts of ‘reading.’ Writing-like Greek charakteres were a widespread medium for spells and curses in the ancient world (Bodel 2001); and throughout its history the alphabet has been associated with similar magical effects (Drucker 1995). In East Asia there is a robust tradition of (illegible) spirit writing and writinglike magical charms (Strickmann 2002 and 2005; Bokenkamp 2007; Robson 2008); in medieval Japan even widely produced books of popular tales (Nara ehon) were used as amulets (Ruch 1977).22 There is an extensive anthropological literature on the affinities between writing and significant marks serving as magical talismans or totemic emblems. 23 Such material, surveyed in conjunction with the social and aesthetic considerations outlined above, has the potential to decenter traditional notions of literacy. It may be going too far to say that this decentering would lead to the conclusion that comprehension is optional in the history of writing, but at the very least we must acknowledge that in ——— 20. On abstract calligraphy, see Zhang 1998. For more on this issue, see endnote 1.6. 21. On pseudo-Kufic decoration, see Blair 1998 and Schapiro 1977 [1947]. For broader discussions of the links between writing and ornament in the Islamic world, see Grabar 1992 and Nelson 2005. 22. Rusk 2005 discusses interactions among different types of “illegibility,” including the magical variety, in late Ming China. For more on writing and magic, see endnote 1.7. 23. See Goody 1968b, 16–19; Archetti 1994; Gundaker 1998; and Wogan 2004.

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concrete contexts, past and present, it cannot be taken for granted that the ‘transparent’ variety of reading is foundational, or even present. Beyond their connection to ‘writing’ (the definition of which I discuss below), I propose no common element or core practice to unify all of the practices alluded to above. They are marked by extraordinary heterogeneity: for example, decorative fields of unread (and often nonsensical) foreign text on shopping bags or T-shirts, character tattoos with specific meanings requested and described by their bearers, and wavy lines or decorative patterns indistinct from writing for at least some of their viewers all involve radically different relations to marks and their meanings.24 ‘Alegibility’ is a heuristic concept, not a designation of a unified phenomenon; the point is that these various practices share a disconnection from what we tend to see as the core functions of reading and writing. The foregoing discussion clears a space for analysis by forcing us to relativize our own literacies, and to recognize a vast family of powers-of-writing that do not depend on the ‘content’ or ‘message’ of inscriptions. THEORIZING LITERACIES

Claims about the transhistorical consequences of literacy transformed the disciplines of anthropology, education, psychology, literary history, and classical studies in the 1960s and 1970s, and remain influential despite vigorous criticism almost from their inception.25 There were precursors, notably in the work of Harold Innis (discussed in Chapter 3), but the pivotal moment for literacy theory was in the early 1960s, when a seminal essay by Jack Goody and Ian Watt (1963) appeared around the same time as work by Eric Havelock (1963), Albert Lord (1960), ——— 24. I am grateful to Talbot Taylor for pointing out the importance of the distinction between text-fields as design elements and tattooed characters as symbols to which specific meanings are attributed. 25. On the debates surrounding claims made for ‘literacy,’ and its theoretical mirror image ‘orality,’ see Street 1993 and Olson 1994, 1–19. Ong 1988 is the best-known introduction to the orality/literacy paradigm, but it has little to say about criticism of the theory. Overviews of the field can be found in Barton 1994 (an introductory textbook), Collins 1995 (a dense but useful survey), and Collins and Blot 2003 (more recent and extensive).

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and Marshall McLuhan (1962). Among the various influences on the emergence and popularity of this perspective, two factors were the deprivation of written material experienced by Goody and Watt in prisonerof-war camps in the early 1940s (Goody 2000, 8) and the generational experience of the new ‘oral’ medium of radio (Havelock 1986, 30–33). By no means were Goody and Watt the first to associate writing and ‘civilization,’ but they brought to the topic a sharp sense of the problems of the latter notion, and a strikingly mid-twentieth-century disciplinary awareness. Rereading the essay nearly five decades after its publication, one is struck by their intense concern to adjudicate turf disputes between anthropology and sociology. Their central aim is revisionist—one could even, unkindly, call it reactionary: “Recent anthropology has rightly rejected the categorical distinctions between the thinking of ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized’ peoples [. . .] but the reaction has been pushed too far: diffuse relativism and sentimental egalitarianism combine to turn a blind eye on some of the most basic problems of human history” (1963, 344). As an explanation for “the intellectual difference in the cultural traditions of complex and simple societies,” they propose “the invention of writing, which changed the whole structure of the cultural tradition” (344). Oral societies transmit traditional knowledge “almost entirely by face-to-face communication; and changes in its content are accompanied by the homeostatic process of forgetting or transforming those parts of the tradition that cease to be either necessary or relevant,” but in “literate societies,” “permanently recorded versions of the past and its beliefs” are “set apart from the present,” which leads to “historical enquiry,” “skepticism,” and logical analysis (344–45). They are careful to qualify these assertions, in ways to which I will turn shortly, but even so Goody and Watt are attempting to find a new, more empirically defensible ground for the old dichotomy between ‘primitive’ and ‘civilized.’ But replacing that dichotomy with one between categories of ‘oral’ and ‘literate’ that are held to be consistent across different cultures and different eras creates its own problems. One of the most salient early criticisms of the hypothesis was that advanced by Ruth Finnegan, who cast doubt on a putative “great divide” created by linguistic, cognitive, and social changes that split human history into incommensurable oral and literate realms. Based on specialist work on oral poetry, she indicates underlying similarities between supposedly divergent oral and literate

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forms of linguistic art and emphasizes the internal differences in cultures lumped together by the orality/literacy paradigm: “though there are indeed interesting differences between the literary media [i.e., language arts] in non-literate and in literate groups, these seem to be no more fundamental than differences within each of these” (Finnegan 1973, 143). She sums up her criticism thusly: “Non-literacy itself is unclear and relative enough as a characterization; but the further assumption that nonliterate cultures and individuals necessarily lack the insight and inspiration—the modes of thought—that we associate with literature seems on the basis of present evidence an unjustified conclusion” (144). The notion of a homogenous orality is obviously problematic, but for the purposes of this book the major flaw of the ‘great divide’ theory (and of mainstream thinking on literacy itself until the 1980s) is that it also lumps together all literacies, arranging various abilities to produce and interpret texts into a hierarchy of partial or primitive literacy developing towards full or genuine literacy. But the evidence for early inscriptive practice in many societies reveals a variety of relationships with writing on the part of a wide range of individuals. As the purposes for which people read and wrote varied widely, one might well speak of magical or religious literacies, bureaucratic literacies, ideological literacies, aesthetic literacies, and so on. Paralleling Finnegan, we can argue that there is as much diversity among these as there is between any one of them and a putative ‘primary orality.’ This realization of multiple literacies was a crucial part of the best-known critique that approached the orality/ literacy paradigm from the literacy side: that of Brian Street and the other proponents of what he refers to as the “New Literacy Studies.” For Street, theorists of a great divide between orality and literacy rely on complex notions of “autonomy,” meaning that they treat the phenomenon of literacy itself as autonomous from cultural, social, and political factors, and also that they see literacy as solely or largely responsible for a host of ‘modern,’ ‘Western’ behaviors, all of which involve types of autonomy—religious, institutional, textual, individual, and so on. To this he contrasts the approach of scholars who have come “to view literacy practices as inextricably linked to cultural and power structures in society, and to recognize the variety of cultural practices associated with reading and writing in different contexts. Avoiding the reification of the autonomous model, they study these social practices rather

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than literacy-in-itself for their relationship to other aspects of social life” (Street 1993, 7). Because this “New Literacy Studies” also emphasizes “the role of literacy practices in reproducing or challenging structures of power and domination” Street “characterize[s] this approach as an ‘ideological’ model” (7), a wording that has provoked criticism, even from scholars sympathetic to aspects of Street’s argument (S. D. Houston 2004b, 5–8). Leaving aside potential terminological distractions, the point is that a teleological, normative notion of an abstract, disembodied ‘literacy’ prevents us from understanding what the phenomenon actually is and has been historically (which is inseparable from what its various functions have been). A more familiar approach, still prevalent in educational circles, centers on the notion of a kind of ladder of progressively more advanced skills, wherein true or complete literacy involves mastering all of them in time, in accordance with the same hierarchy, progressing from the bottom to the top in order. Thus ‘true’ literacy involves both comprehensive command of all techniques, and also an implicit narrative of how those techniques were mastered. But it is not easy to determine the relative positions of certain practices, and in the real world we cannot assume that possession of a ‘higher’ form automatically means command of ‘lower’ ones.26 For example, someone who can read Don Quixote or Dante in the original may not be able to complete a bureaucratic form in Spanish or Italian, or write a letter, an email, or an instant message. Certain written languages do not even have all of the purported components: is there such a thing as ‘pragmatic literacy’ in Latin in the twentyfirst century? If it is amusing that a travel writer, “having picked up most of [his] Japanese from a businessman’s handbook and bilingual editions of poetry [. . .] was able to deliver nothing but sentences like ‘Please give your secretary the autumn moon’ ” (Iyer 1992, 83–84), then much of the humor comes from the incongruous juxtaposition of two different lit——— 26. It may seem at first that the degree of ‘comprehension’ is a viable standard for organizing a hierarchy of literacy skills, but as Wittgenstein’s well-known excursus on reading (1958, 61–72 [ §156–§178]) reminds us, unexpected complexities lurk in this line of thought. ‘Comprehension’ is of questionable viability as a master-concept for the investigation of the history of reading and writing.

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eracies. (The joke also involves interactions between written and spoken language, an issue to which I will return.) In multilingual environments, people have complex sets of interactions with writing in different languages, but even in monolingual contexts they are confronted by multiple different written registers. Such complexity makes it difficult to think in terms of a hierarchy of lower and higher stages of literacy; ultimately, we must question the overarching notion that certain relations to written materials are more privileged, or more fundamental than others.27 As I have suggested already, this extends to alegible uses of writing that may not even seem to qualify as ‘reading.’ This is not to insist on what Goody and Watt dismiss as “diffuse relativism” or “sentimental egalitarianism,” but rather to argue that the starting point for historical analysis must be to see how various practices are arranged in given social contexts, rather than to assume beforehand that some such practices will be more vital or authentic than others. To return to one of the points that Street makes under the rubric of ‘autonomy,’ the central issue is the transcendence of the posited individual as the primary context for the emergence and effects of literacy. Analysis of the history of literacy is not a matter of investigating (or rather, of speculating about) the ‘mental equipment’ of particular people taken in isolation, but rather of tracing the socially embedded roles of particular communicative practices. The best-known work along these lines has been done by social scientists working in contemporary societies, but there is a large historical literature as well.28 It is particularly edifying to consider the counterintuitive importance of ‘illiteracy’ for investigations of the social role of writing. Whether in the case of late twentieth-century North American city-dwellers (Fingeret 1983), medieval European elites (Bauml 1980), or Greco-Roman Egyptians (Youtie 1971a, 1971b, 1975), benefiting from literacy skills depends less on their ——— 27. On the implications of this line of thinking for literacy statistics, see endnote 1.8. 28. For contemporary social scientific studies, see Scribner and Cole 1981; Heath 1983; Street 1984; and Gee 1996. For a sampling of historical scholarship, see W. V. Harris 1989; Bowman and Woolf 1994; McKitterick 1990; Clanchy 1993; Stock 1983; and R. A. Houston 1988. Two valuable, and very different, collections of essays on the history of reading are Boyarin 1993 and Cavallo and Chartier 1999. For a recent, thoughtful discussion of varieties of literacy in medieval England, see Zieman 2008.

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possession by an individual than on the individual’s location in a social network that allows access to those skills. As Lévi-Strauss himself suggests—perhaps without fully realizing it—with his example of the Pakistani villagers and their employment of scribes, those who can exert a degree of control over the powers attendant on reading and writing are not ‘outside’ the technology (or more accurately, technologies), regardless of whether or not they themselves, as individuals, have ‘internalized’ skills of reading and writing. Viewed from this perspective the distinction between ‘alegible’ and ‘legible’ relations to writing is a deceptive one, partly because it is difficult to find a bright line to separate the two classes (however clearly distinguishable extreme examples may be), but more importantly because, in the end, both involve socially embedded circulation of significant marks; whether those marks are ‘opaque’ to some or to all may not be the first or most interesting question we might ask about their meanings and functions.29 Because it is not only critics but also proponents of the “consequences of literacy” hypothesis who have acknowledged, in varying degrees, the inherent variety of both ‘orality’ and ‘literacy,’ the drive toward complicating factors has occurred on both sides of the debate. In fact, this tendency was present from the beginning, as Goody and Watt (1963) alternate between making broad claims about literacy in general and specifying particular effects for particular subtypes of literacy. My earlier summary of their core claims was somewhat misleading, because they link these claims in several places not to writing considered globally but to the particular technological path it is said to have taken in the ancient Mediterranean. In other words, they are most concerned with what they call “alphabetic literacy” (320), and their best case for the consequences of writing stems from the transformations the alphabet purportedly wreaked on the culture and cognition of ancient Greece.30 ——— 29. We might choose to think in terms of a “writing game,” after the notion of a “language game” proposed by Wittgenstein (1958). The point is to broaden our focus to take in uses of writing and the sets of social practices that accompany it, or depend on it, or enable it. 30. Goody and Watt acknowledge a debt to the work of Eric Havelock (for example, 1963), which though widely read has generally not been well received by classicists and literacy theorists (W. V. Harris 1989, 40–41; Halverson 1992b; Thomas 1992, 17).

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It is therefore unclear whether the overarching arguments of the article pertain to writing in general or to a specific variety of writing. Goody and Watt attempt to resolve this ambiguity by arguing that the superiority of the alphabet meant that it unleashed the full consequences of literacy for the first time, but this argument is vitiated by their omission of any discussion of non-alphabetic writing. 31 This problematic status of the alphabet, at once a form of script among others and the ultimate form of script—its typological and historical culmination—is common to most other modern discussions of writing and literacy. (This point is discussed repeatedly in this book, especially in the concluding chapter.) Despite the problems posed by such an approach to the alphabet, awareness of factors complicating a basic oral/literate dichotomy produced rich accounts of important developments in cultural, social, and literary history. For example, Goody’s repeated adjustment and restatement of his position yielded a series of studies (1977, 1986, 1987) that remain essential reading. But ultimately this process of retrenchment leads to what has aptly been described as the “implosion of the literacy thesis” (Halverson 1992a). If there has been a turn to talking about “implications” rather than “consequences” of literacy, as Rosalind Thomas (1992, 15–28) emphasizes, it becomes difficult to make a firm claim that the adoption of writing serves as a determining factor in cultural, social, and cognitive changes, and ultimately we are left with a consideration of a number of factors interacting together, writing among them, rather than with a grand theory of literacy’s influence on human history. It is ironic, though not surprising, that such a consideration of multiple factors is essentially what is intended by Street’s “ideological model.”32 But if the literacy hypothesis, especially as Goody articulated and then adjusted it, has “imploded,” then it can perhaps be said of the “New Literacy Studies” that it has exploded its object. For once we have denied ——— 31. This point is made by Kathleen Gough (1968) in a collection of essays Goody (1968a) put together as a continuation of the 1963 article, which is reprinted at the outset. 32. The extent to which Goody’s ideas came to mesh with those of his critics partly explains the frustration with which he discusses Street’s critique (2000, 4–11), but as Thomas (1992, 18) points out, he continues to make grand assertions even as he qualifies earlier ones, and his persistence in using notions like “partial literacy” also suggests that the convergence is not total.

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the unity of literacy as a phenomenon and insisted on its integration with the full range of human communicative practices, to what extent does it remain as an independent object of inquiry? It may seem a simple matter to empty ‘literacy’ of problematic assumptions and to treat it as a general term for all of the things that humans do with writing, but this begs the question of what writing is. And that leads to a new paradox: it is impossible to discuss reading without defining writing, but as we will see shortly, defining writing involves making assumptions about the nature of reading. The solution is not a renewed quest for terminological purity—“the treacherous sport of definition stalking” (B. H. Smith 1968, 198)—but care and flexibility in thinking about the history of human communication and the heuristic value of certain provisional concepts therein. Great Discovery or Just a Smudge? In addition to adumbrating some of the major themes of this book, the foregoing discussion has provided some guidelines for considering the significance of artifacts like the Hirota shell plaque. But before returning to the problems of such specific objects from the Yayoi and Tomb periods, it is necessary to proceed a few steps further into the vexing problem of what is meant by the term ‘writing.’ DEFINING WRITING

In a pioneering history of scripts, I. J. Gelb (1963, 12) describes writing as “a system of human intercommunication by means of conventional visible marks.” This famous description is uncontroversial as far as it goes, but it is less a restrictive definition than a specification of a space for debate. Some scholars hold that all such systems should be called writing, but others insist on the additional criterion of a particular relationship to language: for example, “writing is defined as a system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer” (Daniels 1996a, 3).33 To use inelegant but convenient terms of art, the problem can be ——— 33. Much like Goody and Watt, whose classic article came out the same year as the second edition of his Study of Writing, Gelb himself vacillates somewhat in his treatment

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framed as follows: is all writing glottographic (representative of language), or could some of it be semasiographic (representative of meaning)?34 Two particular controversies are relevant here. One involves debates about the nature of Chinese writing, the other, arguments about New World systems of communication, especially from Mexico and the Andes. In a study of writing that was the first of a surge of Anglophone surveys of writing systems that inherited (and significantly revised) Gelb’s project, Geoffrey Sampson (1985) divided all writing into semasiographic and glottographic, although like Gelb he held onto the option of denying the former the status of true writing. Partly because he left open the possibility of semasiographic writing, and partly because he treated the Chinese script as logographic (that is, “based on meaningful units” of language [Sampson 1985, 33]), he was drawn into debate with John DeFrancis and J. Marshall Unger.35 As do other serious scholars of writing, all three reject the notion that the Chinese writing system represents ideas directly, but DeFrancis and Unger go further in insisting that it represents not “meaningful units” (words or morphemes), but rather the syllables of Chinese words, and only secondarily morphological information about those syllables. Their second, and more fundamental, premise is that all writing is necessarily phonographic (representative of the sounds of language), and that writing systems based on the direct representation, not only of ideas, but even of words, do not exist in practice and are in fact impossible.36 The problem of how to classify the Chinese writing system, and more broadly the issue of non-phonographic elements in writing, are both major issues for this book, and are taken up in detail in Chapters 4 and 7; but here I would like to consider the implications of a definition of writing that insists so completely on glottography. ——— of the general definition of writing, but in the typological and historical discussion that takes up the bulk of his book it becomes clear that he insists on the linguistic connection. 34. On ‘glottography’ and ‘semasiography,’ see endnote 1.9. 35. See DeFrancis 1989; Sampson 1994; DeFrancis and Unger 1994; and Unger and DeFrancis 1995. 36. See Lurie 2006 for a discussion of this polemic and its disciplinary framework; aspects of the debate have recently been revisited in McDonald 2009.

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As both Roy Harris (1986, 1995) and Malcolm Hyman (2006) have argued, it is not such a simple matter to evacuate the non-glottographic from the theory of writing. Both advocate a broader vision of writing as a system of systems, within which glottographic elements interact with other principles of communication. The focus thereby shifts from transcription of spoken language as the sine qua non of writing to a more contextualized picture of linguistic elements integrated with other subsystems, including some that could well be termed ‘semasiographic.’ Essentially, the point is that an overly narrow definition of writing results in an impoverished understanding of what it is and what it does, even in more familiar contexts where there are clear links between sets of marks and language. Theorists like Harris and Hyman (or Sampson, for that matter) are interested in the problem of ‘protowriting,’ but in dissenting from a radically glottographic standard, they address the structure and function of systems to which no one, at present, denies the status of writing: for example, Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Mayan glyphs as well as Chinese characters.37 The other major area of opposition to a strictly glottographic definition of writing is, however, more embedded in political and cultural history, and also more fully concerned with borderline cases analogous to that of ‘protowriting.’ This is the “writing without words” position, which argues that Mesoamerican and Andean systems of communication, among them Mixtec and Aztec ‘pictographs,’ and Incan khipu, should be considered full-fledged systems of writing regardless of their incomplete or nonexistent indication of spoken language (Boone and Mignolo 1994; Marcus 1992; Boone 2004). This approach stems partly from an awareness that “a large share of the human race’s inscriptive inventions [. . .] now languish[es] in oubliette categories such as ‘proto writings,’ ‘partial writings,’ and ‘subgraphemics’” and “ought to be rescued,” as Frank Salomon eloquently puts it (2001, 2). But it is also grounded in an awareness of the strong ——— 37. No serious scholar would deny the status of writing to these ancient systems, but still the alphabet, and other systems taken to approach its phonographicity, is often treated as ‘more equal than others’; as argued in Chapter 7, such alphabeticism continues to shape discussions of writing even when its assumptions have been ostensibly repudiated.

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relationship between alphabetic writing and colonial and postcolonial regimes in these regions (Mignolo 2003), a context that cannot but color arguments about whether or not indigenous systems of communication are sufficiently ‘advanced’ to be termed writing. As with the ‘opaque’ readings of the Nambikwara chief and Coetzee’s magistrate, determining the meaning of inscription, even on the meta-level of how to label it, involves implicit claims about power and legitimacy. But of course it would be irresponsible to suggest that such considerations necessarily prevent the reasonable application of a glottographic standard for defining writing. There are undeniable differences between systems that have a robust glottographic function and those that do not, differences that were noted by indigenous peoples themselves as they came into contact with European writing (Trigger 2004, 44). To the extent that it is possible to avoid the aforementioned conceptual problems, one could certainly argue, with Trigger, that “it might be more informative to refer to semasiography as recording and reserve the term writing for systems that represent language” (44), although following Hyman (2006) that last clause might be better put as ‘systems that include the capability to represent language.’ To be too quick to broaden the scope of what is meant by ‘writing’ means risking the meaningfulness of the concept itself. In particular it damages our ability to think about the connections between writing and language and their significance for graphic communication. Practically speaking as well, abandoning glottography as a standard means losing the unity of this area of inquiry, and although that in itself is not a legitimate reason to maintain a particular concept, it is true that we risk replacing a flawed but workable set of distinctions with a vague notion of ‘graphic communication,’ much as the loss of a unifying notion of ‘literacy’ endangers the historical thread that bears that label. One of the chief reasons for maintaining the narrow definition of writing is its connection to broader claims about the communicative power of graphic marks linked with natural language. DeFrancis argues that semasiographic systems of communication are associated with particular, relatively narrow domains, while by virtue of their link to the open-ended, flexible media of natural language, glottographic systems have a much wider potential for communication. This is an important insight, but it is not necessarily sufficient grounds to purge entirely the

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notion of semasiography from writing. DeFrancis opposes the actual capabilities of language-based inscription to Sampson’s suggestion that similarly broad semasiographic systems are in principle possible even if none have been found, but it is important to note that DeFrancis’s claim for the generality of glottography also involves a significant degree of argument from principle rather than historical actuality. In effect, although insistence on full glottography may be defensible, it involves hidden assumptions about what writing is for that are likely to interfere with historical examination if they are not brought out into the open. DeFrancis’s definition of writing, which is explicitly intended to drive a wedge between semasiographic and glottographic systems: Partial writing is a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey only some thought. Full writing is a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thought (DeFrancis 1989, 5).

William James (1890, 224–90) is among the many who would doubt that language—the implicit middle term of the second part of the definition—is sufficient to “convey any and all thought,” but this is an issue that I will not pursue here. My interest, rather, is in what contemporary work on the history of literacies can bring to this problem of the theorization of writing. The extent to which DeFrancis’s vision of “full writing” depends on a particular approach to literacy is clarified when one considers the longstanding interest in script reform that partially underlies his study of writing systems. It is relevant to recall that in an earlier study of Chinese language and writing he argues for the superiority of alphabetic pinyin orthography by noting the “full literacy [. . .] of Chinese children using Pinyin”: “A study made on 19 November 1962 of diaries written by first graders in Harbin revealed the ability of even the weakest pupils to give touching expression to their thoughts and feelings after a mere ten weeks of schooling” (DeFrancis 1984, 283). Such a model of self-expression may well have an important role to play in the context of late twentiethcentury primary education, and certainly discussions of script reform in contemporary societies should take it into account. But a moment’s reflection on the variety of literacies emphasized earlier in this chapter reveals what a shaky basis such a vision of writing’s purpose provides for

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historical inquiry. From its inception until the modern period, for most if not all societies with writing, the notion that children’s educational progress should be evaluated by their ability to express “their thoughts and feelings” in writing would have been a nonsensical one. And while DeFrancis does not link the pinyin passage with such general claims, it leads us to realize that there is little chance that the idea that writing should serve to “convey any and all thought” would have occurred to anyone before the rise of the twin discourses of modern science and the modern novel (each universalist in its own way).38 Another aspect of the history of literacy that has been neglected in theoretical discussions of writing is the problem of reception. Once again the Nambikwara chief and Coetzee’s magistrate provide useful examples. The original nature and function of alphabetic French in LéviStrauss’s notebooks or the magistrate’s mysterious excavated characters can be discussed along the lines of the foregoing arguments about glottography and general communicative potential. But what of the use made of these forms of writing by the chief and the magistrate? Do the marks involved cease to become writing when they are submitted to ‘opaque’ ‘reading’? What if they are made to express ‘thoughts’ that would not, or could not, have been conveyed by them in their original contexts? These are extreme examples, by virtue in particular of their alegibility, but this is an issue that haunts the history of writing in other, more familiar venues as well. The problem of reception is often discussed in terms of the transformation of scripts (through adaptation in new linguistic contexts) or the generation of new ones (through ‘stimulus diffusion’—the spread of the idea of writing). But as important as considerations of these two issues are, they leave out the broader problem of how existing writing—not abstract systems, but pre-existing inscriptions, books, and so on—is transformed through active reception in social strata or cultural contexts different from those in which it ——— 38. My point is not to reject DeFrancis’s case for a strict glottographic definition as much as to indicate some of the assumptions that condition it. The omnipotently expressive writing envisioned by his definition is not as counterfactual as Sampson’s notion of a general semasiographic inscription, but even so, for most societies that have made use of writing (and for a significant proportion of the social strata of those that do so today) it also expresses a potential rather than an actual situation.

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originated. A new social and cultural context can change a script from what DeFrancis would call “full” to “partial,” but even with inarguably glottographic writing profound structural changes occur. One of the best examples of this is the fate of ‘Chinese’ writing elsewhere in East Asia, as documented most extensively in the Japanese case, and as discussed in detail from Chapter 4 onward. The problem of how we should strictly define the concept of ‘writing,’ in general terms, is not the same as the historical project of determining what its functions were, how people used it, and what roles it played in specific social contexts. It is obvious that writing can share purposes and functions with artifacts or behaviors that fall outside a narrow definition; conversely, it can be used in ways that do not fulfill, or even that actively contradict, the terms of such a definition. My aim here is not to establish a rigorous delineation of ‘writing.’ Nor do I intend to resolve which of the items discussed in this chapter deserve that label. The point of the preceding discussion has been, rather, to lay the groundwork for a richer understanding of the range of possible connections—or lack thereof—between systems of visible marks and ‘natural language,’ and of the overall social frameworks within which such marks become and remain meaningful. Ultimately “maximalist theories of inscription promise [. . .] an increase in our power to interpret the human range of inscriptive practices. Whether we want to use the word ‘writing’ to totalize them [. . .] is less important than providing an even heuristic footing for the study of inscriptive modes in all their unfamiliar properties” (Salomon 2001, 19). A long detour has led back to the Hirota shell and similar artifacts, materials that take on greater significance and value in this book because they frame its account of the subsequent development of written communication. In a sense, though, that frame depends on an artificial demarcation between the phenomena examined in the following chapters and the vast range of other meaningful practices addressed only in passing: numberless instances of speech and gesture that are not written down in any form, and all the many marks that circulate meaningfully with no connection to language. In the end this book is largely concerned with inscriptions of less ambiguous status than those dis-

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Map 1.1 Sites mentioned in Chapter 1

cussed in this chapter, but focus on such texts involves unavoidable circularities. Unwritten utterances of the distant past are unknowable, and non-glottographic marks are notoriously difficult to interpret. FRAGMENTARY ‘INSCRIPTIONS’ OF THE YAYOI AND TOMB PERIODS

The Hirota shell ‘inscription’ is unusual for its clarity, but in other respects it is typical of early fragments of ‘writing’ from the Japanese archipelago during the first centuries CE. It is isolated, in the sense that it is a lone character, but also in that it was discovered without any accompanying inscribed objects. In part because of this isolation, it is cryptic: the significance of the single character 山 ‘mountain’—if that is what is inscribed—is uncertain. To date about a dozen similarly enigmatic objects bearing marks that may be inscriptions have been discovered in various Yayoi- and Tomb-period sites in Kyushu and Honshu, most of them during the past two decades (see Map 1.1). Like the Hirota shell, the presence of such artifacts in the archipelago does not mean they were made there, or that those who made them were born there,

David B. Lurie - 978-1-68417-508-6 Downloaded from Brill.com10/08/2020 08:10:53AM via free access

夫火竟 (‘fire mirror’ [ 鏡 ])

山 (‘mountain’ [ 仙?])

久 (‘long time’)

田 (‘field’)

田 (‘field’)

竟 (‘mirror’)

夫火竟 (‘fire mirror’)

大 (‘great’)

田 (‘field’)

Hirota 広田

Ichinoya Miyajiri 市野谷宮尻

Kaizō 貝蔵

Katabe 片部

Mikumo 三雲

Mochida No. 25 Mound 持田二十五号墳

Netsuka 根塚

Yanagimachi 柳町

incised potsherd

pigment on wood

incised potsherd

incised bronze

incised potsherd

pigment on potsherd

pigment on potsherd

pigment on potsherd

incised shell

incised bronze

Mie

Kumamoto

Nagano

Miyazaki

Fukuoka

Mie

Mie

Chiba

Kagoshima

Kyoto

first half second century

first third fourth century

latter half third century

latter half fifth century

mid-third century

early fourth century

latter half second century

late third/early fourth century

second or third century

latter half fifth century

A third-century jar, with markings in similar pigment that are thought to be drawings rather than ‘writing,’ was also found in the Kaizō site (Asahi shinbun 1997b). SOURCES: Asahi shinbun 1996b, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 1999; Chiba-ken bunkazai sentā 2005; Mainichi shinbun 1998; Morishita 1993.

NOTE:

[Held by Meiji University] 火竟 (‘fire mirror’) incised bronze ? latter half fifth century? _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

奉 (‘offer up’)

Daishiro 大城

Hataeda No. 1 Mound 幡枝一号墳

Site Putative inscription Medium Prefecture Estimated date (CE) _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Table 1.1 Inscriptions from the second to the fifth century CE _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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but in general their contexts, materials, and comparative crudity suggest they are likely to be domestic products. Many of these ‘inscriptions’ are scratched or painted onto earthenware pots, which are the most prominent durable artifacts found in archaeological sites dating to these periods. (The working assumption of archaeologists appears to be that, unlike Greek ostraca, these pots were intact when the marks were made.) Typical examples are a mark, possibly the character 奉 (‘offer up’/‘accept humbly’)— 年 (‘year’) is another possibility—incised on a piece of a pedestaled dish dated to the first half of the second century CE (Daishiro site) and what appears to be the character 大 (‘big’), scraped onto a pottery fragment dated to the latter half of the third century (Netsuka site). Both of these are subject to debate: variant readings have been proposed for the Daishiro ‘inscription,’ and ironically the Netsuka mark, though visually more closely relatable to the character with which it has been associated, could well be a chance juxtaposition of scratches, or perhaps even a crude attempt at a human figure. There are also cases of characters, or character-like marks, in pigment that may be ink, such as the character 久 (‘long time’) written on a piece of a jar dated to the late third or early fourth century (from the Ichinoya Miyajiri site). While any hard object (a stone or a piece of wood, or even a finger on wet clay) can be used to incise a mark, ink— and the brush that would presumably have been used to apply it—are more specialized technologies. If they were employed to produce marks of this sort, it is tempting to speculate that they would have been used for writing in other contexts. But the nature of the pigments is difficult to determine, and, even granted the presence of such tools, without evidence of other venues for writing one need not assume that they necessarily imply the existence of other writing practices absent from the archaeological record.39 As argued at length above, it is clear from recent historical and anthropological discussion of literacies that although particular technologies are associated with bundles of skills and practices, the content of those bundles are by no means stable. ——— 39. Mizuno Masayoshi (2000, 13) notes that the Katabe character 田 did not show up under infrared light, which suggests that ink may not have been used to produce the mark. The Kaizō site also yielded a pot with ink marks that appear to represent a face.

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Fig. 1.2 Faint mark, possibly the character 田 ‘field,’ from the Katabe site, Mie prefecture (after Hirakawa 2000a, 102).

Even with an inscription as clear as that of the Hirota shell, it was possible to question whether it was actually ‘writing’ at all, but the relative crudity and poor condition of many of these marks exacerbates such doubts. In most cases, there are multiple possible interpretations of what ‘character’ might be represented by a given mark; it is even possible, in some of the more blurred or partial marks, to ask, in the words of a newspaper headline about such a discovery, “great discovery or just a smudge?” This confusion itself is a reminder of how much the status of a potentially meaningful mark is in the mind of the beholder.40 The find that inspired the discovery/smudge headline is a faint mark that may be the character 田 (‘field’), apparently in pigment (perhaps ink), on the side of a pot dated to the early fourth century (Katabe site; see Figure 1.2). Marks resembling the character 田 are prominent in the small corpus of fragmentary Yayoi- and Tomb-period ‘characters’: in addition to the Katabe pot, a similar mark in pigment on a pot dated to the latter half of the second century (Kaizō site), and one of several marks burned or painted onto a wooden artifact that may be an armor clasp, dated to the first third of the fourth century (Yanagimachi site). ——— 40. The original headline is “Daihakken ka tada no yogore ka” (Asahi shinbun 1996b). On the apparent clustering of finds in Mie prefecture, see endnote 1.10.

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Hirakawa Minami, a prominent historian and epigrapher, suggests that these marks that appear to be the character 田 are not graphs representing the word ‘field,’ the independent presence of which would be difficult to explain, but rather symbols meant to ward off evil or bring good luck, or emblems establishing a connection with a particular group or individual.41 As several scholars have pointed out, among the symbols and simple pictures cast on Yayoi-period bronze bells is one that resembles a roman numeral I, while there are domestically cast Tomb-period mirrors that bear a symbol that looks like two perpendicular ‘I’s (Terasawa 2000, 144, 225; Okazaki 1988). It is more likely that the ‘田’-like marks on Yayoi- and Tomb-period artifacts stem from the latter symbol, which also appears in Chinese contexts (where it is said to represent the notion of ‘shaman’), than that they are derived from more familiar types of ‘legible’ writing. In addition to line drawings of animals, hunters, structures, and other artifacts, Yayoi-period artifacts carry a variety of graphic marks, some of which are undoubtedly numerals (Ishino 1998). Archaeologists have speculated that some of the more complex sets of such marks could have independently developed into writing if Chinese characters had not been transmitted to the archipelago (Sahara 1980, 115). In itself this is not a wild extrapolation: the basic innovations necessary for the development of writing (glottographic or otherwise) are relatively accessible, and the major problem of early history of writing is the circumstances leading the adoption and systematization of innovations rather than the core ideas themselves. But rather than assuming such marks are stages along the way toward full writing, it makes more sense to emphasize that they are functioning as communication systems in their own right. Actually, in the case of the fragmentary marks like the Hirota shell ‘inscription’ and its ilk, we should reverse the speculation. To the extent that such Yayoiand Tomb-period marks are derived from Chinese characters (and some of them certainly seem to be), in these particular contexts, those characters have become alegible marks like the arrows, stick figures, and counting systems that are found on other contemporary artifacts. ——— 41. Later periods of Japanese history provide examples of talismanic uses of other simple designs, including a star and four overlapping lines in the shape of the character 井, ‘well’ (Hirakawa 1999a, 12–14).

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52 Coins and Contexts

The problem of the early reception of writing is not limited to the items just surveyed: cryptic marks that seem to have been produced in the Japanese archipelago. Writing can be conceptualized abstractly as a set of sign-making and interpreting capabilities controlled to varying degrees by individuals, but it is also, and in many ways more importantly, a category of marks on physical artifacts. Although the first stages of the production of writing (or of writing-like marks) are important, the early history of inscription is as much or more a story of imported objects bearing characters. Regardless of how much they strike us as being indisputable cases of writing, such imported inscriptions almost certainly became alegible in their new contexts. EARLY CHINESE COINS AND THEIR LEGENDS

Among the earliest and most numerous inscribed objects to arrive in the archipelago were bronze coins. This form of currency originated in trade within and among Chinese states of the late Spring and Autumn period (ca. eighth–fifth centuries BCE) (Hsu 1999, 581–82), and eventually circulated on the Chinese periphery as well. Metal currency in China seems to have developed from actual tools to replicas of tools to abstract metal shapes (most commonly, circles with a square central hole). 42 Related to this suggestive movement away from physical utility is the emergence of the legend, a short inscription establishing the worth (originally, the weight: that is, the inherent value of the metal constituting the coin) or otherwise asserting the legitimacy of the currency itself, or, less directly, of the government issuing it.43 This establishes one basic pattern for the relationship between objects and inscriptions, as the legend is a kind of label whose meaning is subordinate to, or at least dependent on, the value of its material basis. ——— 42. On the history of Chinese currency, I have relied on Peng 1994 and Yamada 2000. On pre-Qin coins found on the periphery of the archipelago, see endnote 1.11. 43. It is significant that most early legends describe the weight of the coin that bears them, or simply label it as “currency” (huoquan). This self-referentiality, which is also a central feature of the mirror inscriptions discussed in the following section, can be traced back to early Zhou bronze inscriptions, and also has parallels in Latin and Greek inscriptions on instrumentum (‘materials of daily life’; Pucci 2001).

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Fig. 1.3 Xin huoquan 貨泉 coin (seal-style inscription reads right to left).

In the main islands of the Japanese archipelago, the earliest inscribed coins found in Yayoi-period sites date to the Qin (221–206 BCE) and Han (202 BCE–220 CE) dynasties. The most common are huoquan 貨泉 ( J. kasen), one of several coins minted during an interregnum between the Western and Eastern Han, when Wang Mang 王莽 (r. 8–23 CE) ruled the short-lived Xin 新 state (see Figure 1.3). These circular bronze coins with square holes in the center proved popular, and were repeatedly minted and widely used until the revival of pre-interregnum coinage in the year 40 CE. Examples have been unearthed throughout China, on the Korean peninsula, and in the Japanese archipelago in sites from Kyushu and western Honshu, including locations in the cities of Nagasaki, Fukuoka, Osaka, and Kyoto.44 Among the other early coins that are found in Yayoi-period sites are the Qin banliangqian 半兩錢 (‘half ounce coin’), fragments of which have been unearthed at Mitokomatsubara 御床松原 site in Fukuoka prefecture, and the Han wushuqian 五銖錢 (‘five scruple coin’), also a round coin with a square hole, inscribed with the two characters of its weight. In 1740, a peasant in Okinoyama 沖ノ山, part of modern Ube city, Yamaguchi prefecture (in western Honshu), unearthed 20 banliangqian ——— 44. On huoquan coins, see endnote 1.12.

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and 81 wushuqian in a Korean-style jar. Their burial is thought to date from around the beginning of the Common Era.45 Such discoveries have much in common with the fragments discussed above: they seem to lie on the border between writing and other graphic marks; the precise meanings they held for those who used them is unclear; and whatever those meanings were, they appear to have involved forms of significance without direct connections to spoken language. But the coins found in Yayoi sites have their own particular value for thinking about the nature of writing and the problem of its contexts. Part of the mystery of fragmentary artifacts like the Hirota shell or the various ‘田’-like marks is the question of what the contexts were for their reception, but currency provides a particularly vivid illustration of this central issue. This is because coins are so manifestly part of complex systems in their original Chinese contexts, where they functioned as a medium for exchange in elaborate networks of production, trade, and consumption within and among the Eastern Zhou states (and the empires that followed them), and also as a symbolic projection of the authority of the states that minted them (a role that would come to be figured more directly by coin legends from the fourth century CE, once they began to contain era names that were richly symbolic of the legitimacy of the emperor who promulgated them—an epigraphic innovation discussed in the following section). In this early period it is impossible to know what happened to the meanings coins had in such Chinese contexts after they were transported to the very different world of the archipelago, but it is unlikely that much of those meanings could have been preserved or replicated. As with the characters of their legends, different contexts entailed different meanings for these coins. Unclear though the specifics may be, they were obviously embedded in new networks of exchange and authority as they circulated through the small polities of the Yayoi world. Here the broad distribution of the huoquan coins is particularly suggestive, especially as the small numbers of most of the finds suggests that they did not serve ——— 45. About the Okinoyama hoard of Qin and Han coins, see Koga and Mametani 1995. A classic discussion of early coin circulation is Harada 1973a; for more recent overviews of currency finds and their significance, see Takakura 1995 and Morioka 2005.

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as a medium of economic exchange. But metal tools and weapons were still rare and highly valuable, and control over their raw materials, and the skilled technicians who made them, facilitated the acquisition and maintenance of political power. These pattern-bearing bits of bronze, valued for their material and also as examples of advanced workmanship, were intrinsically precious objects rather than pieces of currency. MATERIALITY AND THE MEANING OF WRITING

Another edifying aspect of metal currency, then, is the inseparability of the value of the object, and of the meaning of its legend, from its material composition. One might say that the nature of the object bearing an inscription provides its primary context. This may seem an obvious point, but it is worth recalling that with paper currency there is a more straightforward relationship between money and writing: a worthless, or nearly worthless, object takes on economic value by virtue of the marks— writing, images, and nonrepresentative patterns—with which it is inscribed. In this sense, modern coins in daily circulation, where the metal employed is often worth less than the value of the coin’s denomination, have more in common with paper money than with earlier forms of metal currency, where there is a more complex relationship between the metallic substance, the form of the coin, and the stamped or cast marks it bears. In all of these contexts the use of currency has little to do with glottographic inscription: excepting numerals, there is no need to know what a monetary inscription says, e.g., e pluribus unum, novus ordo seclorum. Like the single-character ‘inscriptions’ of the preceding section, coin legends are a limit case, in which the relationship between writing and its material basis is visible with unusual clarity. For coins with written legends, that legend is a necessary part of the nature of the object: it is one of the elements that make it a coin. This makes such coins a prominent exception in the world of early writing. For almost all other written artifacts surveyed here, and also in the following chapter, the object itself has an inherent value or function, quite apart from the inscription it bears. 46 This could be termed ‘parasitic inscription,’ in ——— 46. The Hirota ornament may seem an exception to the generalization that inscribed objects in this period have inherent value apart from their inscriptions, but even if its mark is deemed a character, the artifact was discovered along with numerous other

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which the significance of the inscription is largely derived from the meaning of the object that bears it, rather than vice versa. A hallmark of this sort of parasitic inscription is the circulation of objects, such as swords, mirrors, and so on, that do not bear inscriptions in contexts much like those of similar objects that do. Coin legends represent a kind of minimal case, but similar issues of context, materiality, and reception pertain to the longest imported texts of the period, which are also cast on bronze discs, albeit much larger ones. Bronze mirrors, their inscriptions, and domestically produced copies of the same are the best place to end this introductory discussion, because they both epitomize the major points discussed above and also foreshadow important themes of the following chapter. Nowhere else does the political narrative of a particular adoption of writing overlap more clearly with the ‘alegible’ counternarrative surveyed here. Mirroring Text Bronze mirrors are among the most numerous inscribed artifacts of early Japan; many hundreds have been unearthed from Yayoi- and Tombperiod sites—mostly graves and tombs—throughout the archipelago. What does it mean that many of these mirrors bear inscriptions? Almost all unearthed mirrors are bronze discs (there are rare cases of iron or square specimens). The reflecting side is flat and polished smooth, but the reverse is cast with often elaborate relief designs centered on a knob, or sometimes knobs, the holes of which were used to hang up the mirrors. Starting as early as the late Zhou period, and increasingly in the Eastern Han (25–220 CE) and Three Kingdoms (220–80 CE) periods, these relief designs are accompanied by largely formulaic auspicious inscriptions.47

——— shell ornaments with non-writing marks, so it is difficult to argue that this plaque served primarily as a vehicle for its ‘writing.’ 47. On the designs on Eastern Han and Three Kingdoms mirrors and the copies of them that were produced in the archipelago, see Kobayashi Yukio 1965; Tanaka Migaku 1981; Edwards 1999; and Nakamura Junko 1999.

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FORMULAIC INSCRIPTIONS ON CHINESE MIRRORS

The most common components of auspicious mirror inscriptions are phrases like the following, which can appear alone, in combination, or along with other elements: “may you have sons and grandsons for a long time” 長宜子孫; “may your longevity be like that of metal and stone” 壽如金石; “may your lordship gain high office” 君宜高官; “may your rank reach that of the Three Dukes” 位至三公.48 A Three Kingdoms (Wu) mirror dated to 261 CE contains the phrases “Above, you will be in accord with the serried constellations; below, you will avoid misfortunes” 上應列宿、下辟不祥 (Umehara 1942, plate 47). Modularity is an important aspect of these formulaic inscriptions; rather than communicating information or expressing thoughts, such phrases are more akin to prescribed components of a ritual performance. Other common elements of mirror inscriptions include dates (normally expressed with politically significant era names) and self-referential descriptions of the mirror’s materials, process of production, and supposed benefits. For example, an inscription on an Eastern Han mirror imported to Japan in modern times begins: The 7th year of the Establishing Stability era [202 CE], 9th month, 26th day. I made this bright mirror, refining pure bronze a hundred times. 建安七年九月廿六日、作明竟、百 青同 (Umehara 1942, plate 15)49

Also frequently encountered are references to official government foundries and, especially from the Eastern Han into the Three Kingdoms period, to deities and Daoist transcendents. Metrical regularity, another common feature of mirror inscriptions, is present in the following example, from a mirror discovered in the Kamezuka 亀塚 mound in Komae city, Tokyo. It comprises a rhymed seven-character couplet (a common unit) and an unrhymed eight-character couplet. ——— 48. In early China, the Three Dukes were the highest government positions below the emperor; see Hucker 1985, 399. For more on mirror inscriptions, see endnote 1.13. 49. Substituted and abbreviated characters are common in mirror inscriptions. In the two phrases following the date of this inscription, ‘rain shower,’ is a phonetic substitute for 錬 ‘temper or smelt,’ and 竟, 青, and 同 are abbreviations for 鏡 ‘mirror,’ 清 ‘pure,’ and 銅 ‘bronze’ (literally, ‘copper’). For an essential guide to such substitutions and abbreviations, see Kasano 1993.

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The court manufactory made this mirror; it has its own principle. It fends off misfortune, and is suitable for sale in the market. Above are the King Father of the East and the Queen Mother of the West. It lets your lordship reflect yourself; may you have many descendants.50 尚方作竟自有紀 辟去不羊宜古市 上 □有東王父西王母 遂 多 令君陽□□孫子兮

Inscriptions analogous or identical to these are found in bands and lozenges amid the designs on the backs of many mirrors. The relationship between the writing and the designs is important. In addition to the selfreferential content that describes the provenance and efficacy of the mirror itself, the inscriptions often serve as captions for figures of deities or mythical individuals. In the Kamezuka mirror, the inscription’s description of the figures is augmented by a label applied to the Queen Mother of the West within the pictorial field.51 The formulaic repetitiveness of these mirror inscriptions implies that they could have imparted virtually no new information to a reader. I have already suggested that the inscriptions can be seen as serving a ritual function; they can also be described in anachronistic, but not entirely inappropriate, terms as being like the slogans and logos written on the packages of modern consumer products. As with other early written artifacts, the legible content of these inscriptions seems to have little direct connection to the reception of the objects themselves. Mirrors are found as grave goods in Yayoi elite burials and, especially, in Tomb-period mounds, where they sometimes appear in great numbers—a dozen or ——— 50. This inscription substitutes 尚 for 掌, 竟 for 鏡, 辟 for 避, 羊 for 祥, and 古 for 沽 (see Kasano 1993). The Queen Mother of the West was a popular religious figure. Originally a goddess met by the legendary King Mu of Zhou, and then a baleful half-beast associated with the western direction, during the Han period she became one of the most important Daoist transcendents, often depicted as a beautiful woman and associated with elixirs of eternal life. The King Father of the East appears to have been created and paired with her relatively late in her career (Cahill 1993; Loewe 1979). 51. The use of such colophons is common to other media and genres of Chinese art, such as tomb reliefs like those famously exemplified in the Wu Liang shrine (Wu 1989 and Liu, Nylan, and Barbieri-Low, 2005).

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more—which suggests they indicated authority or served a supernatural function rather than a cosmetic one. In Tomb-period burials they are often arranged around a body or coffin as if meant to ward off (reflect?) evil, which suggests that they served magical purposes similar to those indicated in their inscriptions. This can be attributed to the spread of Chinese customs and beliefs (mostly through intermediaries from the Korean peninsula) rather than to any direct influence of the writing borne by these artifacts.52 Philological analysis may explicate the ‘legible’ significance of the inscriptions borne by these artifacts, but this significance did not necessarily play a prominent role in their reception. Nothing dramatizes this more starkly than the fate of those inscriptions once mirrors began to be cast in the archipelago. THE MEANING OF THE ‘PSEUDO-INSCRIPTION’

Domestic copies of Chinese-style mirrors appear in the latter part of the Yayoi period, but these early versions are small and technically limited. It is during the Tomb period that large numbers of domestic bronze mirrors were produced in the archipelago, in sizes and with designs closer to those of their continental models. A well-known case of a disrupted inscription is that found on at least two domestically produced triangle-rimmed mirrors: one from the Taniguchi 谷口 mound in northwestern Kyushu (Saga prefecture), and the other from the Ikisan Chōshizuka 一貴山銚子塚 mound nearby in Fukuoka prefecture.53 It reads: I made this bright mirror; it is most unusual. You will preserve your children and have grandchildren; your wealth will be immeasurable; rare. 吾作明竟甚獨、保子宜孫富無 、奇54

——— 52. If a mirror bears an inscription promising magical benefits to its bearer, and the archaeological context in which that mirror is discovered suggests that its owner believed that it had magical powers, this does not necessarily mean that the owner was capable of reading the inscription. It is, however, likely that the inscription itself would have contributed, alegibly, to the object’s talismanic function. 53. Miki 1998, 153, lists a third mirror bearing this inscription. 54. Photographs of the Taniguchi mirror are available in Higuchi 1979, zuhan 158 (number 318), and Seeley 1991, 14 (plate 1). These two mirrors are either from the same mold or very close copies, one of the other or both of the same original.

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The fragmentary conclusion does not make much sense, and as it stands the inscription cannot be resolved into couplets, rhyming or otherwise. The solution to this puzzle is provided by the inscription on an imported mirror found in another tomb, the Shōrinzan 松林山 mound (in Shizuoka prefecture): I made this bright mirror; it is most unusual and rare. You will preserve your children and have grandchildren; your wealth will be immeasurable. 吾作明竟甚獨奇、保子宜孫富無

This rhymed seven-character couplet was the model for the inscription on the domestic mirrors, but the final graph of the first couplet was skipped, and then simply added at the end. Further evidence of this lackadaisical attitude to the ‘content’ of the inscription is provided by the fact that all of the domestic mirrors’ graphs are reversed left to right, because the mold was made without taking into account the inversion of the casting process. These irregularities have been taken as signs that the mold-maker, and by extension the other denizens of the fourth- and fifth-century archipelago, did not yet understand writing (Kamei, Ōtō, and Yamada 1963, 219). But there are many cases of irregular inscriptions in mirrors that were made in China: inverted graphs, in particular, are ubiquitous. Karlgren (1934, 9) rumbled that the “often severely maltreated variant” characters found on many Chinese mirrors are “due either to artistic stylization or to vulgar ignorance on the part of the scribe or ineptitude on the part of the engraver.” But Higuchi (1979, 310–11) writes of this inscription that the relative clarity and readability of its characters is very unusual for a domestic mirror, and suggests that the mirror was made by a (literate) immigrant artisan, while Miki (1998, 153) even postulates that these are imported mirrors because of said clarity. Among the potsherd marks discussed earlier, perhaps the most unusual is one with a possible relation to other inscriptions. Incised on a mid-third-century pot excavated in the Mikumo site in Fukuoka prefecture (northern Kyushu), it appears to be 竟, an abbreviation of 鏡 ‘mirror.’ It is scratched in a style reminiscent of similar graphs incised on three domestic bronze mirrors that are thought to have been cast in the same late fifth-century foundry. One was excavated from the Hataeda No. 1 Mound in Kyoto prefecture, one from the Mochida No. 25

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Mound in Miyazaki prefecture, and the third, of uncertain provenance, is held in the antiquities collection of Meiji University in Tokyo (see Table 1.1). Scratched on the two excavated mirrors is the inscription “this, a fire mirror” 夫火竟, an apparent reference to the production of fire through reflected sunlight, also referred to in the Kamezuka mirror inscription (Rekishi minzoku hakubutsukan 2002, 18–20). (The Meiji University mirror omits the first character.) It appears that whoever incised these characters had some grasp of their significance, although one cannot extrapolate from that much more about their communicative potential beyond the narrow context of their production. In many ways the mark on the Mikumo pot presents a more interesting case. Although parallels in the ductus of this mark and the inscriptions on the mirrors have been indicated (Hirakawa 2000b, 12–20), the intervening two centuries rule out a direct connection. It is more likely that the mark on the pot, if it actually is derived from the character 竟, was copied from a mirror inscription, and changed thereby into a symbol of whatever power was associated with the mirror. There is an even more extreme change undergone by writing when it appears on domestically produced mirrors derived from inscribed imports. On the domestic copies, writing becomes pseudo-inscriptions ( gimeibun 偽銘文 or gimeitai 擬銘帯), abstract graph-like patterns with no clear relationship to the original characters (see Figure 1.4).55 The distinction between real and ‘pseudo-’ writing is meaningful for us, and would have been at the time for those with the requisite training. However, there is no indication that those who valued and circulated these mirrors would have distinguished between the various non-pictorial signs they bore based on their viability as ‘true’ writing. Are pseudo-inscriptions proof that the artisans who made those mirrors were illiterate, or ignorant of even the nature and function of writing? It seems likely that almost all of those involved with the production of domestic mirrors had little or no ability to ‘read’ writing, but even ——— 55. For discussion of ‘pseudo-inscriptions’ and comparison of photographs of imported and domestic mirrors, see Tanaka Migaku 1981, 24–67 passim. More extensive consideration of their significance in the history of writing in early Japan can be found in Morishita 2004.

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Fig. 1.4 Domestic mirror design with prominent pseudo-inscription (after rubbing reproduced in Morishita 2004, 18).

so neither malformed texts nor pseudo-inscriptions can be employed as direct evidence of the mental equipment of those who made them. “Was the artisan literate?” is the wrong question to ask.56 The rarity of ungarbled inscriptions on domestic mirrors indicates that those who made and used them had no need for legibility. An inscription that could be ‘read,’ at least in the more narrow senses of reading, was not necessary in the contexts in which these artifacts circulated and signified. The potential linguistic value of the ‘writing’ on these mirrors, and by extension the writing on the imported artifacts that provided models for them, was not a component of their value within the space of the Japanese archipelago.

——— 56. On the ‘literacy’ of artisans, see endnote 1.14.

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CONCLUSION

Mirrors, domestic and imported, inscribed (true and pseudo-) and uninscribed, provide an instructive example of the importance of reception in the history of inscription. As discussed by Postgate, Wang, and Wilkinson (1995), there are long-standing arguments about whether early writing primarily had a ceremonial and religious role or an administrative one.57 But attempts to ground the history of writing in such an opposition do not pay sufficient attention to reception and reappropriation. New contexts can transform not only systems of phonography (the primary focus of studies of how writing moves across cultural or linguistic boundaries) but also the function and meaning of pre-existing texts and practices. One should never lose sight of the obvious truth that all artifacts, regardless of whether or not they bear writing, are embedded in society, and take on meaning from their uses. Mirror inscriptions—as well as the other, more fragmentary types of inscriptions discussed in this chapter— underline the problems created by positing ‘understanding’ or ‘comprehension’ as criteria for examining the historical circulation of inscribed objects. They also show how difficult it is to demarcate glottography as an independent area of inquiry. It is true that the relationship between writing and language is the major concern of much of this study, but this introductory discussion should serve to foreground the lack of a clear distinction between the inside and the outside of that relationship, and also the continuing importance of non-glottographic uses of graphic signs. To understand not only the significance of the early fragments discussed in this chapter but also all other literacies, we must recognize the continuing importance of such uses of writing, even in contexts that also involve acts we would be more inclined to recognize as ‘reading.’ As discussed earlier, such coexistence occurs worldwide, in both premodern and modern contexts. It is exemplified by the magical power and social ——— 57. The arguments of Postgate, Wang, and Wilkinson (1995), which are paralleled by Hirakawa Minami’s influential claim that the earliest texts in the Japanese archipelago had a ritual function (Hirakawa 1999a; Hirakawa and Kōnoshi 1999), are discussed more extensively in Chapter 3.

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cachet attributed to alegible inscriptions, from those found on worn stelae or statues, to the texts of ancient books, to graphs in amulets warding off illness or misfortune, to corporate logos intended to attract attention and loyalty, to the stylish glyphs and ‘symbols’ of contemporary T-shirts and tattoos, to the aesthetic dimensions of calligraphy and typography. The more one ponders the range of possible relations with (and through) texts, from ancient times until the present, and in societies encountering writing for the first time as well as those constituted by its powers, the more it becomes clear that alegibility cannot be ejected from ‘literacy’ without vitiating the real-world applicability of the concept. Alegible functions of texts are actually foundational for all of their uses: they might be summed up as primary or fundamental forms of literacy, on top of which all others, including the more familiar varieties, are based. It is commonplace to talk about societies without writing— or even, ‘illiterate’ sections of societies that do have writing—as being ‘outside of history.’ One of the insights gained from contemplating ‘alegibility’ is that this externality is a universal phenomenon. Even with massive corpuses of written materials, there are always opaque aspects to them and to their reception. Even rich bodies of texts are surrounded by a penumbra of uses and responses that lie outside of history as we practice it. Overemphasis on ‘transparent’ or ‘legible’ literacy diverts attention from the full range of ways in which writing facilitates the making of meaning and the exercise of power, many of them independent of specific or systematic linguistic associations. Power is involved in ignoring, denying, or creating ones own ‘reading’ for any body of writing. An important point of the Lévi-Strauss and Coetzee passages discussed earlier is that there is a feedback loop between exercising power to determine the meaning of a text and using texts to support power; but this is a loop with multiple channels. The linguistic channel we are most accustomed to thinking about is only one of many that parallel it, nonglottographically. As proposed above, a key to the Orientalism inherent in the ‘reading’ of a Chinese character tattoo as a ‘symbol’ (Brilliant 2004) is that the bearers of the tattoos arrogate to themselves the power to isolate a sign in this matter, without acknowledging the range of prior meanings

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or functions of the graph in other contexts. 58 In looking askance at these tattoos, it is important to distinguish between decontextualization of graphs as a general phenomenon—which this book argues is an inherent and universal aspect of the history of writing—and the specific Orientalist charge of these particular decontextualizations. As Lévi-Strauss himself was at least partially aware, the main moral of “The Writing Lesson” is that power is involved in ignoring, denying, or creating a meaning for any piece of writing. Seen from the right perspective, Lévi-Strauss’s account reveals the agency and freedom involved in ‘alegible’ uses of writing, even in a context so redolent of the power exerted by colonizing Europe as an anthropologist bearing firearms and cheap trade goods visiting barely clothed ‘Stone Age’ people. It is this that distinguishes it from dubious narratives of illiterate amazement at the power of writing (such as those summarized in Harbsmeier 1988). The societies of the Japanese archipelago in the early Yayoi period seem to have been organized into chiefdoms that may have paralleled, broadly, those of the Nambikwara. The adoption of character-based writing by peripheral cultures in East Asia cannot be understood without reference to China’s status as the political and military center in the first millenium CE (as well as some time before and afterward). Nonetheless, the position of the ‘barbarian’ leader entering into a relationship of investiture (cefeng 冊封) with the Chinese imperial court was not that of a colonial subject gaining status through an educational or bureaucratic relationship to the textual and linguistic apparatus of the colonizing power. Through writing, in part, kings and chieftains on the Chinese periphery sought politically advantageous relationships within and beyond their own domains, but this did not mean becoming ‘literate,’ in the modern sense of the word. What it did mean is the topic of the next chapter. The domination of peripheries by more ‘advanced’ centers is an indisputable fact of human history in general, and also of the history of writing in particular. But it is essential to acknowledge the power the periphery has to deny or modify—often incompletely, to be sure—the ——— 58. This act of contextual isolation is never complete, as is apparent from the anxiety with which so many of the tattoo bearers appearing on Tian Tang’s website Hanzi Smatter seek meaning-confirmation by readers of Chinese.

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structures of the center, even as they are imposed by agents of the center, or through imitation and emulation by the powerful within the peripheral society. In a sense, the entire point of this book is to emphasize the fecundity and importance of this kind of appropriation or redirection of the technology of writing. The examples discussed in this chapter are particularly vivid by virtue of their surface simplicity, but the story told in the chapters to come is one of far more complicated acts of appropriation and repurposing of writing. Such acts do not necessarily undo the ‘original’ functions of writing, or if they do they do so piecemeal, and while adding new dimensions and new layers of meaning.

TWO

Kings Who Did Not Read: Scribes and the Projection of Power from the First to the Sixth Century CE

It seems incredible [. . .] that no written record or inscription links any of the great graves of Kibi with the men for whom they were built. —John Whitney Hall No clue at all About the inscription: Rusty sword Mei fa tada nan to mo sirenu sabikatana 銘は只何とも知れぬさび刀 —Ise Yamada haikaishū

Most of the scarce and scattered instances of Yayoi- and Tomb-period writing had little or no connection to the varieties of written communication most familiar to us: they operated as talismanic or totemic signs, pregnant with magical power and redolent of high status. These functions were supplemented rather than replaced by the advent of glottographic writing and the various regimes of communication and information storage associated with it. Starting with this chapter, the remainder of this book considers the rise of extensive glottographic writing. It traces the political and social developments with which that rise

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was intertwined, and, eventually, examines the links between graphs and language on which it depended. But it is important not to lose sight of the continual penumbra of ‘alegible’ reception that surrounds writing at all historical stages. In this sense, as stressed above, the preceding chapter represents a kind of counternarrative to the more linear story taken up hereafter. A central concern of the following pages is to question the inevitability of the rise of certain types of literacy, whose inception and spread has often been taken for granted as the natural movement of superior technologies across borders. The kinds of reception evident in the circulation of coins and mirrors, the production of ‘pseudo-inscriptions,’ and the scattered marking of graphs or graph-like marks are stable reactions to writing by societies that have not been transformed by it. We should not assume something inherent in written artifacts themselves, or in the abilities of the few who are able to produce or interpret them, that would necessarily drive them toward greater prominence or power. Even so, the record of extant artifacts from the first seven centuries or so of writing in the Japanese archipelago, scant though it is, does eventually indicate such a transformation. The endpoints are clear: no writing at all at the start, and, by the eighth century CE, a large, complex bureaucratic polity accompanied by flourishing belletristic and religious writing. The question is when and how the transition between these stages occurred. Another way of viewing the debates surrounding objects like the Hirota shell ornament is to see them as arguments about whether these isolated early ‘inscriptions’ are connected to the thriving world of written communication that is so evident by the late seventh century. The key to this process of development is feedback between writing and kingship. Writing has long been taken to be a fundamental component in the formation of the state.1 But although the connection is clear, the underlying causality is not: the development of particular political and social institutions is also necessary for the rise of writing, or at least for the rise of the particular modes of literacy most associated with ‘true’ ——— 1. On the connections between writing and state formation, see Gledhill, Bender, and Larsen 1988 and Trigger 2003; for surveys of early Japanese kingship, see Piggott 1997; Duthie 2005; and Ooms 2009.

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writing by modern thinkers. The reasons that writing did not remain a marginal source of talismanic and totemic marks, but expanded to play a fundamental institutional and cultural role, are to be sought in its links to political legitimacy and interstate diplomacy in the region surrounding China from the Han dynasty onward. Significantly, the bureaucratic use of writing in everyday contexts, although essential to its later significance, played little or no role in the earlier stages of its transformation, and ‘alegible’ functions preceded and undergirded its other roles. The narrative outlined in this chapter primarily concerns the use of inscriptions for the majestification of rulers who delegated tasks of ‘comprehension’ and communication to specialists: immigrant scribes from the Korean peninsula. In many cases, the political and diplomatic inscriptions surveyed here suffer from the same limitations of brevity, poor condition, and lack of context that made the items discussed in the previous chapter so cryptic. The state of some of these early texts allows no consensus on more than the barest outlines of how to read them. But these inscriptions also showcase the miraculous side of writing, its capability—under sufficiently congenial circumstances—to preserve precious fragments of information. The names of places and individuals forgotten for over a millennium have reemerged when golden characters that record them were discovered beneath layers of dirt and rust. The texts surveyed here attest to the durability as well as the fragility of writing, which is materially embodied and yet meaningless without sufficient social context; and, moreover, mutable in meaning as such contexts change. Peripheral Diplomacy and the Inscription of the ‘Chinese World Order’ The political narrative of writing’s development in early Japan centers on the tributary system that provided the Chinese model for foreign relations from the Han dynasty onward. The political geography of the Han empire was conceived of as a series of concentric zones of decreasing civilization ringing the emperor’s inner domain. In diplomatic relations with surrounding ‘barbarian’ groups, they offered submission and became dependent states (shuguo 属國), although this was more a nominal status, a projection of a central court ideal, than a ratification of real political control over peripheral polities. The logic of the system

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was a mapping of the relationship between the central imperial court and the subordinate rulers of its own interior regions onto that between the Chinese empire and the surrounding ‘barbarians.’2 Formally, the investiture (cefeng 冊封) of a barbarian ruler was conceived of as his appointment to a post by the emperor, just as an internal official would be appointed to an office in the imperial bureaucracy, or a noble made marquis or king of a locality within the empire. The foreign potentate would receive a Chinese governmental title, as would his most important subordinates. In each case, the principal insignia of the appointment was an appropriately inscribed seal made of precious material: such official seals were the most important physical manifestations of the tributary relationship. Bureaucratic documentary seals date back to the Warring States period. From the Qin unification in the third century BCE, they were widely employed by both central and regional government officials. Under the Han, an elaborately graded system of bronze, silver, gold, and white jade seals with sculpted handles and colored ribbons covered everyone involved in administration, from the emperor down to lower-level bureaucrats. Both the enthronement of emperors and the appointment of officials involved the transmission of the appropriate seals. Until the invention of paper, such seals were impressed in clay that had been applied to the knot of a cord tying together wooden documents and their protective covers. The shape, material, and inscription of the seals placed their recipients in a graded system of status, and as paraphernalia intended—at least ostensibly—for authentication of documents to be submitted to the emperor; they also implied participation in a bureaucratic system of written communication.3 In the case of seals given to ‘barbarian’ sovereigns, the particular type of document concerned was a manifest (biao 表 ), an expression of fealty expected to accompany the tribute goods brought by envoy to the Chinese court. This corresponded to the appointment document or re——— 2. Yü 1986, 381–83. On Japanese participation in the Chinese diplomatic system, see Nishijima 1985; Verschuer 2000; Wang 2005; and Verschuer 2006. 3. This summary of the early Chinese seal system is largely derived from Nishijima 1999, 172–77. See also Tsien 2004, 57–61; Luo and Wang 1965; Ogino 1966; and Kurihara 1960.

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script (chi 勅) that imperial envoys brought with them. The historian Nishijima Sadao argued that the spread of writing from China to the cultures on its periphery was initially stimulated, and subsequently shaped, by expectations that barbarian rulers participate personally in written communication with the imperial court—expectations expressed by granting seals. 4 It seems more reasonable, though, to assume that as long as the rescript could be read out (by the envoy himself, at least) and translated, the basic expectations would have been fulfilled. Much the same is true for the manifests that the barbarian kings were expected to produce: any number of intermediaries would have been available to perform the service of actually composing such a document. Most of what is known about diplomatic contact between the early archipelago and the imperial court is from accounts in the Chinese official histories. The detail and historiographical sophistication of these works make them essential sources, but it goes without saying that they are shaped by the assumptions and intentions of their sponsors and compilers. For peripheral societies like those of the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula, the most important elements of the official histories are their treatises on the eastern barbarian peoples, although the annals of various reigns also contain entries on diplomatic contacts. Reliably documenting the state of communication technologies on the Chinese periphery was not a major objective of these treatises, which are motivated by sometimes conflicting desires to exoticize distant barbarians and to idealize their tributary submission to the imperial order.5 The treatise on geography in the official history of the Western Han dynasty, the Hanshu 漢書 (ca. 78 CE), states that “in the sea of Lelang are the people of Wa. They are divided into more than a hundred countries; it is said that they come and offer tribute with each season” 楽浪 海中有倭人、分為百余國、以歳時来献見云 (HS 28b:1658). The ethnonym ‘Wa’ is the conventional Japanese reading of 倭 (C. Wo), a ——— 4. Nishijima 1999, 175. See also Nishijima 1985 and 1994; for a stimulating and informative survey of Nishijima Sadao’s work, see Yi Sŏng-si 2000. 5. For accounts of the archipelago from the official histories, I have relied on the annotations and Japanese translations in Inoue Hideo et al. 1974; Tōdō, Takeda, and Takeyama 1985; and Ishihara 1985. The English translations in Tsunoda 1951 remain helpful, but they are dated (especially the notes) and should be consulted with care.

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term variously interpreted to mean ‘stooped dwarf’ or ‘obedient and submissive’; it is generally taken to refer to an early group that inhabited the Japanese archipelago, although some have argued that it indicates certain residents of the Korean peninsula as well. 6 The Hanshu entry locates these Wa in the ocean off Lelang, a Han commandery established in 108 BCE near modern Pyongyang, but this is obviously not a precise geographical designation. Later works more explicitly locate the Wa in the Japanese archipelago. Traces of these early contacts with the Chinese imperium are provided by various unearthed artifacts, a number of them bearing inscriptions. Most of these are bronze mirrors, the significance of which will be revisited shortly. But the most famous is a gold seal whose small size belies the scope of the controversies it has provoked since its discovery more than two centuries ago. In 1784, a farmer clearing land on the small island of Shikanoshima 志賀島, in Hakata Bay, at the northern end of Kyushu, found a small square seal of solid gold, topped by a snake-shaped knob.7 On its flat face was an inscription of five characters: “King of the Na Country of Wa of Han” 漢委奴國王 (see Figure 2.1). Controversy over the authenticity of this artifact, the readings of its characters and the toponyms they designate, and the significance of its location in northern Kyushu has continued since the late eighteenth century. Even so, it is now generally accepted that it is the same official seal recorded in the Hou Hanshu (HHS 85:2821) as having been granted in 57 CE to the king (or chieftain) of a small Wa polity that had established a tributary relationship with the Han court.8

——— 6. The Hanshu appearance of the Wa is followed by articles in the Wei section of the third-century Sanguozhi 三國志 (Record of the Three Kingdoms), in the fifth-century Hou Hanshu 後漢書 (History of the Later Han), and the early sixth-century Songshu 宋書 (History of the Song), which are supplemented by scattered references in other Chinese sources, including some that exist only as quotations in encyclopedias and other composite works. 7. Shikanoshima is connected to the mainland (Fukuoka city) at low tide by a sandspit. The area in which the seal was discovered is now the Gold Seal Park (Kin’in kōen). Fogel 2009 provides a detailed and informative account of the discovery of the seal and the debates that raged about it from shortly after it was announced. 8. On the Na seal, see endnote 2.1.

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Map 2.1 Sites mentioned in Chapter 2

Fig. 2.1 Na seal inscription

In some respects the Na seal parallels the Hirota shell ornament: both are small objects with simple inscriptions, found in isolation from any other written artifacts, and dating to around the same time. But they have radically different implications, because the seal fits more clearly

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into a political system in which writing has definite administrative and ideological functions. Nonetheless it is a mistake to assume that those functions were necessarily tied to the object in its new context. It is much more likely that ‘alegible’ functions of writing remained dominant, perhaps even excluding any others. Just as the actuality of central Chinese bureaucratic oversight over the peripheral rulers ‘invested’ by the emperor was not at issue in the tributary relationship, ‘transparent’ literacies were neither a goal nor a byproduct of early diplomatic contacts. We might say that while writing served as a medium for power, in the sense that political relationships were expressed through the movement of valuable inscribed objects, power was not yet a medium for writing: that is, political domination (such as it was) did not bring with it the imposition of transformatively new forms of literacy. Written messages did not ‘contain’ information that was otherwise unavailable. Even in the diplomatic system as it was ideally conceived, envoys and translators always accompanied manifests and rescripts. Given the label-like function of almost all surviving inscriptions of this period, we could even argue that there were no media yet (in the modern sense of communications technologies), as there are no objects whose significance would have stemmed only from the writing they bore, and there are very few inscriptions that make no reference to the objects that bear them.9 The value of precious insignia of power like the Na seal may have ultimately derived from the bureaucratic circulation of administrative documents that gave them meaning in the original Chinese context, but they were independently reappropriated and incorporated into new systems of communication in Yayoi contexts. QUEEN HIMIKO’S COMMUNICATIONS

The disorder of the final decades of the Later Han dynasty (25–220 CE) and the fractured political situation that followed its collapse had repercussions for the peripheral polities that had been participating in the tributary system. Diplomatic relations in this period are vividly depicted in the late third-century Sanguozhi, the official history of the Wei 魏 (220–65), Shu 蜀 (221–63), and Wu 呉 (222–80) kingdoms. In the Wei ——— 9. On the alegible significance of seals, see endnote 2.2.

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section, the chapter on peripheral barbarians contains a long account of the people of Wa, which is the most famous such discussion in all of the Chinese dynastic histories.10 This “Record of the Wa People” describes a land of many small “countries” ( guo 國) riven by conflict, and briefly unified by the “queen” (女王) of one of them. The conventional Japanese readings of the names of this queen, ‘Himiko’ 卑彌呼, and her country, ‘Yamatai’ 邪馬臺, are employed here as a matter of convenience, although they have only tenuous connections to the original non-Sinitic names phonetically transcribed by the characters.11 The Record consists of three sections: (1) a garbled geographical description that, if taken literally, would place Yamatai in the open ocean far to the south of Okinawa, but has been traditionally interpreted as indicating a location either in Kyushu or in the Kinai region (the area around Kyoto, Osaka, and Nara), which would be the political center of subsequent ages; (2) an extensive description of the society and customs of the Wa, which contains no references to writing (a significant omission, given the attention it receives as a marker of cultural attainment in such treatises on peripheral barbarians); and (3) a concluding account of contact between Himiko and the Wei that describes in detail a tributary relationship similar to the ones that can be extrapolated from the Han histories and the Na seal.12 According to this account, Himiko sent a mission to the Wei court in 238 CE.13 The Wei emperor Ming 明 (r. 227–39) responded with a long edict acknowledging her envoys and tribute (ten slaves and two large pieces of ornate cloth), and investing her as his vassal: Your location is surpassingly distant, and yet you send envoys and offer tribute; this is loyalty and filiality on your part, and thus We feel great tenderness towards you. We now make you Relative of Wei and Ruler of Wa, and grant

——— 10. On the Wei record of the Wa in the Sanguozhi, see endnote 2.3. 11. On a variant spelling of the placename ‘Yamatai’ see endnote 2.4. 12. Modern scholarship has seen this text as an essential document of the late Yayoi period, but in recent years there has been a tendency to push the beginning of the Tomb period back to the early third century. Here I have provisionally maintained the old assumption, but it would not make much difference for my arguments if the Record were taken to describe the early Tomb period instead. 13. On the debate about whether the date should be 238 or 239, see endnote 2.5.

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you a golden seal with a purple ribbon. We will have it wrapped and sealed, and entrust it to the Governor of Daifang to be granted to you. You are to protect and comfort your people, and to strive to be filial and obedient. 汝所在踰遠、乃遣使貢献、是汝之忠孝、我甚哀汝、今以汝為親魏倭 王、假金印紫綬、装封付帯方太守假授、汝其綏撫種人、勉為孝順。 (SGZ 30:857)

Himiko’s seal has not been found, but it is generally assumed that it resembled the Na seal. For scholars such as Nishijima Sadao (1999), the discovery of the Na seal, and this notation of Himiko’s seal in the Record, serve as ipso facto evidence of consequent use of written documents in diplomacy.14 But as I have already argued, one need not make such an assumption. Close examination of the Sanguozhi Record suggests that the flow of diplomatic writing between the Wei and Yamatai was not necessarily two-way. In the following passage, an official placed by the queen in the Wa ‘country’ of Ito 伊都 (in northern Kyushu) is described as inspecting the items carried by envoys. When the Queen sends envoys to the capital [Loyang], the Daifang commandery, or the various Han [i.e., proto-Korean] countries; or when the commandery sends an envoy to Wa, they all appear at the port and are inspected. [The official] sends the documents and bestowed items to the Queen, so it is impossible to tamper with them.15 王遣使詣京都帶方郡諸韓國、及郡使倭國、皆臨津捜露、傳送文書賜 遣之物詣女王、不得差錯 (SGZ 30:856)

The items are said to be sent to the queen, and the word “bestowal” 賜 is inappropriate for tribute submitted to the Chinese court or its commandery surrogate, so it seems clear that the texts mentioned here are inbound documents only.16 The Record also mentions two proclama——— 14. For more on Himiko’s seal and on the assumption of writing-based diplomacy, see endnote 2.6. 15. Daifang, the Chinese commandery through which Himiko carried on her diplomacy with the Wei, was established in 204 on the western side of the Korean peninsula, near modern Seoul. 16. The discrepancy between the two-way envoy exchange at the beginning and the one-way movement of documents and goods at the end is confusing, but it can be seen

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tions (詔書) sent by the Wei emperor, but manifests by Himiko are not quoted, and there is no explicit reference to any letters (書) originating from Yamatai. The only instance that can be interpreted as a possible reference to a document from the Wa side is a passage that implies the queen thanked the emperor in writing for the bestowal of gifts: “The Wa Queen submitted a manifest by means of the envoy, and expressed thanks for the favors and proclamation” 倭王因使上表答謝恩詔 (SGZ 30:857). But a passing reference so in keeping with the ideal of tributary relations need not be taken literally. Even if there were such a manifest, it was not necessarily composed in Yamatai; the envoys would have received protocol-related assistance at the Daifang commandery or other intermediary locations before continuing on to the Wei capital of Loyang. The patronizing tone of the Wei emperor’s edict is in keeping with the ethos of the tributary system, but in reality he must have been pleased to receive such a distant barbarian mission at a time when he was engaged in expanding the Wei influence on the Korean peninsula.17 This need for allegiance is suggested by the value of the gifts that he granted to Himiko: an assortment of ornate decorated cloth as direct recompense for the tribute, and further gifts of more cloth, precious metals and stones, and “two five-foot swords” 五尺刀二口 and “one hundred bronze mirrors” 銅鏡百枚 (SGZ 30:857). It is with these last two objects that the alegible dimensions of the Yayoi-period involvement with the writing of the Chinese tributary system come into focus, as the swords possibly, and the mirrors almost certainly, bore formulaic inscriptions of the sort discussed in the preceding chapter. An example of the type of writing that could have been on Himiko’s swords is provided by a gold inlaid inscription of 24 graphs along the back of the blade of a steel sword, corroded into fragments, that was ——— as a shift in focus to inbound communications. See Mishina 1970, 19–24, for various interpretations of this passage. 17. Envoys from distant barbarians were a significant confirmation of political legitimacy, and it is also possible that the Wei emperor saw the Wa as potential allies against his southern rival states of Wu and Shu. The initial section of the Sanguozhi article suggests that the Wei were under the impression that the Japanese archipelago was in the ocean off the kingdom of Wu, much farther south than it actually is.

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discovered in 1961 from the Tōdaijiyama mound, a late fourth-century tomb in Tenri city, Nara prefecture. Because this inscription is a tissue of formulaic phrases commonly found in mirror inscriptions, it can be almost completely reconstructed even though nearly half of the graphs are fragmentary or completely illegible. In the [. . .] year of the Internal Tranquility era [184–90 CE], in the 5th month, on the 43rd day of the cycle, [I ] made this ornate sword. [The steel] has been refined many times and is pure and hard. [ You] will be in accord with the stellar constellations above and avoid misfortune below. 年

文 刀

剛

宿

下 辟 不 祥

中平□□、五月丙午、造作□□、百練清□、上應星□、□□□□

Typical of mirror inscriptions are the modular components, all of which have auspicious meanings, and also their arrangement: date; explanation of the object’s creation; description of its quality and beneficial effects.18 The Later Han era at the beginning of the Tōdaijiyama inscription corresponds to what the Chinese accounts describe as a long period of chaotic warfare among the Wa before Himiko’s appearance.19 This has led some scholars to place the sword on a timeline between the Na seal and the Himiko years described in the Sanguozhi, but unfortunately little can be determined about the whereabouts of the sword in the two centuries or so between its production in China and its burial in a mound on the eastern edge of the Nara basin. For stylistic reasons the pommel is thought to have been produced domestically as a replacement for a Chinese original, but it is unclear when the blade was brought to the archipelago or what its initial destination was (Mori Kōichi 1985a, 67). In addition to the self-referential clauses lauding the benefits and quality of the object itself, a crucial component of inscriptions like these is the initial date. As mentioned in the preceding chapter, the power of the Chinese emperor was symbolized by his ability to delineate spans of time itself, responding to natural or political catastrophe—or good ——— 18. For more on the Tōdaijiyama inscription, see endnote 2.7. 19. In the accounts of warfare among the Wa before Himiko, the Sanguozhi simply refers to 70 or 80 years of conflict (SGZ 30:856), whereas the Hou Hanshu dates the disorder to the latter half of the second century (HHS 85:2821), and the Liangshu more specifically cites an era name corresponding to 178–83 (LS 54:806).

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fortune—by selecting properly auspicious era names.20 Doing so confirmed him as the determining temporal power of the empire and, conversely, using the era name on documents or inscriptions demonstrated submission to that power. In the short text of the Na seal, the large character 漢 at the outset can be seen as a confirmation that the Han emperor had produced and bestowed the seal, thereby deigning to incorporate the Na king into the tributary system. As with the standard pattern of mirror inscriptions that it shares, the Tōdaijiyama inscription’s initial era name can be seen as a similar expression of imperial power, subsuming the stereotyped auspicious clauses under an overarching political meaning (Kawaguchi 1978 and 1993). Regardless of whether or not the object in question was produced expressly to be bestowed on a Wa ruler like Himiko or the king of Na, such inscriptions were intimately related to the prestige of the emperor, as was also the case with the coin legends discussed in the previous chapter. As we have seen, the value of all of these early inscribed objects in the new context of the archipelago does not necessarily have a direct relationship with their ‘legible’ political meanings. Much as the original pommel of the Tōdaijiyama sword was replaced with a new one of local design, the significance of the inlaid marks along the back of its blade was also subject to being remade. However, mirrors and related objects mediated political relationships regardless of whether they bore ‘real’ (‘legible’ or otherwise) or ‘fake’ inscriptions, or no inscriptions at all (Morishita 2004). These were important symbols of authority deployed by powerful figures to establish or confirm relationships with subordinates and allies, and to display their own control over the all-important trade with the Korean peninsula and the Chinese continent. The Chinese histories make it clear that the various polities of Wa were far from unified at this point, even if it was possible for a powerful figure like Himiko to temporarily dominate a confederation of chiefdoms. As mentioned previously, once immigrant groups arrived with the necessary metal-working techniques and access to imported ingots or domestic ore was established, copies of Chinese mirrors and original creations were domestically cast, but they continued ——— 20. On era names, see endnote 2.8.

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to function as symbols of kingly power, to be buried in massive quantities with a ruler or to be distributed to vassals and allies.21 This political role of written objects would prove to be more important than their specific ‘content,’ although both ideologically significant dating conventions and self-referential auspicious clauses would provide resources for the development of new types of inscriptions during the Tomb period. The lasting legacy of the tributary system was less a particular model for the transmission of information through writing than a framework of power and prestige expressed through display and distribution of inscribed precious objects. There are suggestions, however, that Tomb-period rulers came to conform more fully to the documentary expectations of the system than did their Yayoi predecessors.

“MY FIEFDOM IS REMOTE AND DISTANT” Political transformation within the archipelago in the centuries after Himiko is amply attested by archaeological evidence. The appearance in the Tomb period of the keyhole-shaped burial mounds, first in the Kinai region and then spreading to others, and subsequent changes in tomb placement and structure, grave goods, and the sizes and locations of the mounds themselves, correlated with developments in metallurgy, agriculture, and architecture, suggest the growth of a league of more powerful local rulers loosely subordinated to one or more lines of paramount chiefs in the Kinai area: the Yamato kings.22 The Chinese official histories do not reflect the first two centuries of this line of political development (which is in many ways an extension of that already apparent in the late Yayoi period), because they are silent on the subject of Wa after the time of Himiko. Silent, that is, until the fifth century, a time when enormous tombs on plains (most prominently in parts of what is now Osaka) attest to unprecedented power and prestige on the ——— 21. For helpful introductions to the political implications of the production and distribution of mirrors in the third- to fifth-century archipelago, see Edwards 1996 and 1999. 22. English-language discussions of the emergence of the Yamato kings, and more broadly of the rise of Tomb-period elites, can be found in Piggott 1997; Mizoguchi 2002; and Barnes 2007. For recent Japanese-language surveys, see Suzuki Yasutami 2002; Nitō 2004; Tateno 2004; and Matsugi 2007, 245–344.

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part of the Yamato kings. At this point the Songshu 宋書, the early sixth-century official history of the Liu Song dynasty (420–79), records repeated envoys from the kings of Wa. The brief account of the “country of Wa” (倭國) in the Songshu focuses entirely on tributary relations between the Song court and ‘barbarian’ rulers known to later scholarship as the “Five Kings of Wa.” With its focus on the repeated appearance of Wa envoys who served to legitimize the Song as well as the kings who sent them, this entire account can be read as an illustration of its first lines: The country of Wa lies in the great ocean to the southeast of Koryŏ [Koguryŏ]. For generations, they have properly submitted tribute. 倭國在高驪東南大海中、世修貢職 (SS 97:2394)

Following this are descriptions of a series of diplomatic missions from the Five Kings beginning in 425 and ending in 478.23 In addition to sending tribute, they ask to be invested by the Song emperors with a series of official titles, assuredly by means of proclamations and seals like those described in the Han and Wei histories. Significantly, three of the kings also request that lesser titles be conferred on some of their vassals as well. The account refers to written manifests (biao 表) sent along with the envoys of the first and second Wa kings (Can and Zhen), but the only one that is quoted is that of the last king (Wu). This text, famous for its length and lofty style, is recorded to have been brought by the Wa envoy of 478. It begins: My fiefdom is remote and distant; its domain lies beyond the imperium. From long ago, my forefathers girded themselves in armor and helmets and strode across mountains and rivers without pausing to rest. To the east, they subdued fifty-five lands of hairy men; to the west, they subjugated sixty-six lands of assorted barbarians. Crossing over, they pacified ninety-five lands north of the sea. Their Kingly Way was harmonious and peaceful; they extended their territory and made distant the limits of their domain. For repeated generations they paid homage at court, never once transgressing the year.

——— 23. For more on the Five Kings of Wa, see endnote 2.9.

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封國偏遠、作藩于外。自昔 、躬 甲冑、跋渉山川、不遑寧處。 東征毛人五十五國、西服衆夷六十六國。渡平海北九十五國。王道融 泰、廓土遐畿。累葉朝宗、不愆于歳。(SS 97:2395)

According to the remainder of the manifest, the Wa had been prevented from sending tribute to the Song court by the hostile state of Koguryŏ, and for that reason had long planned to wage war against their peninsular rival. Because of the deaths of his father and brother, King Wu’s attack had been delayed, but he was now prepared to begin fighting, and therefore requests that the Song emperor confirm his lofty titles to encourage his loyalty. Undoubtedly much of this manifest is a matter of convenient fiction, as is typical of diplomatic communications past and present. The tributary relationship depended on the willingness of peripheral rulers, or at least their intermediaries, to represent themselves and their attitude to the Chinese imperium in terms congenial to the emperor and his officials. It is doubtful that a centralized kingdom of this size and military prowess existed in the Japanese archipelago in the latter half of the fifth century, but this manifest does provide evidence of a ruler more capable of participating in the written portion of the tributary system than his Yayoi predecessors—that is, if it can be taken seriously as a piece of writing that originated in Wa. The manifest was certainly written by someone with extensive familiarity with literary Chinese rhetoric, but the very elaboration of this piece of parallel prose, emerging so suddenly in the historical record, spurs doubt about its authenticity. It could have been prepared for the Wa envoy as he passed through the friendly state of Paekche, or after his arrival at the Song court, or it could even have been drafted by the compilers of the Songshu themselves. As discussed below, a handful of fifth-century epigraphs demonstrate that there were scribes associated with Wa kings in this period, but in length and style they are nothing like the Wu manifest. 24 Suggestive though it is, its authenticity remains ——— 24. The length and complexity of the manifest suggests an infrastructure to support it: production or importation of ink, brushes, and paper, cloth, or strips of wood or bamboo, not to mention the reference works that would accompany the production of allusive parallel prose. But there is no direct evidence of such things in the archipelago this early. On the other hand, the other manifests included in the Songshu accounts of

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open to question. Nevertheless, its presence in the Songshu can be taken to indicate that Wa rulers in this period continued to participate in the tributary system, and were thus exposed to particular uses of writing for political and diplomatic purposes.25 This overarching framework, rather than the specific content of the manifest, is one of the two most salient aspects of the Songshu record of fifth-century contacts. The other is its extensive reference to Korean kingdoms: not only the aforementioned Koguryŏ, but also Paekche, Silla, and several smaller southern polities.26 Such connections are not new to the Chinese historical record—for example, the Sanguozhi article on the Han 韓 people of the southern Korean peninsula mentions that the Wa obtained iron from them (SGZ 30:853)—but there are other signs of intensified connections between emerging Korean states and the Japanese peninsula during the Tomb period. It has long been clear that these links are fundamental to early Japanese political, social, and cultural history; they are no less so for the history of writing and literacy. Writing Between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago The Japanese encounter with Chinese writing was a complex meeting of different languages and different degrees of social organization that included several polities on the Korean peninsula. Despite the tendentious narratives of state ideologues and latter-day nationalists, such contacts involved neither the conquest of the archipelago by ‘horse-riding’ Korean kings, nor the subjugation of portions of the peninsula by Japanese rulers, but rather a less coherent series of flows of people and tech——— various barbarians employ markedly—and suspiciously—similar structures and vocabulary, but the Wu manifest is unusual in both (Sakamoto Yoshitane 1980b). 25. After the Songshu the Chinese dynastic histories fall silent about the Wa until the beginning of the seventh century, when the Suishu records very different documents submitted to the Chinese emperor by Wa envoys. Up to that point the Wu manifest is the only Wa text quoted in any of the Chinese historical accounts of the early archipelago. 26. The titles professed or requested by three of the Wa kings (Zhen, Ji, and Wu) include command of “military affairs” 軍事 in Silla, Paekche, and several smaller southern Korean countries. Interestingly, both times that the Song emperors do confirm peninsular authority through appointments, they omit Paekche from the list.

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nologies across the Korea/Tsushima straits and beyond.27 In addition to historical works transmitted in later manuscripts, and more general archaeological evidence, a handful of inscriptions from the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries helps to flesh out these interconnections and the role they played in the development of Japanese writing. Throughout East Asia, writing was significant not only in interactions between the ‘central kingdom’ of China and the states whose rulers it invested, but also among those peripheral states themselves. In this connection the Korean peninsula stands out for its early contact with Chinese writing and for the rapidity with which competition among its several emerging states drove the emergence of distinctive cultures of writing. WRITING IN THE EARLY KOREAN STATES AND THEIR RELATIONS WITH WA

The earliest contacts with writing on the peninsula most likely preceded the 195 BCE establishment of a kingdom in the northwest by Wiman 衛 満, from the northern Chinese state of Yan. Certainly, the Han Chinese commanderies that controlled that area from 108 BCE relied on writing in administration and communication with the central authorities. Historical and archaeological sources attest to the spread of writing in the peninsula during the Three Kingdoms period (ca. 300 CE–668 CE), although Koguryŏ and Paekche seem to have developed faster than Silla. The twelfth-century Samguk sagi 三國史記 reports that the former two states had official histories compiled and schools established as early as the fourth century, but these specific accounts seem exaggerated. However, the King Kwanggaet’o stele 廣開土王碑 on the Yalu River (near the modern border between China and North Korea) was erected by the state of Koguryŏ in 414 and bears an inscription of more than 1,800 characters. Of course, in early Korea as in early Japan, the presence of writing does not mean that acts of ‘reading’ were widespread: even substantial inscriptions like the Kwanggaet’o stele are likely to have had alegible meaning for nearly all who encountered them. Nonetheless it ——— 27. For an extensive survey of early contacts between the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago, see Farris 1992; a recent discussion in terms of “peer polity interaction” can be found in Barnes 2007.

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is clear that in Koguryŏ writing was used for diplomatic messages and politically motivated display texts—and possibly for more extended purposes—from at least the beginning of the fifth century, and most likely from the mid-fourth century. Writing seems to have gained importance in Paekche at roughly the same time, but the comparatively remote Silla was the last of the three states to make this transition, showing few signs of the use of inscription until the mid-sixth century. In these centuries the states of the peninsula were constantly warring with one another. It is clear from latter-day Korean and Japanese histories, and also from a few contemporary sources (the Kwanggaet’o stele foremost among them) that Wa military forces became involved in this fighting, generally as allies of Paekche or other, smaller polities of the southern peninsula. As conduits of writing and stimuli to the development of new literacies, these allegiances would prove to be far more decisive than tributary relations with the Chinese empire. But here as well contacts with Korean states were necessary but not sufficient conditions for the eventual expansion of writing in the archipelago (discussed in the following chapter). A COMPLEX DIPLOMATIC OVERTURE

The late fourth century was a period of dramatic military victories for Paekche’s King Ch’ogo 肖古 (r. 346–75) and his crown prince, Kusu 九首. 28 In 369 Paekche conquered the kingdom of Mahan (south of modern Seoul), and two years later, in 371, it dealt Koguryŏ a severe defeat, killing its king in battle. It makes sense that during this period Ch’ogo would also have “solidified his international position by making overtures to the Eastern Chin state in the Yangtze river region and to the Wa people in Japan” (K. Lee 1984, 37). The former contact is attested by a description of Paekche accepting tributary status in 372 in the seventh-century Jinshu 晉書 (the dynastic history of the Jin [265–420]); the evidence for the latter is a badly damaged, and highly controversial, inscription that is a landmark in the early history of Japanese writing as well as diplomacy. ——— 28. Both Ch’ogo and Kusu appear frequently in eighth-century Japanese accounts of this early period. For a translation of their Samguk sagi annals, and a discussion of the fictional earlier counterparts invented for them in that history, see Best 2006.

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Kings Who Did Not Read In the Nara basin a few kilometers from the Tōdaijiyama mound is Isonokami Shrine 石上神宮, which has been famous since antiquity as a depository of weapons with religious significance. Among its treasures is the Seven-Branched Sword, a 65.5-centimeter-long doubleedged blade with six offset 8-centimeter-long curved projections (adding the tip of the main blade makes seven branches). The blade lacks a handle and is broken into two pieces and thoroughly rusted, but it is in better condition than iron swords that have been excavated. On both flat sides of the main blade is a gold inlay inscription surrounded by a border line and running from tip to base (see Figure 2.2). It was hidden by a layer of exfoliated rust until 1874 when the newly appointed head of the shrine, historian Suga Masatomo (菅政友, 1823–97), noticed traces of the inscription, which was unfortunately severely damaged when he had the rust scraped away. Both the characters of the inscription and their meaning are controversial, so the following rendering, which draws on over a dozen decades’ worth of scholarship (starting with Suga himself ), remains provisional.29 In the 4th year of the Great Harmony era [369], in the [. . .] month, on the 16th day, the 43rd of the cycle, at noon, [I ] made this seven-branched sword of multiply refined iron. [With it?] [you] will avoid injury in battle; it is suitable for a marquis or a king. [. . .] made it. From ages past there has never before been a sword like this one. The Crown Prince of Paekche, Sagely [?] Kusu, had it made especially for King Zhi of Wa. Pass it on and display it to later generations.

Fig. 2.2 Obverse of the Seven-Branched Sword

——— 29. The reconstruction of the inscription text, and its translation, are based on material in Murayama 1996. For more on the Seven-Branched Sword and its inscription, see endnote 2.10.

Kings Who Did Not Read 和

年

87

鋼

・泰□四□□月十六日丙午正陽、造百練□七支刀、□辟百兵、 供

宜□供侯王、□□□□作 濟 王

示 後

・先世以来未有此刀、百□□世子奇生聖音、故為倭王旨造、伝□□世

As with those on the Tōdaijiyama sword and the mirrors on which it was based, this inscription incorporates an era name and auspicious clauses lauding the effects of the object that bears it. Unlike the manifests and proclamations required—at least ostensibly—for tributary relations with China, these are not messages addressed from one ruler to another. They are added to precious objects, which, unlike a sheet of paper, a strip of wood, or a roll of bamboo slats, have value independently of the inscription, which is a label dependent on, and imparting self-referential powers to, the object.30 Producing such objects meant as much for the donor as it did for the recipient. Just as the tributary relationship benefited the imperial side by increasing prestige and supporting a notion of universal sovereignty (over and above the possible political, military, or economic benefits of such alliances), written embodiments of that relationship would have been meaningful in the Chinese and Korean courts from which they originated, even if the kings of Wa could not ‘read’ them. But whereas mirror inscriptions (and their Tōdaijiyama cousin) are particularized only by notation of era and year, the Seven-Branched Sword specifies a diplomatic relationship, proclaiming itself an object given to a particular Wa king by a particular king (or prince) of Paekche. There are long-standing arguments about the nature of this relationship: Is Wa or Paekche subordinate, or is there parity between them? And to what extent does this contact take place under the auspice of the Jin state? Moreover, as with the Tōdaijiyama sword and the grave in which it was found, there is no way of knowing when this artifact ended up among the treasures of the Isonokami Shrine, or indeed whether it was originally sent to the Yamato region, or only ended up there later.31 ——— 30. The previous chapter noted the parallels between this self-referentiality and other epigraphic traditions, earlier in China and also in Greek and Latin antiquity. 31. For more on the problem of the recipient of the Seven-Branched Sword, see endnote 2.11.

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Questions about the identity of the Wa king, and of his relationship to the Paekche donor, are not incidental; regardless, the inscription, as with the other diplomatic texts discussed here, is an attempt to constitute a particular kind of relationship as much as—or more than—it is a reflection of a pre-existing one. As an adaptation of rhetorical and material manifestations of the tributary system, the Seven-Branched Sword suggests the portability and adaptability of nominally Sinocentric structures. Regardless of the particulars of the Paekche-Wa connection, within the Chinese world order this inscription represents a lateral interaction between two peripheral states, and as such it is a significant development. The adoption and transformation of Chinese protocols on the Korean peninsula, and their subsequent influence in the Japanese archipelago, drive much of the early history of writing in the region. This is dramatically indicated by Japanese epigraphic material of the fifth century, which includes several swords that show the role of Korean precedents, and indeed Korean scribes, in the further adaptation of writing. If the Seven-Branched Sword attests to the Korean adaptation of diplomatic writing, then these new Japanese inscriptions demonstrate how that adaptation provided precedents for domestic displays of writing by the Yamato kings and their vassals. Scribes in Service to the Yamato Kings: Fifth and Sixth Centuries CE The fifth century is an epochal moment in the history of writing in Japan: a handful of inscriptions on swords, found over a surprisingly wide geographical area, are the earliest substantial texts known to have been composed within the archipelago. These epigraphs show how writing first came to be used by scribes from the Korean peninsula who were employed by Yamato kings, and possibly also by vassals or associates of those kings. The first, the King’s Bestowal (王賜) Sword, has a simple, severely damaged inscription that appears to label it as an item given to an eastern chief by a Yamato king. Inscriptions on mirrors, and on swords like the Tōdaijiyama exemplar, provided a simple paradigm (date, record of creation, praise for object) that seems to have been complicated by the Seven-Branched Sword. Some scholars of early Japanese

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Fig. 2.3 King’s Bestowal Sword inscription

writing have argued that in much the same way, the King’s Bestowal Sword inscription, brief and fragmentary though it is, exemplifies a basic pattern for subsequent, and longer, fifth-century epigraphs. Like the Na seal, this brief inscription limns a fundamental connection between writing and kingship. The sword was part of a cache of iron weapons found in a mid-fifthcentury tomb, the Inaridai No. 1 Mound 稲荷台一号墳, on a site south of Chiba city (across the bay from Tokyo). 32 A double-edged sword blade corroded into four pieces, it is estimated to have originally been 73 centimeters long. X-ray examination in 1987 showed that beneath a heavy coating of rust, a twelve-character inscription was inlaid in gold, on both flat sides of the blade close to the hilt (see Figure 2.3). Half ——— 32. At 27 meters in diameter, the Inaridai No. 1 Mound is the largest of a cluster of round mounds dating to the fifth to seventh centuries. It contained the remnants of two directly buried wooden coffins, and is dated to the mid-fifth century based on the style of the pottery and iron armor it contained.

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of the characters are illegible, but reconstructing fragments of two of them yields the following: The King bestows [. . . sword?]; [bear it] with reverence./ This [court] [sword? . . .] 安

廷

王賜□□敬□/此□□□□□33

This short inscription specifies the act of bestowal by a ruler that gives the item its political value, and adds an apparent command to treat it with due respect. It must have been produced by a scribe at the behest of the king, and received as a magical or totemic pattern, alegibly expressive of the authority associated with control over this foreign technology of communication. The text adds value to the sword—not least because it is inlaid in gold—but it is still a label addressing the meaning of the object that bears it. The basic pattern of an inscribed object produced in the central court and granted to a peripheral inferior to indicate a tributary relationship stems from the Chinese practices attested by artifacts such as the Na seal and the Tōdaijiyama sword, but the very bareness of the opening statement of bestowal suggests the value inherent, not just in the object itself, but in the king’s ability to order its production and inscription. The inscription is silent about the location or identity of this king; the absence of a proper name suggests a ruler of such stature that it need not be specified. The format is also expressive of the power and prestige of the king: that character (王) is larger than the others (reminiscent of the initial “Han” on the Na seal inscription), and is located higher on the blade than the first character on the reverse portion of the inscription, which probably contains praise for the quality or magical benefits of the weapon. Because double-edged swords are so rare in Korean sites of this period, it is unlikely that the sword was imported (Ichihara-shi kyōiku iinkai 1988, 24–25). In this period, the distribution of the characteristic keyhole shape of the tomb mounds and of the mirrors still common as grave goods within them, and also the comparatively greater size of tombs in the Kinai area, all suggest that central Yamato kings had a certain degree of power (though not outright control) over peripheral ——— 33. For more on the King’s Bestowal Sword inscription, see endnote 2.12.

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chiefs. These are the same rulers who are thought have been in contact with the fifth-century Song court as the “Five Kings of Wa,” and it is likely that one of them is the “king” referred to here.34 More direct connection to one of those Five Kings has been proposed for the two other major fifth-century sword inscriptions, which, taken together, are the most important pre-seventh-century sources for the history of writing in Japan. SCRIBES, KINGS, AND VASSALS

Swords from the Eta-Funayama mound in Kyushu and the SakitamaInariyama mound in eastern Honshu bear inscriptions that are longer and more complex than that of the King’s Bestowal Sword. They reveal much about the identities of those involved in their creation: kings, scribes who served them, and vassals who were the subjects of the inscriptions and probably also the recipients of the swords. As with the debate about the location of Yamatai, these inscriptions raise a core problem of political history: how far did the rule of the fifth-century Yamato kings extend, and how thoroughly did they control regions distant from their bases in the Kinai region? Scholars disagree about whether one or both of these texts was produced and distributed by the king’s scribes, as with the King’s Bestowal Sword, or commissioned as an individual display by a powerful local figure. Reframed in terms of the history of writing, this debate centers on the question of whether the technology of writing in the mid-Tomb period was fully monopolized by the central kings, or also employed by local elites in outlying regions. Different answers to this question involve radically contrasting pictures of the geography of writing in the fifth century, and also of its subsequent spread and development. There is room for continued debate, but as I argue below, the preponderance of the evidence suggests a limited geographical expanse of writing in this period. More importantly, though, these sword inscriptions attest to the nature of fifth-century writing, providing ample evidence for the ——— 34. On the apparent connections between this transregional power structure and the Inaridai mound and inscription, see endnote 2.13.

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presence of Korean scribes in the courts of the Yamato kings, as well as suggesting what their principal function might have been. The Eta-Funayama sword is a roughly 91-centimeter-long singleedged blade with horse, bird, and fish designs in silver inlay on both flat sides near the hilt. It was part of a lavish trove of weapons, gold and silver ornaments, and other burial goods discovered in 1873 from a mound dating to the late fifth or early sixth century northwest of Kumamoto city in western Kyushu. Along the narrow back of the blade, a 75-character inscription is inlaid in silver in a single line from the tip down (see Figure 2.4).35 In the age of Great King Wa[. . .]ru who ruled all under heaven, the master of ceremonies who served him, named Murite, during the 8th month, used a great iron kettle to alloy a four-foot court sword. Eighty-times refined and ninetytimes beaten, it is a three-inch excellent [sharp] sword. Who bears this sword will live long, have many descendents, obtain [. . . the king’s?] favor, and not lose that which he governs. The name of the sword maker is Itawa and the writer is Zhang An. 治天下獲□□□鹵大王世、奉事典曹人名无[利]弖、八月中、用大鐵 九 刊 釜、并四尺廷刀。八十錬、□十振、三寸上好□刀。服此刀者、長壽、 和 子孫洋々、得□恩也、不失其所統。作刀者名伊太□、書者張安也。

Locating itself (and the sword that carries it) in the temporal and spatial domain of the “great king,” the inscription adapts the literary Chinese term “ruled all under heaven” 治天下 to a new archipelagic context. This opening specification of a particular reign has been compared to the initial era name found in so many other Chinese-style inscriptions, such as the mirror texts surveyed in the preceding chapter (Kawaguchi 1993). Next, the subject of the inscription, Murite, is established, with his service to the ruler as a ceremonial officer preceding his name. The following sections are already familiar from mirror inscriptions: description of the object’s creation and auspicious phrases devoted to its merits.

——— 35. For more on the Eta-Funayama tomb and sword, see endnote 2.14.

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Fig. 2.4 Eta-Funayama sword inscription

The final section identifies the swordmaker, and then attributes the inscription itself to one Zhang An, a Chinese-style name that most likely belongs to an immigrant from the Korean peninsula, perhaps with a claim to Chinese ancestry.36 This, the oldest known signature from the Japanese archipelago, is illustrative of the power of writing to claim or attribute authorship of an artifact (or of an inscription itself ). The graphs of the signature (書者張安也) are considerably larger than those that precede them. Though this is connected to the thickening of the sword blade at its base, it can also be taken as an assertion of the scribe’s importance. If so, the size of Zhang An’s name reflects not just his individual prestige, but also the power of those who could command him to write. ——— 36. I have provisionally adopted the modern Chinese reading of the name 張安, but this should not be interpreted as a claim about the origin of this individual or about the actual fifth-century reading of his name, which could just as well be rendered Chang An (K.) or Chō An (J.). There is no way to tell whether the ‘writing’ attributed to him involves composing the inscription, inlaying it in silver, or both. This confusion is typical of the ‘craft literacy’ of the period, as is the parallel between forging the sword and producing the text suggested by the wording of the conclusion.

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The Sakitama-Inariyama sword, a rust-encrusted 73.5-centimeter-long double-edged blade, was unearthed in 1968 from a mound in Saitama prefecture, northwest of Tokyo. Based on a rich assortment of burial goods, the date of the tomb is thought to be the end of the fifth or the beginning of the sixth century. The inscription, discovered a decade after the sword was excavated, continues unbroken from obverse to reverse of the flat sides of the blade, with 57 characters on the front and 58 on the back, for a total of 115 graphs (see Figure 2.5).37 Recorded during the 7th month of the 48th year of the cycle [471]. Wowake omi’s ancestor’s name was Opopiko; his son was Takari sukune; his son’s name was Teyokariwake; his son’s name was Taka[pa]siwake; his son’s name was Tasakiwake; his son’s name was Patepi; his son’s name was Kasa[pa]yo; his son’s name was Wowake omi. Generation after generation, as chief sword-bearer, our service has continued to the present. When Great King Wakatakiru’s court was at the palace of Siki, I helped him rule all under heaven. Having this multiply refined sharp sword made, I record the origins of my service. ・辛亥年七月中記。乎獲居臣、上祖名意富比 、其児多加利足尼、 其児名弖已加利獲居、其児名多加披次獲居、其児名多沙鬼獲居、其 児名半弖比 ・其児名加差披余、其児名乎獲居臣、世々為杖刀人首、奉事来至今。 獲加多支鹵大王寺在斯鬼宮時、吾左治天下。令作此百練利刀、記吾 奉事根原也。

Unlike previously discussed inscriptions, the initial date uses the sexagesimal cycle, which does not express allegiance to a ruler, and it is followed directly by the name and title of the inscription’s subject (Wowake), and then by his genealogy going back seven generations. Only in the latter half of the text are recorded the service performed by this lineage, and, finally, the king served by Wowake. Tellingly, the first person pronoun referring to Wowake is inserted between the name of the ——— 37. On the Sakitama-Inariyama tomb and sword, see endnote 2.15. Although the general policy of this book is to transcribe proper nouns in their modern forms, the presumptive pre-OJ consonants have been maintained in the names of the Inariyama inscription.

Kings Who Did Not Read king and the phrase “ruled all under heaven.” Moreover, the conclusion mentions the quality of the sword itself but eschews the traditional specification of the benefits of bearing it.38 These are major differences, but there is also a striking commonality with the Eta-Funayama inscription: the name of the ruler, which also looks to be identically transcribed. The middle three characters of this part of the Eta-Funayama inscription are damaged beyond recognition, but the intial 獲, the final 鹵, and the “great king” 大王 title are clearly the same, a parallel that is hard to explain without postulating a common point of origin for the two swords. In this period, the only plausible common origin for objects found in Kyushu and the Kantō region of Honshu is the Yamato court (Kawaguchi 1979, 230). Very few other written objects survive from the Tomb period, and it is hard to imagine how the transcription of the king’s name could have been regulated over the great distance between Kyushu and eastern Honshu (Yonetani Masafumi, in Hirakawa 1999a, 34–35).39 Fig. 2.5 Sakitama-Inariyama sword (obverse on the right)

——— 38. On other differences between the two swords, see endnote 2.16. 39. In addition to the apparently identical spelling of the ruler’s name, there is linguistic evidence for the production of the Inariyama inscription in the central court. The historical linguist Mori Hiromichi argues that the phonographs used in Wakatakiru’s name and in titles like “sukune” or “wake” were selected to reflect the pitch-accents of those words, but that the transcription of Wowake’s ancestors’ proper names ignores such distinctions (Mori Hiromichi 2003). This is not conclusive evidence, but if the scribe was unfamiliar with—or uninterested in—the details of local proper names, it suggests he was based elsewhere, and once again, the Yamato court is the only reasonable candidate.

95

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The identity of the king has been a central problem of scholarship on the swords, especially since the discovery of the Sakitama-Inariyama inscription in 1978. The leading candidate is a semi-legendary fifth-century ‘sovereign’ described in the eighth-century Japanese histories. This ruler, known since the mid-eighth century as Yūryaku 雄略, has also been identified with the King Wu of Wa who is portrayed by the Songshu as having dispatched the long manifest to the Song court in 478. 40 The correspondences that link these three are convincing but not conclusive. It is certainly tempting to see the sword inscriptions and the Wu manifest as different facets of the same king’s control of scribes, and yet there are essential differences between them. The Sakitama-Inariyama text is long for a sword inscription, but it is still much shorter and simpler than the elaborate manifest. Those responsible for it and for the EtaFunayama inscription were not necessarily capable of producing other, more complex forms of writing.41 The similarities between these two inscriptions do not end with the name and orthography of the “great king” 大王 who “rules all under heaven” 治天下.42 The dates of both contain the character 中 used not to mean ‘throughout’ but simply ‘in,’ a usage that in literary Chinese is redundant and unusual. Though not unheard of in writing of continental origin, especially in wooden and bamboo documents, it is particularly common in texts composed on the Korean peninsula (Fujimoto Yukio 1988, 211–16; see also Ledyard 1966, 43–44). The Sakitama-Inariyama format of [date]+中+記 (“recorded in [date]”) is also common in Korean texts, especially those of the Unified Silla period (668–935), and is furthermore found in several seventh- and eighth-century Japanese inscriptions. Another parallel suggestive of a Korean connection is that both inscriptions commemorate “service” 奉事 to the king in posts ——— 40. For more on the ruler later known as Yūryaku, see endnote 2.17. 41. In the sword inscriptions, the king is a potentate ruling over “all under heaven,” but in the manifest, Wu is a loyal vassal of the Chinese emperor seeking assistance in fulfilling his tributary duty. But this difference could simply reflect the contrast between domestic and diplomatic documents—and, as discussed below, there are ways in which the differences between the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama swords could be seen as similarly driven by different ‘audiences.’ 42. On the title “great king,” see endnote 2.18.

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whose titles end in the term “person” 人.43 An inscription on a mural in a Silla tomb contains both the [date]+中 pattern and an apparent title ending in “person,” 人, and followed by “named” 名 (Hirakawa 1999a, 10). Moreover, many of the characters used to transcribe proper names in the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama inscriptions are identical to those found in Paekche records excerpted in the 720 Nihon shoki.44 As the Yamato kings grew more powerful in the fourth and fifth centuries, in part through their control over materials (iron, bronze, precious artifacts) and technologies (earthmoving, irrigation, textiles, horses, metalworking) imported from the Korean peninsula, they became increasingly capable of projecting power into distant areas of the archipelago. This was never a matter of centralized top-down control, but of mutually advantageous, and perpetually negotiated, alliances with local potentates—alliances that were expressed in part through the distribution of mirrors and other valued objects, and also of techniques like those involved in creating the huge keyhole-shaped tomb mounds. An essential component was control over writing itself, which meant the ability to have precious metal objects with significant markings produced to order. Here the central figures were the scribes themselves, Korean technicians and their descendants, who were sent, or came of their own accord, in the context of allegiances between the kings of Wa and the rulers of southern peninsular states (Paekche and the Kaya principalities). The inscriptions produced by these scribes built on models provided by existing mirror and sword inscriptions. Texts like the SevenBranched Sword inscription must have been particularly influential here, combining explicit political meaning with the traditional selfreferential descriptions of the artifact’s creation and efficacy (perfunctory in the Sakitama-Inariyama case). Perhaps the most important influence was the precedent of adapting the Chinese use of writing as a vertical conduit between imperial center and periphery to the expression of more complex interactions. In the case of the Seven-Branched Sword, these were the relations between the kings of Paekche and Wa in the larger context of the Jin ecumene, whereas the Eta-Funayama ——— 43. For more on Murite and Wowake’s titles, see endnote 2.19. 44. On the Paekche records in the Nihon shoki, see endnote 2.20.

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and Sakitama-Inariyama inscriptions expressed three-way relationships among subordinate eminences (Murite and Wowake), the Yamato king who ruled the ‘realm,’ and his scribes. The opening of the Eta-Funayama inscription establishes the ruler’s power and prestige, suggesting the bestowal of a valuable symbol of his authority and affection on a peripheral affiliate (Kawaguchi 1993). Like the King’s Bestowal Sword, this domesticates a Chinese model, but a significant departure is the portrayal of the recipient, if that is what Murite was, as an actor in the creation of the object. The balance of the evidence suggests that the Sakitama-Inariyama inscription was also a product of the central court, written by one or more peninsular scribes in royal employ, perhaps connected to those responsible for the EtaFunayama inscription. However, even more so than in the other, this text appears to be the result of a complex negotiation between the authority of the king and Wowake’s personal prestige, as grounded in his seven-generation genealogy and insistent reference to himself and his political contributions. It is likely to have been produced in a central royal workshop, but even so Wowake must have been involved in drafting it. Drawing on immense knowledge of seventh- and eighth-century epigraphy and ephemeral writing in remote areas, especially the northeast, Hirakawa Minami has argued that the Sakitama-Inariyama sword inscription is a display of power by a local lord produced more or less independently of direct involvement by the Yamato court (see Hirakawa 1999a). If Wowake really did commission the sword himself (as the inscription seems to claim), then this would be independent peripheral use of writing, even though the mediation of his claim to authority through service to the king indicates a complex division of power. In contrast, if the Sakitama-Inariyama and Eta-Funayama inscriptions are seen as essentially similar, that would lead to the conclusion that writing was still monopolized by the Yamato court; this is Kawaguchi’s argument. Although I recognize that there are important differences between the two inscriptions, my approach in the foregoing discussion has been closer to that of Kawaguchi. Significantly, these two inscriptions also mark an apparent advance in self-referentiality. The familiar reference to the artifact bearing the text remains, but to that has been added a more explicit acknowledgement

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of the text itself, and of its production. In the Eta-Funayama sword this is obvious in the concluding ‘signature’ specifying Zhang An as the “one who writes” (書者), but a similar role is played in the SakitamaInariyama sword by the insistence on the act of “recording” (記) that begins and ends the inscription. This indicates, perhaps, greater selfconsciousness about the act of writing itself, consistent with its place in the archipelago as a rare skill that was the livelihood of those who specialized in it. Signs of such a professional identity need not be taken for evidence of widespread acts of ‘legible’ reading; indeed, they are consistent with what Eric Havelock (1963, 39) dubbed “craft literacy.” It is very unlikely at this point that either of the other parties involved in the inscriptions—the Yamato king and the subordinate eminences— responded to the inscription as more than a significant pattern opaquely bearing the message that had been requested from the scribe. OF ERRORS AND AUDIENCES

The triangular relationship among king, scribe, and vassal seen in the fifth-century sword inscriptions suggests something about the reception of writing in Tomb-period Japan, as does the paucity of other forms of writing from the time. But further clues to the nature of ‘reading’ are provided by another artifact that involves its own, more severe challenges to interpretation: a bronze mirror held by the Suda Hachiman Shrine 隅田八幡宮, in northeastern Wakayama prefecture near the border with Nara prefecture. Although the preponderance of evidence suggests that this mirror was cast in the Japanese archipelago in the early sixth century, its difficulties are complementary to those of the sword inscriptions discussed thus far. For most of them, the nature and situation of the tombs from which they were excavated is known, and many of the difficulties in working with them stem from the rust damage to the blades that bear them. But the Suda Hachiman mirror, although nearly uncorroded, is held by a shrine that does not appear in historical records until the early twelfth century, and the first reference to the mirror itself does not appear until the nineteenth century.45 Most puzzlingly, the inscription itself is garbled and impenetrable in places, not because it has ——— 45. On the Suda Hachiman mirror and its provenance, see endnote 2.21.

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been damaged, but because of how it was originally written. The mirror is about 20 centimeters in diameter. The design on the decorated reverse is of a category termed the “human-image mirror” ( jinbutsu gazōkyō ), and its crudeness is typical of domestic copies of Chinese originals.46 A large hemispherical knob is surrounded by several concentric bands, the widest of which contains 10 humanoid and animal figures, and the outermost of which contains a 48-character inscription (see Figure 2.6). Riddled with malformed characters and undoubted mistakes, this inscription appears to be the product of an unskilled scribe and/or caster with little concern for ‘legibility.’47 On the 10th day of the 8th month of the 20th year of the cycle [503?], during the reign of the Great King, when his younger brother the prince resided in Oshisaka palace, Shima thought to serve him for a long time, and had Kawachi no atai and Ayahito Imasuri, the two of them, [take] two hundred-weight of white bronze and [make] this mirror. 矣未年八月日十、大王年、男弟王在意柴沙加宮時、斯麻念長奉、 遣開中費直穢人今州利二人等、所白上同二百旱、所此竟

A full accounting of the inscription’s difficulties and incoherencies is unnecessary here. It is sufficient to point out the most striking problems: the oddness of its multiple dates, outright mistaken usage of common characters, and pervasive inverted graphs (because the casting process was not taken into account when the mold was carved).48 Despite these ——— 46. Several imported mirrors found in archipelagan tombs appear to be from the same mold, or from molds based on the same model, as the original imported mirror or mirrors from which the Suda design was copied. One, excavated from the Kamezuka 亀塚 mound in western Tokyo, has a typically formulaic inscription (translated in the previous chapter) with no connection to that of the Suda mirror, but its pictorial design clearly provided a precedent (see Kobayashi Yukio 1965, 108–12; Tanaka Migaku 1981, 38–40; and Sakamoto Yoshitane 1991, 80–84). 47. On the Suda Hachiman mirror inscription, see endnote 2.22. 48. In addition to the very odd multiple format of the initial date and the numerous inverted characters, the Suda mirror inscription’s puzzles include bizarre substitutions that seem to be mistakes: the final particle 矣 used for the initial character of the date (癸), and the relative pronoun 所 used for verbs (presumably 取 and 作). The collocation 念長奉 (translated here as “thought to serve him for a long time”) is also very strange.

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Fig. 2.6 Suda Hachiman mirror, as depicted in the nineteenth-century Kii no kuni meisho zue (KKMZ 218–19)

difficulties, the overall import is clear. With its focus on individuals and their relationships with the king, this text has little in common with the impersonal formulae of other mirror inscriptions, and is much closer to the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama inscriptions, with which it also shares signs of connection to peninsular scribes. The important point about the Suda Hachiman inscription, though, is not so much its consistency with other domestic inscriptions of the Tomb period, but rather its botched and jumbled quality. Appearing as it does in a contextual vacuum, it is dangerous to extrapolate too much about its reception, but its errors and incoherencies suggests something of the nature of the ‘audience’ for all of these early inscriptions. Regardless of the capabilities of the scribe and/or artisan who produced this text, it would appear that its departures from ‘legibility’ did not prevent

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its having been cast (at great expense), and then treated with sufficient care that it survived in such excellent condition. This is entirely in keeping with the expectation that the ‘alegible’ impact of writing in this period was more important to its meaning and function than its capability to transmit or preserve ‘information.’ This interpretation of the Suda Hachiman mirror is further strengthened by another element of its design. Between the figures and the inscription, there is a band of alternating square and semicircular lozenges and a raised, toothed ridge, possibly copied from yet another imported Chinese model. On imported mirrors, such lozenges usually carry the characters of an inscription, but here they contain graph-like patterns: a pseudo-inscription like those discussed in the previous chapter.49 This could have been because the artisan was incapable of including detailed characters in small squares, but it also suggests that they were not deemed worthy of accurate reproduction. Similarly, the crudeness of the figural portion of the design may stem from lack of technical ability, but it also suggests that the identity of the figures (the Queen Mother of the West juxtaposed with the King of the East) was of little importance to the artisan and, most likely, to those for whom the mirror was made. No matter how flawed the main inscription, it cannot be interpreted as a direct sign of ignorance on the part of those who produced it (though of course it would be consistent with such ignorance). However, especially in conjunction with its companion pseudo-inscription, it does suggest that a more correct, more fully ‘legible’ inscription was neither required nor desired in the context in which the mirror was produced. In this connection, it is important to remember that the fragmentary ‘inscriptions’ discussed in the previous chapter included examples from the Tomb period. Even this early in the history of writing, a range of literacies is already apparent, from the peninsular scribes and their descendants, some of whom may even have been capable of producing texts ——— 49. Bands of square and semicircular lozenges are commonly found in particular types of imported mirrors, but the creators of domestic copies employed the pattern indiscriminately, and this aspect of the Suda mirror may not have a specific imported model (Kobayashi Yukio 1965, 111–12). Since there are twelve lozenges on the Suda mirror, the expectation would be that they would contain the twelve characters of the zodiacal ‘branches’ (十二支).

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as complex as the Wu manifest of 478, to the kings whose authority was partly bound up with their ability to command these scribes, to vassals like Murite and Wowake, who apparently had some degree of input into the production of their inscriptions. But this variety of relations to inscription also included others more distant from the contexts in which written artifacts were being produced, people for whom these marks were nonetheless significant, as signs of political affiliation or perhaps as patterns with supernatural functions. THE PLACE OF WRITING IN THE TOMB PERIOD

If we follow majority opinion in taking the date of the Suda Hachiman inscription to be 503, then these epigraphs have taken us to the beginning of the sixth century. A handful of somewhat later fragments suggests that the situation of writing would change little over the following century or so.50 It bears emphasis that, with the exception of formulaic inscriptions on imported mirrors, the materials surveyed in this study to this point represent close to a comprehensive catalog of all known inscriptions of the Yayoi and Tomb periods. The importance of written objects like the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama swords for contemporary scholars should not be confused with the significance they would have had in the fifth-century archipelago. Rare, precious, and impressive they must have been, but in the grand scheme of things writing does not appear to have played a major role in society. The archaeologist Tsude Hiroshi neatly summarizes a still-common view of Tomb-period writing: that the fifth-century epigraphs and the Songshu account allow us to “surmise that scribes were probably already active in fifth-century Japan as specialists who played important roles in the conducting of international affairs with China and Korea and in the operation of a complicated ruling organization in the ancient state” (Tsude 1987, 56; emphasis added). Extrapolation of an extensive role for scribes in writing-based administration depends on a unitary conceptualization of writing, one that assumes its various functions are a coherent set, so that the presence of one or more of them is evidence of the rest. But there is little reason to see writing in such monolithic terms. As argued in ——— 50. On fragmentary inscriptions dating from the sixth century, see endnote 2.23.

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the previous chapter, fragmentary symbols and imported coin/mirror inscriptions can circulate meaningfully despite the absence of other practices of ‘reading,’ and the same is true of diplomatic writing (to the extent it did exist) and display inscriptions. The presence or absence of any of the varied functions of writing are contingent on social, political, and economic factors that encourage or discourage their employment. Although the various uses of writing at a given point in a given society are interdependent and interrelated, this does not preclude piecemeal absorption and employment of those and other practices over time. Official titles like those in the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama inscriptions certainly suggest some degree of hierarchical ruling apparatus, but such an organization could be managed without extensive administrative use of writing. This is not to say that we can assume we have material evidence of all of the uses of writing in this period. As discussed in the following section, there are historiographical references to scribal administration in periods predating the seventh century, albeit from latter-day, and inconsistently reliable, sources. And if one took the Wu manifest seriously as an archipelagic product, its elaborate style implies the presence of reference works and classical texts (though the unlikelihood of such items in this period is another reason to doubt its domestic provenance). 51 But the archaeological record suggests that Tomb-period rulers had not singled writing out for special attention as a uniquely valuable or important technology, even as they ascended to unprecedented heights of authority and wealth. John Whitney Hall’s astonishment at the lack of writing in the region covered by his pioneering survey of Japanese history (quoted as one of this chapter’s epigraphs) applies to the entire archipelago during the Tomb period. Although the relative lack of inscriptions seems incredible in the face of our modern expectations of writing, it is quite natural given the narrow functions and distribution of scribal literacy during this period. But this situation was about to change. In a remarkably short period, perhaps five or so decades during the seventh century, writing would explode out of the niches it had occupied, expanding into new areas, ——— 51. On the possibility of writing on nondurable media in this period, see endnote 2.24.

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new functions, and new levels of society. This transformation is the topic of the following chapter, but in conclusion the present discussion turns to one of its most prominent products: the earliest extant Japanese historical sources, which were compiled in the early eighth century under the auspices of a recently emerged bureaucratic state. Tendentious and anachronistic, these sources are difficult to use in addressing the period before that state developed, but if treated with appropriate skepticism, they confirm much of what the archaeological record suggests about the history of writing. Perhaps more importantly, their very anachronism provides an excellent place to begin thinking about the nature of the seventh-century transformation of Japanese literacies. Court Scribes in Early Japanese Histories The eighth-century histories—the Kojiki (712) and the Nihon shoki (720)—both confirm and contradict the picture of early writing provided by archaeological artifacts. This is only natural, as these histories are torn between radically different kinds of literacy, but they create problems for scholars seeking evidence of earlier practices in sources so deeply rooted in the dramatic developments of the late seventh and early eighth centuries. Seen from a different angle, though, these problems are also opportunities, because the very aspects that prevent using these works as straightforward accounts of Tomb-period writing provide places to think through the connections between kingship and writing. They reveal a variety of differing literacies of rulership. SHINNI’S TRIUMPH AND THE KING WHO COULD READ

The Kojiki and Nihon shoki set out to justify the early eighth-century Japanese political order by chronicling the legitimacy of the royal house, narrating its achievements in state-building, and imposing a unified structure on the genealogies of major and minor noble lineage groups (uji 氏). The depictions of early writing in these two sources are both part of these common projects, but they differ dramatically from each other, in keeping with essential contrasts in the styles and worldviews of the two works (contrasts that are the central concern of Chapter 5). The best place to start is not with more familiar depictions of the ‘arrival of writing,’ but with a vivid Nihon shoki episode from a reign that the work dates to the latter half of the sixth century CE. (The Kojiki, which

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contains only a bare catalogue of rulers and basic royal genealogy for this period, makes no mention of this episode.) The story concerns a scribe whose Sinitic name, Ō Shinni 王辰爾, shows him to be of immigrant stock. 52 It begins with a document brought by an embassy from the Korean state of Koguryŏ, treated by the Nihon shoki compilers as a diplomatic tributary of the Japanese court. It is symptomatic of the difficulties of this source that neither this diplomatic relationship nor the portrayal of court itself—including the late seventh-century title “sovereign” (tennō 天皇)—can be taken seriously as reflections of sixth-century circumstances, but the point here is the significance, rather than the accuracy, of the narrative. On the 15th day, the Sovereign took the Koguryŏ manifest and gave it to the Great Minister [Soga no Umako]. He called together all the scribes and ordered them to read and explain it. At this time, none among the various scribes was capable of reading it even after three days. Now then, Ō Shinni, ancestor of the Fune no fubito, was there, and he was able to perform the service of reading and interpreting it. Therefore, the Sovereign and the Great Minister together praised him, saying, “Well done, Shinni! How splendid, Shinni! Were it not for your love of learning, who would have been able to read and explain this? Starting from now on, you shall wait upon us in the palace.” After this [they] made a proclamation to the various scribes of East and West, saying, “Why have you been unable to perform the art which you practice? As many of you as there are, none can equal Shinni.” Moreover, the manifest submitted by Koguryŏ was written on crow’s feathers, and as the characters were as black as the feathers, there was no one at all who could recognize them. Shinni steamed the feathers over rice, and then pressed them against silk, thereby transferring all of the characters. Everyone in court was amazed by this feat. 丙辰、天皇、執高麗表疏、授於大臣。召衆諸史、令讀解之。是時、諸 史、於三日内、皆不能讀。爰有船史 王辰爾、能奉讀釋。由是、天 皇與大臣倶爲讃美曰、勤乎辰爾。懿哉辰爾。汝若不愛於学、誰能 讀解。宜従今始、近侍殿中。既而詔東西諸史曰、汝等所習之業、何故

——— 52. As with the scribe of the Eta-Funayama sword inscription, there are arguments for rendering this name differently (C. Wang Chen-er; K. Wang Chin-i), but as explained in the Conventions, I have adopted Japanese readings for names appearing in the Nihon shoki.

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不就。汝等雖衆、不及辰爾。又高麗上表疏、書于烏羽。字隨羽黒、既 無識者。辰爾乃蒸羽於飯気、以帛印羽、悉写其字。朝廷悉異之。 (NS II:133–35 [Bidatsu 1/5/15])

This episode is commonly seen as contrasting the abilities of established and recently arrived immigrant scribes. Like much of the rest of the Nihon shoki, it seems to be based on house traditions of a prominent lineage group, in this case the Fune no fubito 船史, whose descent from Shinni is noted here.53 Another interesting aspect is the attribution of what is presented as a royal proclamation to “the Sovereign and the Great Minister together,” which is probably the result of incorporating into the Nihon shoki’s sovereign-centered narrative a Fune legend about their founding ancestor’s service to the Soga, an influential lineage group that some see as the real political center of the late sixth and early seventh centuries (see McCallum 2009). But the real key to understanding the passage is provided by its most vivid feature: the story of the crow feathers. One cannot take seriously an account of a diplomatic document that has been deliberately hidden in this way. Are we to imagine the Koguryŏ envoys waiting respectfully to silently offer up a handful of feathers?54 The image of the feathers can be seen as an externalization of non-comprehension, manifesting the internal states of readers’ minds as visible or invisible patterns. And yet, this episode also resolves a contradiction between the Shinni story and a passage that comes shortly before it, in a description of Bidatsu’s character: The Sovereign did not believe in the Buddhist law, but he loved belles-lettres and history. 天皇不信仏法、而愛文史 (NS II:133 [Bidatsu pre-enthronement annal])

——— 53. Later sources adduce an earlier and more prominent ancestor of the Fune no fubito in terms that suggest rivalry with competing scribal groups (SN V:468–70 [Enryaku 9/7/17] and SSR 299, 318), but this is a different form of aggrandizement from that seen in this episode, which emphasizes Shinni’s superior abilities. 54. For more on the feather episode, see endnote 2.25.

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As with other Nihon shoki encomia, this passage draws explicitly on imagery of highly literate sage-kings from Chinese sources.55 Such anachronistic emphasis on the cultural and intellectual achievement of the sovereign is based on eighth-century elite literacy, but the problem is that such an accomplished ruler would, of course, have been able to read a manifest from a tributary state. (As discussed below, there are other indications that the Nihon shoki compilers were explicitly concerned with establishing royal abilities to read—particularly in diplomatic contexts like this one.) The appended story of the crow feathers avoids this contradiction by providing an explanation for why the ruler would have needed scribal service to interpret the document. The Shinni episode reflects the uneasy coexistence of two royal literacies. In one, the ruler delegates the work of reading and writing to specialists, and gains ideological cachet from his ability to command the performance of such advanced skills. His control over the valuable technology of writing is emphasized, but that control is still mediated through the service of scribes rather than through direct involvement by him. In the other, the ruler himself has internalized the ability to read and write, and is praised for precocity and individual distinction. As a master and connoisseur of textual patterns (wen 文) he incarnates a capability fundamental to the classical Chinese model of kingship.56 As the Shinni episode illustrates, one of the chief difficulties presented by eighth-century sources is their conflation of these different types of royal literacy, which is motivated by a particular ideology of writing and corresponding vision of its historical development. The connections between the royal power to instruct others to write and the actual instruction in writing of the king—or rather, the prince—is equally prominent in Kojiki ——— 55. For example, two clauses from the Buretsu encomium, “When he reached adulthood he was fond of punishment, and had a clear understanding of laws and ordinances” 長好刑理。法令分明 (NS II:9 [ Buretsu pre-enthronement annal]), are taken from the annals of Emperor Ming 明 (r. 57–75) in the Hou Hanshu, quoted not directly from that source but from a classified encyclopedia of the Tang upon which the editors of the Nihon shoki relied heavily: the 624 Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚 (YWLJ 12:239; see NS II:8n10). 56. While an ‘illiterate’ king can use scribes to control literate powers without internalizing them, the author/reader king is ipso facto the master of all the uses of writing he delegates; this is why, as Franz Bauml (1980) points out, a king’s having others read for him does not necessarily mean he cannot read himself.

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and Nihon shoki passages to which we now turn. These are often seen as describing the advent of writing in Japan, but the more important reason for considering them here is that, once again, anachronisms that bedevil straightforward use of them as sources are edifying when considered in their own right. THE SCRIBE WANI AND THE ANACHRONISTIC ORIGINS OF WRITING

The story of Ō Shinni provided a starting point for discussion of the portrayal of writing in the eighth-century histories, but it is not the most famous such episode. Discussions of early Japanese writing traditionally begin with the arrival of a Paekche scribe named Wani, and here as well the anachronisms of the differing Nihon shoki and Kojiki accounts are instructive. The former version starts in the fifteenth year of the reign of the sovereign later known as Ōjin, which, most historians agree, can be taken to correspond to 404 CE.57 With misleading precision, we are told that on the 6th day of the 8th month of that year, The King of Paekche sent Achiki and submitted two good horses. [. . .] Achiki was also capable of reading the classics. Therefore the Prince, Uji no Wakiiratsuko, took him as a teacher, whereupon the Sovereign asked Achiki, “Are there perhaps also scholars surpassing yourself ?” Achiki replied, “There is Wani. He is superior.” The Sovereign then sent Arata-wake, ancestor of the Kamitsuke no kimi, and Kamunaki-wake to Paekche, and thereby summoned Wani. This Achiki was the first ancestor of the Achiki no fubito. 16th year, Spring, 2nd month. Wani came to court, and the Prince, Uji no Waki-iratsuko, immediately took him as a teacher. He studied various books with Wani, and there was not one that he did not learn thoroughly. The man known as Wani was the first ancestor of the Fumi no obito and others. 百濟王遣阿直伎、貢良馬二匹。[. . .] 阿直岐亦能讀經典。即太子菟 道稚郎子師焉。於是、天皇問阿直伎曰、如勝汝博士亦有耶。對曰、 有王仁者、是秀也。時遣上毛野君 荒田別・巫別於百濟、仍徴王仁 也。其阿直岐者、阿直岐史之始 也。

——— 57. On Nihon shoki chronology and the date of 404 CE, see endnote 2.26.

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十六年春二月、王仁來之。則太子菟道稚郎子師之。習諸典籍於王 仁、莫不通達。所謂王仁者、是書首等之始 也。(NS I:371–73; Ōjin 15/8/6 and 16/2)

A clue to this story’s significance in the Nihon shoki is the role of Uji no Waki-iratsuko, the prince who takes Achiki and then Wani as his royal tutors. Thirteen years after he masters his lessons, he puts his knowledge of writing to good use in the following sequel: The King of Koguryŏ sent envoys to pay tribute at court and had them submit a manifest, which said: “The King of Koguryŏ offers guidance to the country of Japan. . .” At that time the Prince, Uji no Waki-iratsuko, read this manifest, became enraged at it, and criticized the Koguryŏ envoys. Because of the rudeness of the manifest’s format, he immediately tore it up. 高麗王遣使朝貢、因以上表。其表曰、高麗王教日本國也。時太子菟 道稚郎子讀其表、怒之責高麗之使、以表 無禮、則破其表 (NS I:377; Ōjin 28/9)

In the Nihon shoki, early uses of writing are intertwined with diplomacy, and with consistent representation of Paekche in a tributary role that Koguryŏ is often portrayed as refusing. But, perhaps more importantly here, writing is also linked to the legend of Uji no Waki-iratsuko, the youngest son so beloved by his father Ōjin that he is appointed crown prince (太子).58 This brilliant young prince, who in eloquent speeches declines the throne, is presented as a Confucian paragon; his ability to advise his father on text-based statecraft, and his precocious accomplishment as a student of the classics, are components of this idealized portrayal.59 Related to the place of writing in the legend of Uji no Waki-iratsuko is another important point about the depiction of Achiki and Wani in the Nihon shoki: their arrival is not explicitly portrayed as the advent of ——— 58. Uji no Waki-iratsuko’s mother is a woman of the Wani 和珥, a prominent Yamato area lineage group recorded as having provided wives to numerous quasi-legendary early sovereigns. They are unrelated to the Paekche scribe Wani 王仁, whose name is a modification of something like ‘Wang-in.’ 59. Uji no Waki-iratsuko’s rapid progress under a Korean teacher also foreshadows the most prominent ‘crown prince’ in the Nihon shoki, Prince Shōtoku, who will be discussed in the following chapter.

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writing, or even necessarily as a significant departure from what has gone before, although subsequent reception of the episode has strongly given it that coloration.60 For the Nihon shoki, text-based statecraft along the Chinese model is an inherent component of legitimate rule by the sovereigns, making it difficult to conceive of a period in which they were not literate, since that would be tantamount to being uncivilized. It is for this reason that there are several implicit appearances of writing from very early in the annals of the sovereigns: references to a calendrical system (NS I:243; Sujin 10/7/24), to seals of office (NS I:243; Sujin 10/ 9/9), to a census and taxation (NS I:249; Sujin 12/9/16), and to maps, population registers, and documents from Silla (NS I:339; Chūai 9/10/3). The episode featuring Achiki, Wani, and Uji no Waki-iratsuko is, however, the first appearance of the act of reading as such, and it also implies the arrival of a collection of books. To see this as tantamount to the advent of writing is not unreasonable, but that does not seem to have been a priority for the compilers. In addition to the legend of the princely paragon, they are primarily interested in noting the immigrant origins of scribal lineage groups: the Achiki no fubito and Fumi no obito. Here as well are the layers that were apparent in the Ō Shinni story: peninsular immigrant scribes, who would have had specialist monopolies on writing/reading skills long before any of the Wa kings saw a need to personally acquire them, juxtaposed with an idealized royal education reflecting later notions of elite literacy. A further example of this anachronism—in some ways the most subtle one yet—is provided by the Kojiki’s version of Wani’s arrival. A cluster of references to the arrival of technical specialists from the state of Paekche appears in the Kojiki account of the ruler later known as Ōjin. These include one Achi-kishi (presumably an alternate name for the Nihon shoki’s Achiki), accompanying two horses, and also a smith and a weaver.61 Discussion of their arrival is followed by this short passage: ——— 60. For more on whether this episode is treated as an origin narrative, see endnote 2.27. 61. The suffix -kishi is an element of the names of Korean immigrants and their descendants. Apparently derived from an official rank of the kingdom of Silla, it eventually became a kabane title held by lineage groups connected with diplomatic relations.

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Moreover [the Sovereign] ordered the land of Paekche to present wise men if there were any. Therefore, having received this command, in response they presented a man named Wani-kishi. Along with this man they presented the Analects, in ten volumes, and the Thousand-Character Classic, in one volume, for a total of eleven volumes. (This Wani-kishi is the ancestor of the Fumi no obito.) 又、科賜百濟國、若有賢人者、貢上。故、受命以貢上人、名和邇吉 師。即論語十巻・千字文一巻、并十一巻、付是人即貢進。 此和邇吉師 者、文首等 。(KJK 266–68)

The reference to an Analects in ten volumes corresponds to either the Zheng Xuan 鄭玄(127–200) or He Yan 何晏 (190–249) commentaries on the Confucian classic, both of which were widely used in early Japan: the eighth-century legal code specifies them as part of the official university curriculum (RG 3:130; see Kojima 1968, 258–73). A note in the Kojiki dates Ōjin’s death to the 31st year of the cycle (甲午), which internal evidence suggests corresponds to 394 (KJK 282), but the Thousand Character Classic (Qianziwen 千字文) was compiled by Zhou Xingsi 周 興嗣 (d. 521) in the late fifth or early sixth century.62 This inconsistency has inspired arguments that the text mentioned in the Kojiki is an earlier work with the same name, or a mistaken reference to a different work, but such speculation misses the point: as with the Nihon shoki passages discussed above, the anachronism of this account is the key to understanding it. During the seventh and eighth centuries, the Analects and the Thousand Character Classic were introductory textbooks that would have been the very first works encountered by students learning to read and write.63 Their inclusion here as items sent by the King of Paekche has essentially the same meaning as the story of the tutored Prince in the ——— 62. That the Kojiki also has Ōjin living to be 103 years old is a reminder, should one be needed, to be skeptical of the 394 date. As noted above, the Nihon shoki dates for Ōjin’s reign are normally reinterpreted as 390–430, which is also inconsistent with the date of the Thousand Character Classic. 63. Many surviving seventh- and eighth-century documents contain writing practice employing phrases from the Analects and Thousand Character Classic. For examples, see NKMS 423; NKMSS 493, 494, 497, 499, and 500; and JMSS 193–96, 203, 204, 206, 212– 14, and 222. Tōno 1977b is a classic discussion of the prevalence of passages from these works in mokkan and their implications for the history of education in early Japan.

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Nihon shoki: elite ‘literacy’ of the distant past is conceptualized in contemporary terms, and the arrival of writing in Japan is imagined as analogous to a contemporary individual’s first encounter with literacy in a pedagogical context. Unlike the Nihon shoki, though, the Kojiki makes no other reference to writing whatsoever; as discussed in Chapter 5, it provides an account of ancient kingship without writing (Kōnoshi 2007). The inclusion of Wani the scribe in a cluster of Paekche technologists suggests that literacy is akin to weaving, brewing, metalworking, or horsemanship as an imported skill controlled by specialists in service to the ruler. (The juxtaposition is reminiscent of the EtaFunayama inscription’s parallel treatment of swordsmith and scribe.) In this sense, the Kojiki narrative of Wani’s arrival provides a more ‘realistic’ portrayal of an age of craft literacy than the Nihon shoki version, despite the former’s flagrantly anachronistic reference to the Thousand Character Classic. Attempts to juxtapose the eighth-century histories, especially the Nihon shoki, to the so-called archaeological record are often compromised by failure to consider the narrative context of episodes in terms of the work’s own internal organization and overall project. Nonetheless it is suggestive that both the Nihon shoki and the Kojiki locate the arrival of peninsular scribes in Ōjin’s court, which corresponds to the late fourth or early fifth century. Wani’s pedagogic role in the court, and the elite literacy he supposedly nurtures, are eighth-century anachronisms, but his Paekche origin and the rough timing of his arrival are consistent with the picture of early scribes that can be extrapolated from domestic inscriptions like those on the Eta-Funayama and Sakitama-Inariyama swords. Moreover, even though the notion of Korean tributary states does not withstand critical scrutiny, the Nihon shoki representation of diplomatic literacy—involving the exchange of manifests and similar documents— is consistent with the possibility that scribes produced texts like the Wu manifest to the Liu Song for fifth-century Yamato kings. However, there are also some serious discrepancies between the pictures of Tomb-period writing we can derive from Chinese sources and extant epigraphs, on the one hand, and from the less anachronistic layers of the eighth-century histories, on the other. One is the obvious point that there are no references in the Nihon shoki to the production of inscribed artifacts like mirrors and swords: the depiction of scribal pur-

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suits at court and actual extant written artifacts from the period do not match. Another is that there are scattered references in pre-seventhcentury annals of the Nihon shoki to ‘pragmatic’ literacy: the role of scribes in recording trade, population, and taxation.64 Like that of the king as author/reader, this type of literacy is essential for the subsequent development of writing in Japan, but it is unclear how much of a role it played before the seventh century. Argument from absence of evidence is risky, especially since one cannot rule out the possibility that more ephemeral uses of writing accompanied the display texts that have been preserved, but even so I see little need to posit much more than what is visible in the archaeological record. At present it seems unlikely that scribes played more than a minor role in administration before the seventh century. More importantly, a central argument of this chapter has been the potential independence of these various functions of writing. There is ample evidence for a sudden shift in the nature of literacy in the archipelago during the seventh century. Thereafter the multiple layers of distinct literacies in the anachronistic accounts of early writing from the eighth-century histories really did begin to exist simultaneously. How they came to do so, and what their interactions and various material bases mean for the history of writing, are the subjects of the following chapter.

——— 64. For references to pre-seventh-century scribal involvement in trade, censustaking, and taxation, see NS I:427 [ Richū 4/8/8]; NS I:465 [Yūryaku 2/10]; NS II:105 [Kinmei 14/7/4]; NS II:127 [Kinmei 30/1/1 and 30/4]; and NS II:137–39 [ Bidatsu 3/10/9 and 3/10/11].

THREE

A World Dense with Writing: Expanding Literacies in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries

Two questions that recur at every stage of the history of writing: (a) Are writing systems developed for religious or for economic (and social) purposes? (b) Are writing systems before the European Renaissance chiefly a concern of elites? —M. O’Connor Half the trouble in this bally world is caused by the light-hearted and thoughtless way in which chappies dash off letters of introduction and hand them to other chappies to deliver to chappies of the third part. It’s one of those things that make you wish you were living in the Stone Age. What I mean to say is, if a fellow in those days wanted to give anyone a letter of introduction, he had to spend a month or so carving it on a large-sized boulder, and the chances were that the other bird got so sick of lugging the thing round in the hot sun that he dropped it after the first mile. But nowadays it’s so easy to write letters of introduction that everybody does it without a second thought. —Bertie Wooster

In the Japanese archipelago before the seventh century, writing communicated and expressed power, but did not yet enable it through political organization. If, in the familiar Cicero tag, revenues are the sinews of the state, then writing is its nervous system, and the forms of writing present during the Tomb period had not yet been knitted together to play that essential role. This is the lesson of writing’s interchangeability with other advanced technologies in the Kojiki version of the Wani story.

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Extant evidence suggests that through the end of the sixth century, writing was rare and narrow in its functions and distribution. But by the eighth century, a stunning variety of written material, and of practices of literacy, is attested by a rich collection of surviving inscriptions and transmitted texts. Over the course of the seventh century, in the most far-reaching transformation in the history of Japanese writing, the use of isolated written objects for diplomatic communication, political display, and talismanic benefit was absorbed into a vastly more complex and variegated written culture. This new culture included records, memos, notes, labels, books (including literary classics, reference works, scriptures, and legal codes) and even doodles, calligraphy practice, and random jottings. This chapter addresses two central questions. How did this world dense with writing come about? And what were the interrelated practices and materials that constituted it? My major theme is the embodiment of writing: the materiality of the text, the relationships between the functions of inscription and different media, and the complex links between written objects and their human producers and consumers. An initial glance at some brief passages from eighth-century works will provide a vivid introduction to the consequences of the seventh-century transformation of writing. The first two episodes, from the Nihon shoki, suggest how thoroughly new elite literacies were accepted in this period; the third, from the eighth-century administrative code, exemplifies the unprecedented role of writing as a means of control over the flow of goods and people. One of the central political events of the seventh century was a coup d’état in 645 directed against the Soga, a powerful lineage group that apparently controlled much of the government of the Yamato kingdom. As is the case with much of the history of this period, it is difficult to judge the accuracy of the Nihon shoki account of this event, but my concern here is with the texture of its depiction of writing and reading rather than the veracity of the incidents it describes. According to the Nihon shoki, the architects of the coup were a young prince, later known as Tenji, and the scion of another prominent elite lineage, Nakatomi no Kamatari. One of the details that enliven the portrayal of their early association is the pretext under which they conspired (from an annal entry for the year 644):

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They feared that others would be suspicious of their frequent meetings, and so together they took tomes in hand, and personally studied the teachings of the Duke of Zhou and Confucius at Master Minabuchi’s place. On the road, while they went to and from their studies, they walked side by side and plotted together secretly.1 恐他嫌頻接、而倶手把黄巻、自学周孔之教於南淵先生所。遂於路 上、往還之間、並肩潜図。 (NS II:255 [Kōgyoku 3/1/1])

The second Nihon shoki episode depicts the most charged moment in the story of the coup, in which a ceremonial reading of a (presumably fake) Korean diplomatic document is used as a pretext for luring Soga no Iruka to court, where assassins (“Komaro and the others”) await him. [Tenji] secretly spoke with Kurayamada no Maro no omi and said, “On the day that the tribute of the Three Han [Koguryŏ, Silla, and Paekche] is presented, I will certainly have you read the manifest out loud.” [. . .] Kurayamada no Maro no omi came forward and read the manifest of the Three Han out loud. [. . . He] was afraid that although he was about to finish reading out the manifest, Komaro and the others would not come. He broke into a sweat all over his body, his voice quavered, and his hands shook. 密請倉山田麻呂臣曰、三韓進調之日、必將使卿讀唱其表。[. . .] 倉山 田麻呂臣、進而讀唱三韓表文。 [. . .] 恐唱表文將盡、而子麻呂等不 来、流汗浹身、乱声動手。(NS II:261–63 [Kōgyoku 4/6/8 and 6/12])

The bloody denouement that follows is portrayed in similar detail, but my point in including these two passages is to highlight the emergence of a different world of reading and writing. The early Nihon shoki episodes examined at the end of the previous chapter involved awkward, anachronistic overlays of different literacies in contexts where the focus was on the fact of writing itself. Here, writing and reading have become naturalized; it is not noteworthy, in itself, that two young men of the ruling class should be studying Confucian classics, or that one of them should ask another to read a document out loud in a court ceremony. As it turns out, it is plausible that elites had already begun to participate ——— 1. “Master Minabuchi” refers to Minabuchi no Ayahito Shōan 南淵漢人請安, who went to Sui-dynasty China as a student priest in 608 (NS II:193 [Suiko 16/9/11]) and returned in 640 (NS II:235 [ Jomei 12/10/11]).

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in such forms of literacy by the 640s, though that may be a few decades early. Certainly by the late seventh century, such close, natural relationships to texts would have been the norm at that level of society, which is the reason that the early eighth-century compilers of the Nihon shoki were able to take writing for granted in describing events of a few generations earlier. A different realm of literacy is apparent in the third excerpt, which is a provision from the Stables and Pastures section of the eighth-century administrative code (ryō). A vivid example of writing as a manifestation of power, it also illustrates the interpenetration of alegible meaning with more familiar modes of literacy, in that the procedure described was of significance not only to unlettered stable hands, but even to the livestock themselves: For all of the colts and calves in the pastures that have reached their second year, in the ninth month of every year the Provincial Governor and the head of the pasture will visit the site together and apply a brand of the character for “government” to the upper part of their left outer thigh. (Brand calves on the upper part of the right thigh.) Moreover, when the branding has been completed, record in detail their hair color and age, and make two copies of the register. Preserve one at the provincial level, and report to the Council of State by entrusting the other one to the annual emissary to court.2 在牧駒犢、至二歳者、毎年九月、國司共牧長對、以官字印、印左 髀上。犢印右髀上。並印訖、具録毛色齒歳、爲簿両通。一通留國爲 案、一通附朝集使、申太政官。(RG 8:273–74)

In contemplating this self-referential imprinting of the word “government,” it is not inappropriate to recall Franz Kafka’s story “In the Penal Colony,” in which the ultimate punishment was for the body of the accused to be brutally inscribed with the text of the law itself. Both the branding and the duplicate registration are symptomatic of the forceful inclusion of subject bodies—even nonhuman ones—into the ——— 2. The Ryō no gige text follows the character 髀 (C. bi ) with a brief interlinear note: “the outside of the thigh is called ‘bi ’ ” 謂股外爲髀 (RG 8:273). On this passage, see Inoue Mitsusada et. al 1976, 415; for a discussion of the background and significance of the pasture system that mentions this branding clause, see Farris 1992, 57–60.

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Fig. 3.1 Traditional genealogy of rulers from the late sixth to late eighth centuries (reign dates are from the Nihon shoki for Kinmei through Jitō; thereafter they derive from the Shoku Nihongi ). Single lines represent descent; double lines, marriage; and circles, intervening male royals.

textual economy of the state. One cannot assume that all provisions in the legal code were necessarily carried out, but an enormous amount of archaeological material (much of it written) testifies that the late seventh- and eighth-century state was no mere paper production. This state was the result of a kind of feedback loop, in which new uses of writing enabled the development of administrative structures, which in turn produced more and more extensive uses of writing. The branding of state-owned livestock also dramatizes how these transformations affected a wide range of human and nonhuman animals, providing a first glimpse of the social range of writing in this new age. The Emergence of New Literacies in the Mid-Seventh Century An outline political history, derived from the annals of the Nihon shoki, will serve both as a chronological framework and as a point of entry into the intertwining of the development of writing with the emergence of the first Japanese state. The Nihon shoki account of the late sixth through late seventh century can be divided into three sets of rulers, who correspond to three historical moments (see Figure 3.1). (1) The first group

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begins with the reign of the ruler later known as Kinmei (trad. d. 571) and proceeds through those of four of his children, ending with that of his daughter Suiko (trad. d. 628). These reigns are represented by the Nihon shoki as a period of Buddhist efflorescence, institution-building and increasing power for the aforementioned Soga house; they are strongly associated with the legendary culture hero Prince Shōtoku (discussed further below). (2) The second group of rulers, in the middle of the seventh century, culminates with the reign of Tenji. The anti-Soga coup, and the state-building efforts that followed it (traditionally known as the Taika Reforms) are the central events of this period, which comes to a violent end with a brief succession conflict that follows Tenji’s death, the Jinshin War of 672. (3) Victory in that conflict brings the final group of rulers to power: Tenji’s brother, later known as Tenmu (r. 672–86), and his niece, consort, and successor Jitō (r. 686–97), whose reigns occupy the final decades of the seventh century. This period is marked by further steps towards expanding and regularizing the rule of the sovereigns, culminating under Jitō in the establishment of the first formal capital city (Fujiwara) in 694. In addition to the foregoing narrative of internal political history, it is essential to add that these decades were also a period of intense involvement with Chinese (Sui and then Tang) and Korean (Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla) states, a series of interactions that will receive more attention below, and in the following chapter. But for now it must be emphasized again that the Nihon shoki cannot be taken at face value, even as in the seventh century when its entries become less fantastic and more detailed. The history of writing as attested by extant artifacts, many excavated in recent decades, presents a somewhat different narrative, at times contradictory, at times confirmatory. Excavated material, surviving artifacts, and works transmitted through manuscript copies suggest that it was not until the mid-seventh century that social, political, and military developments within the archipelago and on the Korean peninsula propelled the Yamato court and its regional affiliates into a new dependence on expanded forms of written communication. What had been an instrument of display and diplomacy employed by foreign and domestic potentates took on other functions in the context of bureaucratic taxation and administration of a population that was increasingly exposed to various uses of

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writing. There are early signs of change at mid-century, and then from the reigns of Tenmu and Jitō to the end of the seventh century, economic and administrative documents emerged in great numbers. The transformation, when it came, took place with striking rapidity: only a bit more than a half-century lies between the anti-Soga coup of 645 and the promulgation of the Taihō legal code in 701.3 At the same time, there are signs that the alegible uses of writing discussed in the previous two chapters remained essential, even as they were joined by other widespread modes of literacy. The fundamental connection between writing and power remained, exemplified by such diverse developments as era names and written calendars that organized time, elaborate systems of rank, control of personal and place names through orthography, creation of new names for the state and its ruler, and—most pragmatically—use of census documents, tax records, passports, petitions, and other bureaucratic texts to fix the locations and channel the movements and activities of those who formed the basis of the state. WOODEN TABLETS (MOKKAN ) AND NEW USES OF WRITING

The first signs of a profound change in the nature of writing and reading appeared around the mid-seventh century, with the emergence into the archaeological record of wooden tablets with brushed inscriptions in ink: mokkan 木簡. There are other extant artifacts from the early to midseventh century, in particular some Buddhist inscriptions. Overall the number of extant inscriptions, secular as well as Buddhist, increased over the course of the century, peaking in its final decades. Mokkan provide the best place to start thinking about the new developments of ——— 3. The weight of scholarly opinion in recent decades supports this picture of the timing of the emergence of widespread writing and of thoroughly text-based administration; for an influential survey, see Kōnoshi 1997. A pioneer in this area was the historian Hayakawa Shōhachi, who argued that despite sporadic earlier use of written documents, administration remained largely orally mediated until Tenmu’s reign, with reliance on documents fully coming into its own with the promulgation of the Taihō code. At the same time, Hayakawa also drew attention to the continuing importance in the eighth century of oral performance and of intonation of texts like senmyō proclamations. (See Hayakawa 1986 and 1997.)

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Map 3.1 Sites mentioned in Chapters 3–5

the seventh century, because more than inscriptions on stelae and statues they involve uses of writing without precedent in the archipelago. For the first time, there is substantial material evidence of quotidian uses of writing to preserve and transmit information related to economic and administrative business. Moreover, for the first time a form of communication involving feedback between messages appears: unlike earlier inscriptions, any given mokkan implies the existence of other mokkan that contain similar or complementary information, that reply to or request additional messages, or that constitute other elements in a collection of information—an archive or a database. Based on content and format, scholars classify mokkan into documents, labels, and miscellaneous. Documents (monjo mokkan 文書木簡) are usually rectangular wooden tablets, from 10 to 30 centimeters long and 3 to 4 centimeters wide. They include work orders; requisitions for

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tools, supplies, foodstuffs, and payments; reports on labor performed or items dispensed; official summonses; receipts for payments and shipments; and records of evaluations of bureaucratic performance. Labels (tsukefuda 付札 or nifuda 荷札) are tags that were usually sharpened at one end, notched at the other, or notched at both ends, so that they could be stuck into or tied onto bundles and packages. Some of them were attached to goods kept in palace storehouses, but many were affixed to provincial shipments to the capital of tax goods, such as rice, salt, dried fish and shellfish, seaweed, coins, and so on. The miscellaneous category includes such things as public notices inscribed on sharpened stakes inserted into the ground at roadsides, magical talismans meant to ward off disease and other misfortune, and tablets used by clerks and scribes to practice calligraphy and official document forms.4 The earliest firmly dated find of mokkan is typical in many respects. In the late 1990s, 32 tablets, along with a wooden plaque of a horse (ema) and some pottery, were unearthed at the site of the mid-seventh-century palace at Naniwa, in modern Osaka.5 Several bear the names of foodstuffs; judging from their shape, they were shipping labels attached to packages of goods. One, otherwise mostly illegible, carries the sexagesimal date “45th year of the cycle” 戊申年 beneath the character associated with words meaning “rice plant” 稲 written twice, in a different hand (NKMSS 496; see Figure 3.2). Based on the typology of accompanying pottery and the calligraphic style of the inscription itself, it is clear that this cyclical date corresponds to 648 (Eura 2000, 51). The Naniwa palace mokkan are consistent in shape and format with types found in later seventh- and eighth-century sites. Unlike sword and mirror inscriptions, addresses and labels written on disposable wooden tags imply a system of Fig. 3.2 Naniwa palace mokkan (after Eura 2000, 56).

——— 4. This discussion derives in part from Lurie 2007a. For more on how scholars categorize mokkan, see Yokota and Kitō 1979 and, in English, Satō Makoto 1995. Other introductions in English include Piggott 1990 and Farris 1998, 201–32. 5. On the Naniwa palace site, see endnote 3.1.

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dispatchers and receivers. Because these artifacts were recovered from a palace site, it is likely they were attached to goods sent as tribute to the central court. They may have been part of a system of record-keeping that included ledgers, account books, and so on, probably made of paper, as was certainly the case with label mokkan in the eighth century. There are some finds of early (undated) mokkan that may predate the Naniwa palace artifacts, but the 648 date serves as a good benchmark for the mid-century emergence in bulk of this new mode of written communication. Further evidence of the early use of the technology in the home provinces is provided by tablets excavated near the Itabuki palace site in Asuka that bear rank designations that were in use only from 649 to 664 (NKMS 9, 10, 11).6 Among the earliest dated mokkan, there are two mid-century items from provincial sites: a cyclical date corresponding to 652 on a mokkan found in Hyōgo prefecture’s Sanjōku no tsubo 三条九ノ坪 site (Takase 1997) and one corresponding to 665 on a mokkan from the Yashiro 屋代 site in Nagano prefecture, remote from the capital region (Terauchi 1996). It is possible that substantial earlier finds will be made in the future, but at this point the most reasonable explanation for the surprisingly wide distribution of this new means of communication so soon after its emergence is that it was adopted with remarkable rapidity.7 However, the bulk of datable discoveries come after the late 670s, with a dramatic increase in the numbers of both sites and tablets in the last quarter of the seventh century. In that period, mokkan are found from central palaces, temples, and other sites in the Asuka area and, in remarkable quantities, from the Fujiwara capital (established in 694). But there are also discoveries from sites in areas as far-flung as Fukuoka (in northern Kyushu), Tokushima (on Shikoku), and Shizuoka and ——— 6. On the mid-seventh-century mokkan discovered near the Itabuki palace site, see Farris 1998, 207–8. 7. This discussion of seventh-century mokkan draws extensively on articles in the 1998 issue of the journal Mokkan kenkyū: Kanegae 1998; Tsurumi 1998; and Tateno 1998. A handful of mokkan that may date from before the mid-640s have been found in such sites as Uenomiya and Yamadadera, both of which are in Sakurai, south of Nara city (see Shimizu Shin’ichi 1990; Hashimoto 1990; Nara shinbun 1990; and Kyōto shinbun 1990). However, the general picture has this medium emerging into the archaeological record in the years after the anti-Soga coup of 645.

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Nagano (in eastern Honshu). In quantity these discoveries far outnumber those dated to mid-century, although they in turn are dwarfed by the enormous number of eighth-century mokkan, especially those from sites in the Heijō capital (modern Nara). THE SEVENTH-CENTURY TRANSITION

Wooden tablets are not the only items that suggest the mid- to late seventh century was a pivotal period in the history of writing. Inscriptions are also found on potsherds (bokusho doki 墨書土器), which despite a few early outliers also emerge in the late seventh century, and on lacquerimpregnated paper documents (urushigami monjo 漆紙文書), which are mainly found in eighth-century sites. The impression left by a survey of both of these artifact categories is consistent with the timing of writing’s expansion suggested by the more numerous mokkan discoveries. With respect to epigraphy, or inscriptions on durable objects of stone and metal, the situation is more complex, largely because explicit backdating or implicit exaggeration of the inscription’s provenance is so common with this category of text. There is a cluster of inscriptions— some on actual artifacts, some surviving only as quotations in transmitted sources—that were traditionally taken to date back to the reign of the ruler later known as Suiko (r. 592–628). These are all Buddhist inscriptions, and many of them are connected with Suiko’s nephew, the famous Prince Shōtoku. A handful of these may actually date back to the first half of the seventh century (as discussed below, it would be surprising if there were no Buddhist written material from that period). But critical examination casts doubt on the dating of many of these sources, and it is no longer viable to see the early seventh century as a period of widespread epigraphic writing. 8 Once dubious items are removed from consideration, the timeline for inscriptions on metal and stone looks remarkably similar to that for mokkan: with a handful of ——— 8. Excluding items with dubious dating, as well as ‘inscriptions’ quoted in later historical works but unattested by an extant object, the earliest possibly authentic items that remain are inscriptions dated to 623 and 628 on statues owned by the Nara prefecture temple Hōryūji (discussed in Chapter 5). For a more detailed overview of issues surrounding the dating of texts that had traditionally been associated with the early seventhcentury reign of Suiko, see Lurie 2001, 399–422.

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early outliers, extant material appears beginning in the mid-seventh century, and then increases dramatically in quantity, variety, and geographical distribution toward the end of the century. Of course the Nihon shoki has its own agenda in anachronistically depicting writing and its relationship to the legitimate rule of generations of ‘sovereigns.’ But in this work as well suggestive patterns emerge when entries with connections to the development of writing are evaluated critically. In the period just before the coup of 645, references to sutra readings join the depiction of Tenji and Kamatari studying together, but there is little else to give the impression that writing yet played a prominent cultural or administrative role.9 In their detailed account of statebuilding measures following the coup, however, the Nihon shoki compilers took pains to emphasize the burgeoning of written communication; indeed, various forms of political or administrative inscription are essential to the idealized portrayal of the Taika Reforms.10 Many, if not most, of the details of these episodes are anachronistic embellishments, but it is clear that the coup actually was followed by an expansion of the administrative role of writing. This is why the mokkan with the 648 cyclical date, and the luggage tags (presumably from tax shipments) that accompany it, are so significant: the Naniwa Toyosaki palace site where they were found is depicted in the Nihon shoki as the new administrative center of the post-Soga court controlled by Tenji and Kamatari. It is clear that mid-seventh-century efforts to establish writing-based administration were made possible by immigrant scribes and their descendants (precisely the groups whose house traditions contributed to the Wani and Shinni narratives), but also by numerous archipelagic elites (many themselves descendants of immigrants) who had gone to China and the Korean states to study Buddhism and secular learning in the preceding decades. These priests and scholars served as educators and policy-makers upon returning to the archipelago.11 The contributions of such experts would have had a large impact on what was still a small elite cluster in and around the court, but it is im——— 9. The pre-Taika, post-Suiko references to sutra readings are in 640 (NS II:235 [ Jomei 12/5/5]) and 642 (NS II:241 [Kōgyoku 1/7/25, 7/28, and 7/29]). 10. For more on writing and the so-called Taika Reforms, see endnote 3.2. 11. For more on such travelers, see endnote 3.3.

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portant to bear in mind the comparatively limited numbers of mokkan and epigraphic materials from before the 670s, as well as the paucity of writing-related entries in the Nihon shoki following the flurry of (largely anachronistic) post-coup references. This suggests that the establishment of written administration did not happen overnight.12 The domestic political developments that began in the mid-640s were significant, but the real core of the seventh-century transformation occurred in subsequent decades. Here as well relations with the Korean peninsula and the Chinese continent were critical factors. The implicit threat of the punitive expeditions of the Sui empire (581–618) against Koguryŏ, which began in 598, was a major impetus for the start in 600 of the aforementioned Wa embassies to China. Then, in addition to the tensions created by continuing Tang involvement in the peninsula and the ongoing conflict among Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla, a possible contributing factor to the anti-Soga coup was the news of a bloody coup by a Koguryŏ minister, brought by envoys from that state in 642 (NS II:239 [Kōgyoku 1/2/21]). This was a time of considerable instability on the peninsula: in addition to the Koguryŏ coup, there was political unrest in Paekche in 641 and 642, and an attempted coup in Silla in 647. As Tang pressure on Koguryŏ and support for Silla, and resulting Paekche appeals for Wa assistance, increased in intensity through the 640s and 650s, the Wa courts became more involved in war on the peninsula. This culminated in a disastrous defeat for a large Wa expeditionary force in 663, in the battle of Paekch’on River 白村江. The aftermath of that catastrophe provided the perfect conditions for a rapid increase in writing-based administration: the arrival of large numbers of literate refugees from Paekche (and, after Silla’s final victory in 668, from Koguryŏ) and Tang prisoners coupled with a pressing need

——— 12. Hayakawa Shōhachi (1986) speculated that one of the reasons that the official compound of the Nagara Toyosaki site at Naniwa was more extensive than those of later palace sites, such as that at Nara in the eighth century, was that more space was required for groups of officials to assemble because administrative communication was still largely oral at mid-century.

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for a well-funded and well-armed state, and thus for various administrative measures and the records that went with them.13 Under these circumstances, the court of Tenji (r. 662–71) saw further expansion of the extent of writing. The Nihon shoki mentions the compilation of household registers for a census and includes a cryptic reference to a newly promulgated legal code; both are in keeping with the emphasis in these years on strengthening state institutions and military preparedness.14 The Kaifūsō 懐風藻 (751) and Man’yōshū (after 759), belletristic works transmitted in later manuscripts, both suggest that Tenji’s reign was also marked by the emergence of new forms of literary writing. It appears that his court was the first in which Chinese-style poetry was composed, and also that it saw the emergence of vernacular poetry shaped in its forms and venues by Chinese precedents.15 Important as Tenji’s reign was, the most dramatic expansion of literacies seems to have occurred in the final decades of the century, after the victory of his brother Tenmu in the Jinshin War, the brief succession conflict that occurred in 672, the year after Tenji’s death. After Tenmu’s forces prevailed over those of his nephew Ōtomo, he set about consolidating his rule, in a process that was continued by his consort (and Tenji’s daughter) Jitō, who reigned in her own right from his death until her abdication in 697. The reigns of Tenmu and Jitō, which together lasted a generation, were a formative period for many fundamental components of Japanese history. These include the title “sovereign” (tennō 天皇), which was almost certainly adopted to refer to Tenmu and then taken over by Jitō (and retroactively applied to earlier rulers in histories like the Kojiki and Nihon shoki), and the country name Japan (Nihon or ——— 13. On the final decades of Three Kingdoms period Korea, see Lee Ki-baik 1984, 66– 71; Inoue Hideo 1972, 182–215; and Tonami and Takeda 1997, 362–88. For a detailed introduction to the battle of Paekch’on River and its causes and consequences, see Mori Kimiyuki 1998b. On the connections between Japanese state-building in the latter half of the seventh century and the crisis produced by defeat on the Korean peninsula, see Batten 1986 and Mori Kimiyuki 1998b, 158–224. Batten 2006 provides a vivid account of developments of the period in northern Kyushu. 14. Household registers are said to have been compiled in 670 (NS II:375 [ Tenji 9/2]), and the so-called Ōmi legal code, the nature—and even actuality—of which are debated, dates to 671 (NS II:375 [ Tenji 10/1/6]). 15. On the place of the Tenji court in literary history, see endnote 3.4.

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Nippon 日本) itself, which also seems to have been created in the years following the Jinshin War.16 The Nihon shoki entries for this period portray a flurry of activity expanding and transforming the social and political role of writing and reading. Most prominently, legal codes were compiled starting in 681 and then promulgated in 689; compilation of historical and lexicographical works was ordered in 681 and 682; compilation of household registers for a census was ordered in 689, and the calendar was reformed in 690.17 These enterprises, and the increasingly complex, writing-mediated administration that was constructed by and along with them, led directly to the eighth-century state and its thriving practices of legal, historical, bureaucratic, religious, and literary writing and reading. In a classic article, Bruce Batten (1986) made the case for the latter half of the seventh century as a period of “foreign threat and domestic reform”; much as these factors lay behind the development of the early state, they also drove the enormous expansion of writing in this period, which is most vividly evident in the large numbers of mokkan, and increased quantity and quality of epigraphic material, in the final decades of the century. It is clear that this dramatic transformation of Japanese writing was intimately connected to the process of development of the Yamato kingship from a Tomb-period line of rulers who headed a loose confederation of local chiefs to a vastly more complex and hierarchical code-based state (ritsuryō kokka 律令國家) ruled by sovereigns in capital cities. From one direction this connection is so obvious as to be nearly tautological: the institutions and procedures that made up the late seventh- and eighth-century state were largely based on the use of writing, so their creation and expansion necessarily involved an increase in the amount and variety of written material. The chief difficulty lies in the other direction: the extent to which there were developments in the use of writing that preceded, or were ——— 16. On the origins of the terms tennō and Nihon, see Tōno 1977a, Mori Kimiyuki 1998a, and Kōnoshi 2005. In English, see Piggott 1997, 91–92 and 143–44. A discussion of the tennō title in the context of related developments can also be found in Ooms 2009, 154–86. 17. For references to the Nihon shoki passages on these developments, see endnote 3.5.

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independent of, the construction of the new state system. This leads to a familiar historiographical problem. The available historical sources, starting with the Nihon shoki but including others from the eighth century and thereafter, are all written from the perspective of the central government, and the bulk of extant written material is from capital sites and nearby areas. As mentioned earlier, there is seventh- and eighthcentury material (mokkan, inscribed potsherds, and lacquer documents) from relatively remote areas, but most of these writings were produced by local representatives of the central government, and the remainder seems to be directly or indirectly derived from interactions with the central powers.18 But this does not necessarily mean that the new uses of writing that emerged from the mid-seventh century were simply imposed from the top down—or rather, from the center out—even if sources like the Nihon shoki create that impression. As argued in the previous two chapters, in the history of writing the subtle interplay between ‘original’ and ‘adaptation’ cannot be understood if the adaptors are not credited with agency of their own. Strong writing-based control of the provinces, both real and simulated, was an integral part of the self-aggrandizing policy of the new Japanese state with the sovereign at its head. This ranged from the production of census reports, to the geographical details of tax and tribute shipping labels, to the elaborate accounts in histories like the Nihon shoki itself. But that vision of control was not merely proclaimed from the top down; rather, provincial participants in the state structure also engaged in their own production of various genres of writing, both to create the appearance of compliance with legal stipulations and to mask active departures from such stipulations.19 Writing thus served as a means of negotiation that worked from the bottom up as well; not to mention sideways—among adjacent local powers—and even bottomdown, between local powers and the communities that were subordinate ——— 18. For more on the interactions between central and local at this stage in the history of writing, see endnote 3.6. 19. Examples of provincial authorities using writing to tell the center what it wanted to hear include under-registration and ‘age-heaping’ in census documents (Farris 1985, 22–34) and signs that shipping labels for tax goods were produced at the district but written as if they had originated at the village level (Kitō 1988, 465–67).

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to them both traditionally and in the new legal order. (The apparatus of the seventh- and eighth-century state had been laid over low-level local power structures that remained substantially autonomous.) Though the origins of the new realms of writing lay largely in the centralizing, state-building efforts of the Yamato court, this does not mean there was substantial bureaucratic oversight over the economic and political business of far-flung regions. Such institutional control is doubtful even in later centuries, and the relatively limited late seventhand eighth-century evidence does not suggest a robust centralized state. As Joan Piggott (1997) stresses, historians now see this polity as the product of constant negotiation between the Yamato court and local interests in the surrounding territories, both near and far. Within that negotiation, writing served as a significant resource for both central and peripheral authorities, newly as a method of collecting and preserving information, and also—in keeping with functions it had already had for centuries—as a means of projecting prestige and cultural achievement. This juxtaposition of a variety of literacies will be examined in more concrete terms in the latter half of this chapter, but for now it provides a starting point to address the role of religion, specifically Buddhism, in the transformation of early Japanese writing. Buddhism and Writing The preceding section emphasized political developments spurred by diplomatic and military factors; religionists figured only in a passing reference to priests studying abroad in the first half of the seventh century. Certainly this is not the whole story—Buddhism exerted an enormous influence on the history of writing and reading in Japan from the seventh century onward. But simple assumptions about the transformative power of ‘religious literacy’ cloud our view of this period, in large part because they so long underwrote the now largely discredited image of the Suiko reign as a transformative cultural leap forward. Early historical sources, some of them near-contemporary with the developments that concern us in this chapter, also make strong associations between Buddhism and advanced forms of writing, but such accounts cannot be taken at face value. Once dubiously dated inscriptions and hagiographic accounts of founding moments are discounted, a more nuanced picture of the influence of Buddhism begins to emerge. Ultimately this leads to

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reconsideration of the homogeneity of a single ‘religious literacy,’ and also of the separation of religious and secular uses of writing. FROM SWORDS TO STATUES: THE CONTINUITY OF EARLY BUDDHIST INSCRIPTIONS

Archaeological evidence demonstrates that Buddhist temples were established in the Japanese archipelago by the end of the sixth century (especially in the Nara basin and in the coastal area to its west, modern Osaka), but solid attestation of Buddhist texts in quantity is not available until the late seventh century. As we will see, this certainly does not mean that there was no Buddhist writing in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, but it does suggest something about its relative significance. An equally important point is that the earliest Japanese Buddhist inscriptions have much in common with the fifth- and sixthcentury inscriptions discussed in the previous chapter, in terms of their format, their relationship to the objects that bear them, and also their presumed value for the people that produced and used them. An example of an early Buddhist inscription is provided by a short text incised on the back of a small bronze mandorla that once backed a triad consisting of Śākyamuni (the historical Buddha; J. Shaka 釋迦) flanked by two smaller bodhisattvas. The 31-by-17.8-centimeter mandorla is one of the “Treasures Donated by Hōryūji [to the Imperial Household]” (Hōryūji kennō hōmotsu 法隆寺献納寶物), a collection of sixth- through eighteenth-century sculptures, paintings, textiles, ritual objects, and documents held by the Tokyo National Museum.20 The 59 characters on the mandorla are a typical dedicatory inscription, recording the date and the name of the sponsor of the image, explaining that it is on behalf of his parents that he had this sculpture of Śākyamuni made, ——— 20. Donated by the temple to the imperial household in 1876, most of the Hōryūji treasures became government property in 1947. This collection is of great importance for the history of writing because a number of the objects bear early inscriptions. For an overview, see Tōkyō kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1996 (the mandorla in question is object number N196); a collection of inscriptions from the collection can be found in Tōkyō kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1999. On the modern history of these treasures, see McDermott 2006.

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Fig. 3.3 Śākyamuni mandorla inscription from the Hōryūji treasures (Masamune 1928).

and then concluding with a vow detailing the spiritual benefits it is hoped will accrue to them (see Figure 3.3). On the 26th day of the 3rd month of the 51st year of the cycle [594?], Buddhadisciple Wang Yŏnson reverently makes one gilded bronze image of Śākyamuni on behalf of his honored parents in this life. His wish is that his parents will gain this merit; that they will be safe from harm in their current incarnation; and that in successive rebirths and generations, they will not experience the three evil realms, will be remote from the eight difficulties, will quickly be born in the Pure Land, and will see the Buddha and hear the law.21

——— 21. For more on the content of this inscription, see endnote 3.7.

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甲寅年三月廿六日、弟子王延孫、奉為現在父母、敬造金銅釋迦像一 軀。願父母乗此功徳、現身安隠、生生世世、不経三塗、遠離八難、 速生浄土、見仏聞法。(ZKI 3)

The cyclical date in this inscription could correspond to 594 or 654; cases have been made for both but the former is more likely, because there are parallels in the wording of the inscription with others found on similar mandorlas from late sixth-century Koguryŏ and Paekche.22 This also means that the inscription is likely to have originated on the Korean peninsula, which in itself makes it representative of early Japanese Buddhist writing. Its content is typical of other dedicatory inscriptions of the era, some also presumably imported, and some definitely produced within the Japanese archipelago. Since inscriptions of this sort explain attempts by named individuals to gain merit for themselves or relatives by constructing the image on which they are inscribed, their relationship to the object that they label is not unlike that of the fifth-century sword inscriptions to the weapons that bear them. The initial date, the description of the object and of its efficacy, and the concern to record the name of the maker are all familiar from the inscriptions examined in the previous chapter. Moreover, just as the sculptures themselves were constructed by specialized artisans, the inscriptions were very likely made to order by scribes. In absence of strong evidence to the contrary, we can assume that scattered early Buddhist inscriptions like that found on the Śākyamuni mandorla were appreciated alegibly. In and of themselves, they do not indicate the advent of new realms of reading and writing. One way of dramatizing this continuity is to compare the functions of these inscriptions with those of mokkan and other quotidian materials. Does the Inariyama sword inscription store the information it contains—Wowake’s genealogy—so that it can be accessed as needed, or is it a monument intended to celebrate and legitimize that genealogy? Assuming that the King’s Bestowal Sword was dispatched from Yamato ——— 22. An early discussion of the mandorla inscription dated it to 654 (Miyake Yonekichi 1929), but subsequent scholarship has tended to give 594 as more appropriate (Kumagai 1960; Nara kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyūjo Asuka shiryōkan 1979, 148–49). For a survey of Korean and Chinese Buddhist images of this period, see Washizuka, Park, and Kang 2003.

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to the east, did the text of the inscription itself convey new information to its recipient? Can one imagine a reply in kind to a dedicatory inscription on the back of a sacred image like the Śākyamuni mandorla? Such questions underline the parallels between Buddhist inscriptions and earlier Tomb-period writing. Given the obvious appeal of a gilded bronze sculpture of a supernatural being, it seems natural enough that the inscription, as a piece of writing, would be subordinate to the magical or spiritual function of the object that bore it. But the basic format for dedicatory colophons on Buddhist sutras is essentially the same as that for inscriptions on sacred images. The following colophon is from the earliest extant datable sutra written in the Japanese archipelago, a copy of the Kongōjō daranikyō 金剛 場陀羅尼經 (Vajramanda dhāran.īsutra): In the 5th month of the year when the star lodged in the 23rd cyclical position [686], an association of believers from Shiki county, in Kawachi province, reverently made this Vajramanda dhāran.īsutra on behalf of preceding generations of forebears and all sentient beings. With this positive karma, may they be reborn in the Pure Land, and finally attain true awakening. [Signed] the missionary priest Hōrin.23 歳次丙戌年五月、川内國志貴評内知識、爲七世父母及一切衆生、敬 造金剛場陀羅尼經一部。藉此善因、往生浄土、終成正覺。 教化僧寳林 (SZ 17).

The casting and gilding of a physical image and the copying of something we are inclined to see as a more abstract, ‘legible’ object—a sutra— are described in parallel terms, which shows that the production of these two classes of objects was conceived as essentially the same kind of merit-gaining act. This suggests that we need not assume that the advent of Buddhism necessarily involved a revolution in literacy. Alongside, or independently of, interpretative sutra commentaries and doctrinal practices related to specific written ‘content,’ the new religion fostered and relied on practices of ‘alegible’ communication continuous with modes of writing evident much earlier. There is more to be said about the implications of this point, but for now the foregoing will suffice to establish ——— 23. Shiki is at the center of Kawachi province, on the eastern edge of modern Ōsaka, on the other side of the mountains that form the west side of the Nara basin.

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a context for a critical reading of early historical accounts of the arrival of Buddhism in the Japanese archipelago. ACCOUNTS OF THE ‘TRANSMISSION’ OF BUDDHISM

The most succinct of the early accounts of the transmission of Buddhism is the only one that links it to the history of writing. A few lines from the report on Eastern barbarians in the mid-seventh-century official history of the Sui dynasty (Suishu 隋書) are the sole place that the Chinese histories explicitly address the origins of writing in the Japanese archipelago: They had no writing, but only incised wood and knotted rope. Revering the Buddhist law, they sought and obtained Buddhist scriptures from Paekche, and thus first came to have writing. 無文字、唯刻木結繩。敬佛法、於百濟求得佛經、始有文字。 (SuS 81:1827).

This passage is colored by strong expectations about the historical development of writing and the connection between religion and diplomacy in sixth and seventh century East Asia. The reference to “incised wood and knotted rope” is a literary evocation of a preliterate state rather than an account of communication technologies actually employed in the archipelago.24 But what of the association between writing and sacred texts? The placement of this passage suggests the Suishu compilers saw the advent of Buddhism as a relatively recent development (which would be in keeping with the Japanese sources discussed below, which date it to the mid-sixth century). Claiming a complete lack of writing before that time would be incorrect, given the circulation of various inscribed artifacts beginning many centuries earlier (and especially considering the long Wu manifest appears in the fifth-century Liu Song dynastic history), but here “having no writing” is best taken as a general state, a kind of cultural or societal absence. The more important point is the posited connection between Buddhism and the inception of writing. ——— 24. On the pedigree of the reference to “knotted rope” as a precursor to writing, see endnote 3.8.

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The Sui dynastic history’s emphasis on Buddhism as the vehicle for writing seems related to the role of the religion as a universalizing element in East Asian foreign relations.25 But a firm connection between the spread of Buddhism and new forms of literacy is not borne out by careful reading of early Japanese accounts of the transmission of the faith, which place strikingly little emphasis on inscription in general or Buddhist texts in particular. The domestic historical record of the arrival and early development of Buddhism comprises accounts from three early works: the Nihon shoki, the Jōgū shōtoku hōō teisetsu 上宮聖徳法王 帝説 (“Imperial Explanation of Dharma Prince Sagely Virtue of the Upper Palace”), and the Gangōji engi 元興寺縁起 (“Karmic Origins of the Temple of Initial Arising [of the Law]”). The latter two have complex provenances: although they incorporate pre-eighth century material, neither of them took on its present form until much later than the Nihon shoki.26 These early accounts all agree that the King of Paekche formally transmitted Buddhism to the Yamato court during the reign of a mid-sixth-century Wa king (later known as Kinmei, and anachronistically portrayed in these sources as ‘sovereign’ of ‘Japan’). They differ on the date and details of this event, but are broadly consistent about the nature of the religious items sent from Korea.27 ——— 25. The diplomatic role of Buddhism is clear in a speech attributed to the Wa envoy of 607 in the same Suishu account: [Our king] heard that to the west of the ocean there was a Bodhisattva Son of Heaven who reveres and promotes the Buddhist law. Therefore he sent an envoy to pay respects at court. 聞海西菩薩天子、重興佛法。故遣朝拝 (SuS 81:1827)

This posture is also apparent in the passages on the ‘transmission’ of Buddhism from Paekche in early Japanese sources that are discussed in this section. On Buddhist ‘internationalism’ in this period, see Holcombe 2001, 94–108. 26. McCallum (2009) provides a general account of the Nihon shoki and Gangōji engi material and its relation to the history of early temple construction. My discussion is more focused on the question of Buddhism’s role in the early development of writing. For more on the Jōgū shōtoku hōō teisetsu and Gangōji engi, see endnote 3.9. 27. The Nihon shoki date corresponds to 552, whereas the Teisetsu and Gangōji engi both include a cyclical date that corresponds to 538; modern scholars have tended to affirm the latter, but the fourteen-year difference is not an issue here. To the extent that these accounts reflect actual occurrences, we can speculate that they occurred roughly in the mid-sixth century; dating to a specific year involves a deceptive, and unnecessary,

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According to the Nihon shoki, in 552 CE the King of Paekche sent an envoy with a manifest “praising the merit associated with circulating and worshipping [Buddhism]” 讃流通禮拝功徳, as well as “a gilt bronze image of Shaka, several banners and canopies, and several volumes of sutras and treatises” 釈迦仏金銅像一躯・幡蓋若干・經論若干巻 (NS II:101 [Kinmei 13/10]). The Teisetsu account dates this to the reign of the same ‘sovereign,’ but supplies a cyclical date that corresponds to 538, noting that in that year the King of Paekche “first respectfully sent over a Buddhist image, scriptural teachings, and priests” 始奉度 佛像経教并僧等 ( JSHT 372). The Gangōji engi includes the same 538 cyclical date, saying that the Paekche king sent “an image of the Prince [Śākyamuni] with a vessel for anointing it and a box of books explaining the arising of the Buddha” 太子像并灌仏之器一具、及説仏起書巻 一篋 (GE 328).28 An overture by King Sŏngmyŏng of Paekche (r. 523–54) like the one narrated in these three accounts is consistent with the intensifying conflict among the Korean states in the mid-sixth century, and with the traditionally close relations between Paekche and Wa. But the specific descriptions of “several volumes of sutras and treatises,” “scriptural teachings,” or “a box of books explaining the arising of the Buddha” are more likely to reflect the expectations of latter-day historians than direct knowledge of the actual items (see Fukuyama 1968b). The king’s overture would undoubtedly have involved the donation of some scriptures, in addition to splendid objects like gilded images, and probably also trained specialists able to perform the rituals necessary for magical benefits. The key points are the lack of specificity with which the sutras are described, and their close association with sculptural images. Both are highly suggestive when juxtaposed with the subsequent vicissitudes of Buddhism narrated by the same three sources. ——— precision. On the ‘transmission’ of Buddhism to Japan, see Hayami 1986, 16–27; Tamura 1994, I:27–75; Hongō 1999; and, in English, Best 2003 and Blum 2008. 28. On the sources of this manifest of the King of Paekche in the Nihon shoki, see endnote 3.10. In the Teisetsu manuscript the cyclical date corresponding to 538 reads 代午年, widely recognized as a mistake for 戊午年 ( JSHT 372, textual note 5); the similarity of 代 and 戊 is apparent in the date of the 648 Naniwa palace mokkan (see Figure 3.2). On the multiple accounts of the transmission of Buddhism in the Gangōji engi, see endnote 3.11.

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The Teisetsu provides a bare-bones chronology, the Gangōji engi a more substantial account, but despite some differences both are similar in outline to the most detailed and familiar version, that of the Nihon shoki. As told there, the story begins with the objects and message brought by the Paekche envoy. Kinmei consults with his ministers about what to do with the statue. Soga no Iname (father of the Umako who appeared in the Shinni scribe story) favors accepting Buddhism, but is opposed by the heads of lineage groups with military and ritual responsibilities. The sovereign gives the statue to Iname, who enshrines it at home and then in a temple. An epidemic arises, which the anti-Buddhist ministers convince the sovereign is divine retribution for worshipping a foreign god, so he orders that the statue be thrown into the Naniwa canal and the temple burned (NS II:103 [Kinmei 13/10]).29 The annal of the succeeding ‘sovereign’ (later known as Bidatsu) retells the same story of confrontation between the Soga and their rivals, only the second time it involves religious institutions more complex than a simple statue, and ends happily with the success of the new religion. There as well, though, there is no reference to the copying, reading, or ceremonial use of sutras, or of any other forms of writing.30 It is misleading to read too much into the details of contradictory accounts of what were already long-ago events in the eighth century, patched together from tendentious materials tied to particular temples and lineage groups. Nonetheless, it is significant that the Nihon shoki and other early narratives, which are eager to place the introduction and flourishing of continental culture as early as possible, do not begin to mention specific sutras until much later. The early development of Japanese Buddhism involved a transition from sponsorship by lineage group to an official state religion dependent on royal sponsorship, and eventually subject to bureaucratic control.31 As with the parallel transformation of the nature of writing, it is ——— 29. This focus on physical Buddha-images is maintained in a brief story of a shining log taken from the sea, presented to the sovereign, and eventually made into two Buddhist images (NS II:103–5 [Kinmei 14/5]). 30. On the account from the Bidatsu annal of the Nihon shoki, see endnote 3.12. 31. On the history and historiography of early Japanese Buddhism, I have relied primarily on Hayami 1986 and Tamura 1994; for an English-language overview, see So-

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increasingly apparent that the crucial period for this transition was the latter half of the seventh century: the decades following the coup of 645. But by its very nature, that transition inspired court historians and temple apologists to backdate the cultural achievement and royal sponsorship of early Buddhism. Despite significant differences among the Nihon shoki, Teisetsu, and Gangōji engi accounts, they share a common general narrative shaped by an uneasy compromise between two goals. On the one hand, this narrative glorifies the role of the Soga in the early promotion of Buddhism, and asserts that their conflict with and ultimate victory over the Mononobe was primarily motivated by their Buddhist virtue. On the other hand, however, it attempts to insert royal volition into the early history of the new religion, in the form of deliberations by Kinmei and his son Bidatsu, and then final acceptance and sponsorship by Kinmei’s son Yōmei and daughter Suiko. The interrelated accounts in all three of these texts are closely connected to the Soga-affiliated temple, Asukadera (also known as Gangōji or Hōkōji), which explains why they put a high priority on celebrating and justifying Soga behavior. However, these accounts are also likely to have reached their current forms between the second half of the seventh century and the early eighth century, during increasing assertions of official control, and eventually sovereign-centered administration, of the Buddhist establishment. The origins of the Asukadera—and with it, the origins of early Japanese Buddhism itself—were inseparable from the Soga lineage group, but by the latter half of the seventh century, the primary source of sponsorship and legitimacy for temples was royal: increasingly during the reigns of Kōtoku, Saimei, and Tenji (from 645 to 671), and then definitively in the years following the civil war of 672, as the institution of the sovereign was constructed and Tenmu and Jitō’s authority bolstered by sponsorship and regulation of the Buddhist church.32 ——— noda 1993. McCallum (2009) focuses on temple-building but also serves as a narrative history of seventh-century Buddhism. 32. McCallum (2009) discusses the development of state control and sponsorship of Buddhist institutions, a topic also addressed by Ooms (2009). On the continuing

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Royal apologists and temple history writers from the mid-seventh century onward were therefore faced with a contradiction: Buddhism originated with temples sponsored by lineage groups (the Soga foremost among them), but it was being transformed into a state religion controlled and supported by the kings/sovereigns. The narrative of Buddhism’s ‘transmission’ and early development, running from the ruler later known as Kinmei (mid-sixth century) up to the reign of Suiko (late sixth to early seventh century), is already marked by attempts to reconcile this contradiction. This can be seen most clearly in the Gangōji engi inclusion of Yōmei and Suiko as early supporters of official Buddhism. The Nihon shoki compilers attempted to resolve the contradiction by depicting a golden age of state-sponsored Buddhism, an ‘Asuka Enlightenment,’ during Suiko’s reign (593–628). 33 The central figure in this account is not Suiko but her nephew, later known as Prince Shōtoku. Drawing on sources produced by temples engaged in deemphasizing their lineage group origins and creating royal associations, the early historians depicted him as a ‘prince regnant,’ a quasi-sovereign whose sponsorship of the new religion was both ‘private’ and ‘public.’ He thus served as a bridge between the new sovereign-centered state Buddhism and the old lineage group Buddhism, and provided a ‘native’ origin for the imported religion. As a home-grown Śākyamuni (another prince who did not assume the throne), Shōtoku guaranteed the domestication and naturalization of imported ideas and practices, among them various sacred (and secular) uses of writing.34 As with the depiction of the introduction of writing in the Ōjin annal (which foreshadows Shōtoku’s own biography), the Nihon shoki passages describing this paragon conflate different historical moments, resulting in a multilayered, highly anachronistic account. Buddhism was a factor in the seventh-century rise of writing, but in ways that can only be approached once the complexities of its traditional historiography are understood. ——— growth of state Buddhism during the eighth century, see Piggott 1987, 27–37; Piggott 1997, 215–26; and Abé 1999, 24–40. 33. The vivid term ‘Asuka Enlightenment’ comes from the first volume of the Cambridge History of Japan (title of the first section of Chapter 3, “The Century of Reform” [ Inoue Mitsusada 1993, 164–84]). 34. For references on Shōtoku, see endnote 3.13.

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MULTIPLE BUDDHIST LITERACIES

It is likely that immigrant elites or diplomatic emissaries exposed the Yamato court to the new religion earlier than the mid-sixth century, and it is also possible that immigrants or travelers to the peninsula established forms of Buddhist ritual in areas outside the immediate purview of the Yamato court. Certainly, iconography of Buddhas and bodhisattvas on some fourth-century imported bronze mirrors found in tombs in both eastern and western Japan testifies to earlier transmission of Buddhist artifacts, though these are not necessarily evidence of accompanying practices or beliefs.35 Mirrors with Buddhist iconography from sites that predate the ‘official introduction of Buddhism’ parallel the significance of the mirror and coin inscriptions discussed in the first chapter. Such artifacts are part of histories (of Buddhism, and of writing) distinct from those centered on the ruler, the state, and ‘full’ or ‘complete’ versions of religion or literacy. Just as marks on mirrors could have magical and other powers for those unable to ‘read’ them in our sense, so Buddhist images were meaningful for those with little or no ‘understanding’ of the elaborate iconography, philosophy, and technology of the religion. The significance of the lineage group temples of the mid-sixth to mid-seventh centuries lay less in the ‘legibility’ of scriptural texts they housed than in sumptuous statues and decorations, towering pagodas and looming tiled roofs, and efficacious ceremonies performed by immigrant ritual specialists. As McCallum (2009, 260) argues, “East Asian Buddhism [was] more a religion of icons than of texts, especially in its initial phases in China, Korea, and Japan.”36 Archaeologists have unearthed remains of several dozen temples from late sixth- and early seventh-century sites in the Asuka and Kawachi areas. This is roughly in accord with the Nihon shoki, which states ——— 35. On mirror designs with Buddhist iconography, see Higuchi 1979, I:236–38. For a discussion of pre-Kinmei Buddhism, especially in Kyushu, see Hayami 1986, 24–27. Discoveries in areas remote from the Kinai region, including Gunma prefecture, have encouraged speculation about transmissions of continental and peninsular Buddhist artifacts and rituals independent of the immediate domain of the Yamato court (Bunkachō 2000, 95). 36. For more on the ‘alegible’ elements of early Buddhism, see endnote 3.14.

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that by 624 there were 46 temples and over a thousand priests and nuns in the archipelago (NS II:211 [Suiko 32/9/3]).37 However, the archaeological record comprises mainly ceramic roof tiles, with very little written material. Paper normally does not survive underground, so lack of direct evidence of its existence does not mean that these temples contained no such material; indeed, we can assume that a few sutras would have been an essential part of every temple’s ritual equipment. And yet, from the mid-sixth century to the mid-seventh century, archaeological discoveries of any objects with Buddhist inscriptions are quite rare (as are inscribed artifacts of any sort). The Śākyamuni mandorla whose inscription was quoted earlier was probably imported from Korea, but if its cyclical date does correspond to 594, that makes it an early outlier in the epigraphy of this period. Once dubious dates are excluded, the next oldest inscriptions are a handful of other Hōryūji items from the 620s. And, as discussed above, when from the mid-seventh century onward written material started to appear in quantity in the form of mokkan, very few of them had Buddhist content, even those that have been excavated from temple sites (Suzuki Keiji 1998, 299–300). 38 The 686 Kongōjō daranikyō colophon (also quoted above) is not only the earliest extant sutra colophon: the scroll itself also appears to be the only surviving domestically copied sutra of the seventh century or earlier. This provides a stark contrast with the eighth century, from which there are several thousand extant sutra scrolls (Nara kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1983, 18). There are a few surviving sutra manuscripts that were copied in China or Korea before the eighth century, but it seems most of them were not actually imported until the Nara period (710–94) (Tōno 1989, 328–31). The attrition from fire, insects, mold, and other factors must have been considerable, but the dramatic contrast between the quantity of sutras surviving from the seventh and eighth ——— 37. McCallum 2009, 23–82, provides an overview of the early development of Buddhism in Japan, and a detailed discussion of Asukadera, the Soga-sponsored temple that was the most important of the period. More general surveys of the development of early temples across the Asuka and Kawachi areas can be found in Kanō 1999 and Okamoto Tōzō 2002. 38. The non-religious nature of mokkan is striking but there are some exceptions, such as a tablet from the Naniwa palace site that bears sutra phrases (NKMS 363).

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centuries suggests that there simply were not that many of them circulating in the archipelago before the late seventh century.39 The foregoing is not meant to deny the importance of written material for Buddhism, or of Buddhism for the history of writing. Although the new religion did not create an instant or a universal change in the nature of literacy, nevertheless it was to have a profound impact on the culture of reading and writing, for elites and ultimately for wider segments of society. Having established continuities with earlier ‘alegible’ meanings of inscriptions, and having insisted on the possibility of temples functioning with a minimal number of ritually significant sutraobjects, it is now possible to consider the other side of the story, which suggests that the traditional association between Buddhism and more familiar forms of literacy is by no means groundless. From its inception, Sinitic Buddhism involved the generation of massive amounts of written material. Successive waves of translation into Chinese recurred between the Later Han and the early Tang, from the early works of An Shigao 安世高 (fl. 148–70), to those of Dharmaraks.a 曇摩羅察 (also known as Fahu 法護; 239–316) and the renowned Kumārajīva 鳩摩羅什 (350–ca. 409), to the huge output of the welltravelled Xuanzang 玄奘 (600?–64), to name only the most famous renderers. The result of these great translation projects, augmented by Chinese ‘apocryphal’ sutras (weijing 僞經 or yijing 疑經), treatises, commentaries, sub-commentaries, and so on, was an enormous corpus. The major sixth-century Buddhist bibliography, the Chusanzang jiji 出三蔵記 集 (T 2145, 55:1–114), lists 2,194 works in 4,256 volumes, whereas the 730 Kaiyuan shijiaolu 開元釋教録 (T 2154, 55:477–723), the standard for the great Nara-period sutra-copying projects, lists 1,076 works in 5,048 volumes. As has been clear since the pioneering work of Ishida ——— 39. If Prince Shōtoku’s hagiography is discounted, the first Nihon shoki reference to a specific sutra is in an entry for the year 640 (NS II:235 [ Jomei 12/5/5]), but it is not until the 650s that there are regular references to sutra readings, and the first entry describing sutra copying is not until the year 673 (NS II:411 [ Tenmu 2/3]). The latter records what is said to be the first copying of the complete canon, so presumably transcription of individual sutras would have taken place earlier. Nonetheless there is no reason to assume such practices were widespread before the latter half of the seventh century.

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Mosaku (1930), nearly all of these works had reached Japan by the late eighth century.40 Such statistics pertain to individual works, but another feature of Buddhism leads to a further proliferation of multiple copies of those works. This is the notion that the reproduction of texts is a powerful means of accruing merit, and thereby gaining benefits in the present world or in subsequent existences (an idea that is apparent in the 686 Kongōjō daranikyō colophon). The importance of sutras as physical manifestations of the Buddhist law meant that they were essential ritual objects, but the texts of the sutras themselves also often promise potent benefits to those who transcribe, read, and recite them. This led to extensive sutra-copying, far in excess of the numbers of texts that would have been required for ritual purposes. The underlying logic is expressed in the 28th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, “Encouragements of the Bodhisattva Universal Worthy” 普賢菩薩勧発品, which includes the following passage: If they do no more than copy the sutra, when their lives come to an end they will be reborn in the Trayastrimsha heaven. At that time eighty-four thousand heavenly women, performing all kinds of music, will come to greet them. Such persons will put on crowns made of seven treasures and amidst the ladiesin-waiting will amuse and enjoy themselves. How much more so, then, if they accept, uphold, read and recite the sutra and understand its principles, and practice it as the sutra prescribes. [. . .] Therefore persons of wisdom should single-mindedly copy the sutra themselves, or cause others to copy it, should accept, uphold, read, and recite it, memorize it correctly and practice as the sutra prescribes. 若但書寫、是人命終、當生 利天上。是時八萬四千天女、作衆伎 樂、而來迎之。其人即著七寶冠、於 女中、娯樂快樂。何況受持讀 誦、正憶念、解其義趣、如説修行。[. . .] 是故智者、應當一心自書、 若使人書、受持讀誦、正憶念、如説修行。 (Watson 1993, 322; T 262, 9:61c)

The viral logic of the initial stipulation (“if they do no more than copy”), whereby texts contain explicit instructions for their own reproduction and dissemination, was the motivating force behind some of the most ——— 40. For more on the early Japanese Buddhist canon, see endnote 3.15.

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impressive public works of eighth-century Japan: the massive sutracopying enterprises of the Nara scriptoria. Based on references in eighthcentury documents and extant sutra copies, it has been estimated that over 100,000 scrolls were produced during the Nara period (Nara kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1983, kaisetsu 18). With few exceptions this figure includes neither private copying in noble households nor copying in religious centers outside the home provinces, so the actual total production for the eighth century must have been much higher.41 The well-known links between Buddhism and the development of printing also stem largely from this drive to gain merit through production of texts.42 In early Japan the classic manifestation is the Hyakumantō darani 百萬塔陀羅尼, a massive project sponsored by the sovereign Kōken/Shōtoku (r. 749–58 and 764–70), who conceived the undertaking in 764 and saw it completed in 770. One million miniature wooden pagodas were manufactured and distributed, in lots of 100,000, to ten major temples (over 40,000 examples survive in the treasure house of Hōryūji). A cavity in each pagoda contained a paper slip with one of four different dhāran.ī incantations, reproduced from copper plates or wooden blocks: these are the earliest examples of printing in Japan.43 This massive undertaking vividly illustrates the complexity of ‘Buddhist literacy’ in this period. The efficacy of these dhāran.ī, and the merit to be gained from copying them, are explicitly advocated by a sutra, and thus the creation of a million copies is a striking case of correlation between writing and human activity in a way that accords with our received notion of literacy (‘following instructions’). But the dhāran.ī themselves are syllable-by-syllable transcriptions of Sanskrit incantations that have no ‘inherent’ meaning, and the paper slips that bear them are massproduced sacred objects (like the pagodas themselves) that were unlikely ——— 41. For introductions to the eighth-century scriptoria and their organization, see Piggott 1987; Yamashita 1999; and Sakaehara 2000. Lowe 2010, which provides a rich description of the ritual significance of scribes and their activities, is part of a forthcoming dissertation of sutra-copying in early Japan. 42. On the connections between Buddhism and the development of printing in East Asia, see Twitchett 1983; Tsien 1985; and Barrett 2008. 43. The four dhāran.ī used in the Hyakumantō project were drawn from six that are included in, and advocated by, the Muku jōkō daidaranikyō 無垢浄光大陀羅尼経 (T19, 1024, 717c–721b). On the project, see Hickman 1975 and Kornicki 1998, 114–17.

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to ever be ‘read’ (or even viewed once they had been inserted into their cavities). Moreover, the slips were not the only written aspect of the project: the bases of many of the pagodas have ink inscriptions specifying the workshops, dates, and workmen involved in their production (unfinished versions have been excavated from the Heijō palace site). Such notations may have been part of the administration of this formidable undertaking, but those who produced the pagodas could well have expected to gain some of the promised benefits, even though it is unlikely that the lathe operators themselves signed their work, and unimaginable that they were personally familiar with the ‘content’ of the sutra that had set the project in motion. There is no better example of the multiple realms of literacy in general, and of ‘Buddhist literacy’ in particular. It would be a mistake to sort those involved in this project into a hierarchy of ‘comprehension’ (does the opaque dhāran.ī transcription represent a higher or lower form of ‘literacy’ than a signature that could not necessarily be read by a workman who nonetheless knew that it recorded his name?). The title of a well-known comparative study on the history of inscription asks, “The evidence for early writing: utilitarian or ceremonial?” (Postgate, Wang, and Wilkinson 1995). If this question is considered in terms of the origins of writing, the focus is on the function for which it originally developed, and the answer is shaped by the nature of the materials that attest to the earliest stages of the first writing systems. Arguing that our view is skewed in cases when ‘utilitarian’ writing is less likely to survive, the authors ultimately come down on that side, drawing in particular on the comparatively well-documented early stages of cuneiform writing. But the history of writing is also the story of the movement and transformation of systems after their initial development, and so this book is in a position to ask a similar question: was it ceremonial and ritual uses of writing, or rather administrative and economic ones, that drove the expansion of inscription in early Japan? Were a simple answer required, the material discussed in this chapter would lead us to emphasize the role of the ‘utilitarian’ in the seventhcentury transformation of Japanese writing and reading. But it would be more to the point to insist that the question itself is ill-formed, because these two broad categories are so interdependent, and also because of

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Fig. 3.4 Fuhon (“origin of prosperity”) coin

the continual transformations of reception and adaptation. Inscriptions on coins, for example, play both ‘utilitarian’ roles—establishing monetary value and guaranteeing authenticity—and also serve in ways that might well be deemed ‘ceremonial’: dramatizing the legitimacy of rulers, referring to cosmological ideas of their centrality, demonstrating their ability to control time. Among the innovations of Tenmu’s reign that have come to light in recent years is the minting of Japan’s first official currency, which included an issue of copper coins bearing the inscription fuhon 富本 (lit., “origin of prosperity”; see Figure 3.4). These coins had been found in a variety of eighth-century sites, but in 1998 large numbers of them were unearthed, along with evidence of their casting, at the late seventhcentury Asukaike site (discussed in the following chapter). This established that they were issued before the well-known Wadō kaichin 和同 開珎 coins of 708 (the first of twelve official coinages over a period lasting to the mid-tenth century). The “origin of prosperity” coins almost certainly correspond to copper coins mandated by Tenmu that are mentioned in a 683 entry of the Nihon shoki (NS II:457–59 [Tenmu 12/4/15]). The coin legend is thought to derive ultimately from a passage from the Dongguan hanji 東觀漢記, a history of the Later Han: “the basis of enriching the populace lies in food and money” 富民之本、 在於食貨. This is quoted in the 624 Yiwen leiju 藝文類聚, a widely used

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encyclopedia (YWLJ 66:1180), and it also appears in the Jinshu 晉書 ( JS 26:793). But accompanied by a design of the astrologically significant seven luminaries (七曜), the inscription takes on a more supernatural quality.44 Scholars debate whether the primary function of these coins was as currency or as magical charms to effect good fortune. The potential meanings of the “origin of prosperity” legend (and its relationship to the object that bears it) are further multiplied by its reception among people geographically and socially removed from its original context, as with the Chinese coins discussed in the first chapter. We might also note the prevalence of Confucian scholars and yin-yang masters in the Nihon shoki accounts of specialists arriving from the Korean states during the sixth century, or the frequency with which fragments of Confucian philosophical and belletristic works appear in writing practice mokkan. Categories like ‘ritual,’ ‘aesthetic,’ ‘magical,’ and ‘utilitarian’ intersect one another to a surprising degree. It is, then, difficult to sort out and separate different functions of writing. As with the inscription of workmen’s names on the hyakumantō pagodas, apparently utilitarian writing on label mokkan or potsherds can be interpreted as having ‘ceremonial’ value as well (or even, instead). Simplistic accounts of religious writing and its effects do not do justice to the complexity of expanding literacies in this period, because such phenomena need to be situated among all other types or functions of writing rather than treated as discrete and self-contained. We might recall that the Mesopotamian materials that provide the clearest picture of a historical origin for writing are associated with temples, religious institutions that (like their counterparts in early Japan) had profound political significance. Writing in the service of sacred institutions, done by priests or scribes who control a quasi-magical technology, itself has a religious dimension. To us, the differences between an account book and a sacred scripture are readily apparent—and similar distinctions were drawn by religious initiates in early societies—but in a world where many literacies involved ‘alegible’ relations to written material, they would not have been so clear for everyone. Here it is worth noting the bureaucratic ——— 44. On the “origin of prosperity” ( fuhon) coins and the significance of their legend and design, see Matsumura 1999; Imamura 2001; and Tōno 2005.

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format of so many Chinese-style spirit communications, such as burial contracts.45 Religious writing, in itself, did not transform the nature of literacy in early Japan. An increase in lectures, readings, and copying of sutras is apparent in the last sections of the Nihon shoki, corresponding to the latter half of the seventh century (see Lurie 2001, 380–98). But this augmentation and expansion of Buddhist writing occurred simultaneously with both the expansion of state control over Buddhist institutions and the emergence of large-scale secular written communication, most prominently embodied by mokkan. This is not a matter of claiming historical priority for secular bureaucratic communication and recordkeeping, but of seeing both transformations as interlocking processes that were part of an overall increase in the richness and variety of the types and functions of writing. Context, Material, and the Breadth of Early Japanese Writing The masses of new written material that appeared in the seventh and eighth centuries, and the unprecedented variety of literacies associated with them, do not mean that the roles played by writing during the Yayoi and Tomb periods were no longer relevant. Writing continued to be appreciated ‘alegibly,’ for its magical powers and associations with authority. But these uses took on new meanings in the context of newly expanding literacies, and the development of these new meanings amounts to a further increase in the variety of the material bases and social functions of writing. How are we to make sense of this new variety? As surveyed thus far, we can see that specific political, social, diplomatic, ——— 45. A handful of burial contracts 買地券, buried documents establishing the right to use land for a grave and expressing hopes for the afterlife of the deceased, have been found from early Japanese sites. Two of the most frequently mentioned are a clay brick (dated 763) from Mabi 真備 city (in modern Okayama prefecture), and a lead tablet with an ink inscription (thought to date to the late eighth or early ninth century) from the Miyanomoto 宮ノ本 site in Dazaifu (Machida 2002). (On the Mabi city inscription and other burial contracts from the ancient Kibi region, see Makabe 1992, 280–313, and Yoshida Akira 1995, 219–23; on the Miyanomoto contract, see Dazaifu shishi henshū iinkai 1992, 588–93.) Such documents, which purchased or rented land from the earth gods, originated in Han-dynasty China and are often discussed as a Daoist practice (see Hansen 1995, 149–88).

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and religious developments drove the emergence of a world dense with writing. But a broader examination of this new terrain is also necessary. Do all of these practices of writing and reading fit together, or does the period involve radically separate realms of literacy? Three mid-eighthcentury objects, all still legible some twelve and a half centuries after their creation, provide a place to start considering this question. They are a stone stele commemorating the reconstruction of a frontier outpost, a paper scroll of elegant calligraphy brushed by a queen, and a wooden label from a shipment of tax goods. These three representative items limn a busy universe of multiple, overlapping powers of writing. ROCK, PAPER, SPLINTERS

The Taga Fortress stele still stands near the Pacific coast in the northeast of the main island, Honshu, between the city of Sendai and the seaside landmark of Matsushima. The area surrounding it is one of the most excavated archaeological sites of northeastern Japan. The stele is an oblong, rounded slab of greenish grey sandstone embedded in the earth, with nearly two meters exposed. The flat western face of the slab has the large character for that direction (西) inscribed near the top. Beneath, incised lines mark out a rectangular area that contains an inscription of 140 characters (see Figure 3.5).

Taga Fortress

1,500 leagues from the Capital 120 leagues from the border of the Emishi country 412 leagues from the border of Hitachi province 274 leagues from the border of Shimotsuke province 3,000 leagues from the border of the country of Parhae This fortress was founded in the 1st year of the Divine Turtle Era (the year star lodged in the first cyclical position) [724] by Ōno no Ason Azumahito, Upper Junior Fourth Rank and Fourth Order of Merit, Royal Inspector and Governor General. In the 6th year of the Heavenly Peace-Treasured Letters Era (the year star lodged in the 39th cyclical position) [762], Fujiwara no Emi no Ason Asakari, Minister of Popular Affairs and Royal Inspector-Governor General, Upper Junior Fourth Rank, Advisor-Military Commissioner of the Eastern Coastal and Mountain Circuits, repaired it. 1st day, 12th month, 6th year of the Heavenly Peace-Treasured Letters Era [20 December 762]

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Fig. 3.5 Rubbing of the Taga Fortress stele (Masamune 1928). The above-ground portion is 196 centimeters tall, 92 centimeters wide, and 70 centimeters thick.

多賀城

去京一千五百里 去蝦夷国界一百廿里 去常陸国界四百十二里 去下野国界二百七十四里 去靺鞨国界三千里

此城、神龜元年、歳次甲子、桉察使兼鎮守将 軍・從四位上勳四等大野朝臣東人之所置 也。天平寳字六年、歳次壬寅、參議・東海東山 節度使從四位上仁部省卿兼桉察使・鎮守 将軍藤原恵美朝臣朝獦、修造也。 天平寳字六年十二月一日 (KI 26)

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Taga Fortress was the center for administration of the northeastern frontier, and the headquarters (until the early ninth century) of military forces dedicated to subjugating the indigenous Emishi people. The stele clearly locates this extension of the Japanese state in space and time, and is literally oriented back towards the distant capital.46 The calligraphy scroll, which is in the Shōsōin repository at Tōdaiji 東大寺 temple, in Nara, is about 25 centimeters high and 137 centimeters long, and comprises four glued-together sheets, three of white and one of yellow hempen paper, a product imported from China and highly valued by early Japanese elites (Haruna 1987, 99). The paper sheets are attached to a roller with decorative ends of agate, and protected by a purple paper cover with a title slip inscribed: “Yue Yi lun: Calligraphy of the Queen-Consort [Shibi chūdai]” 樂毅論 紫微中 御書 . The paper is not the only imported element of this artwork: the Yue Yi lun itself is a short essay by Xia Houxuan 夏侯玄 (fl. third century CE) about Yue Yi, a legendary Chinese general of the Warring States period. A 348 rendition of this work by the renowned calligrapher Wang Xizhi 王羲之 (ca. 303–ca. 379) became a classic exemplar of his formal style, and was copied, studied, and emulated in China and elsewhere in East Asia.47 The Yue Yi lun scroll is famous for the quality of its calligraphy, but also for the identity of the woman who brushed it. The attribution on the title slip is confirmed by a two-line signature on the yellow sheet at the end of the scroll: “3rd day, 10th month, 16th year of the Heavenly Peace Era [744]/Third Fuji[wara] daughter” 天平十六年十月三日/ 藤三娘 (SZ 42–43). This Fujiwara daughter and queen consort is Royal Consort Kōmyō 光明皇后 (701–60). Daughter of the leading court politician of the late seventh and early eighth century, consort of one sovereign and mother of the next, and a religious and political authority in her own right, she is one of the most important figures of the eighth century (see Mikoshiba 2002). Even within her lifetime, this product of ——— 46. For an extensive introduction to this stele and its inscription, see Abe and Hirakawa 1999; on the history of Taga Fortress, see Aoki and Okada 2006. 47. On Wang Xizhi and his place in Chinese calligraphy, see Ledderose 1979, 7–44; for a helpful discussion of his influence in Nara and (especially) Heian Japan, see Carpenter 2008.

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Kōmyō’s skilled brush was treated as a valuable work of art: in a 756 record of donations to Tōdaiji, there is a listing for the scroll followed by a note attributing it to her (TKM 434). The tax label mokkan is a rectangular piece of wood about 19 centimeters long, 2 centimeters wide, and 8 millimeters thick. Notches at the top mark it as a luggage tag: the bottom would have been inserted into the rope binding of a bundle, and then a rope or string would have secured the top. It bears the faint inscription, “Miyako county corvée 斗 exemption tax rice, 6 [pints]” 京都郡庸米六 □ (NKMSS #143); the reverse has a string of illegible characters ending with “month” 月. This typical luggage tag was found at the site of the Tsukushi Kōrokan 鴻臚 館, an official complex devoted to entertaining parties of foreign emissaries who arrived in northern Kyushu.48 It was excavated, along with other luggage tags, similarly shaped pieces of wood, pottery fragments, animal bones, assorted seeds, and the bodies of insects and intestinal parasites, from the remains of one of the Kōrokan’s toilets. As is still the case in many parts of the world, the eighth-century residents of this diplomatic complex used wooden scrapers to accomplish the task entrusted to toilet paper by the citizens of modern industrialized nations. After fulfilling its bureaucratic function in the Dazaifu offices and Kōrokan commissary, this document was subsequently employed for a very different purpose.49 Each of these three is emblematic of many similar artifacts. The Taga stele stands for several dozen other durable inscriptions, some long known to historians, others recently unearthed or discovered in temple collections. The Yue Yi lun exemplifies the thousands of paper documents that have survived in temple libraries and storehouses: equally formal items, such as sutras, and also the Shōsōin documents, most of which were generated in the day-to-day business of the same scriptoria that produced the sutras. And the toilet mokkan represents the hundreds of thousands of wooden tablets that have been discovered to date— an enormous quantity that itself is a mere fraction of the total that ——— 48. On the Kōrokan and the nature of this mokkan, see endnote 3.16. 49. For a brief, well-illustrated discussion of the Kōrokan toilets and their contents, see Ōta-kuritsu kyōdo hakubutsukan 1997, 34–37; a more extensive discussion of this use of mokkan can be found in Inoue Kazuto 2006.

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were produced, used, reused, and discarded in the seventh and eighth centuries. These three items also unfold into a wider world of writing, including both other surviving objects and transmitted works preserved in later manuscript copies. The heroes of the Taga Fortress stele inscription, Azumahito and Asakari, both appear in historical works like the 797 Shoku Nihongi 續日本紀 (the official history that followed the Nihon shoki). In addition to her political prominence, Kōmyō’s name remains on many extant colophons from the countless sutras whose copying she commissioned; some of her vernacular poems are also collected in the eighth-century Man’yōshū (MYS 8:1658; 19:4224; 19:4240). Chinesestyle poetry from a banquet for Silla emissaries who would have passed through the Kōrokan is anthologized in the Kaifūsō.50 The thought of Harold Innis (1894–1952) provides a vantage point on the interactions between the material bases of written objects and their functions and social trajectories, interactions that are illustrated so vividly by these three items. Innis’s discussions of media and culture inspired more familiar work by Marshall McLuhan, Jack Goody and Ian Watt, and Eric Havelock. In addition to the broad distinction between oral and literate communication, he emphasized how the differing degrees of durability or portability of media corresponded to distinct regimes of time and space: A medium of communication has an important influence on the dissemination of knowledge over space and over time and it becomes necessary to study its characteristics in order to appraise its influence in its cultural setting. According to its characteristics it may be better suited to the dissemination of knowledge over time than over space, particularly if the medium is heavy and durable and not suited to transportation, or to the dissemination of knowledge over space than over time, particularly if the medium is light and easily transported. The relative influence on time or space will imply a bias of significance to the culture in which it is imbedded (Innis 1951, 33).

This perspective leads to a reconceptualization of history in terms of the rise, fall, and eventual replacement of various dominant media (stone, ——— 50. The poems from the Silla embassy banquet are KFS 52, 60, 62, 63, 65, 68, 71, 77, 79, and 86. As with the Yue Yi lun, these works illustrate the role of Sinitic writing (in both calligraphic and belletristic senses) in binding together the East Asian region.

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clay, papyrus, paper, printed paper). Nearly six decades later, Innis remains stimulating reading, though it is necessary to question or qualify some of his most sweeping assumptions. First, the problem of determinism. Although Innis is careful to qualify his assertions, the overall force of the argument is that differences in the portability and durability of media necessarily have certain consequences for the societies employing those media.51 But, much as is the case with the arguments about literacy surveyed in the first chapter (many of them developed under Innis’s influence), the “bias” inherent in specific methods of communication should be approached, not as a historical master key, but as one factor among many that interact in complex ways. Moreover, a single medium rarely, if ever, dominates a society; rather, a mix of different media generally interact with one another. This heterogeneity is something of which Innis is well aware, but he tends to see the relationship between coexisting media as competitive—indeed, as an implicit struggle for dominance over the essential nature of a civilization. 52 Certainly there are cases in which particular media have had a transformative impact as they supplanted others (paper in the Han dynasty, or printed books in modern Europe), but more often than not such transitions are actually a reconfiguration of complex relationships among multiple media rather than a simple replacement of one by another. Although Innis traces great currents of history across many centuries, it is important not to lose track of the simultaneous interactions among different material bases for writing. Such interactions include implicit or explicit ideological support (say, of politically legitimizing stone stele inscriptions for paper administrative documents), but also more direct connections such as the copying or transcription of texts, complete or in part, from one medium to another. ——— 51. “We can perhaps assume that the use of a medium of communication over a long period will to some extent determine the character of knowledge to be communicated and suggest that its pervasive influence will eventually create a civilization in which life and flexibility will become exceedingly difficult to maintain and that the advantages of a new medium will become such as to lead to the emergence of a new civilization” (Innis 1951, 34). 52. Innis (1951, 34) also points out the association of perishable media and “problems of space, notably administration and law” in ways that anticipate Postgate, Wang, and Wilkinson 1995.

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Certain classes of monumental written objects are stored carefully or displayed in prominent locations, with their inscriptions subject to being copied, quoted, or read aloud in public settings. Other classes of ephemeral written objects tend to be abandoned, reused, or destroyed when their inscriptions have served temporally and socially limited functions. Inscriptions commemorating an event or a deceased individual, asserting political authority over a location, or labeling an object with magical or religious significance are closely associated with durable media like stone and metal. But writings created or maintained with an eye towards posterity (literary anthologies, histories, legal codes, collections of exemplary documents and bureaucratic forms, sacred texts and their commentaries) can be committed to the highly perishable medium of paper. It is the practice of copying such texts—and thus of multiplying their physical manifestations—that allows them to endure, albeit transformed by emendations and errors. The phenomenon of copying broaches a fundamental distinction between stationary and mobile forms of writing. The quintessential stationary text is the stele: a massive piece of stone with a text carved into it, commemorating a particular event or individual, and thereby attempting to fix the meaning of a particular space. A sutra copy sent to a provincial temple is an example of a mobile text; unlike the stele, whose function depends on its immobility, the political significance of such a sutra lies in its movement from the capital outward. As they are copied and expand in number, such practically identical texts create a framework of meaning that serves to link disparate sites across time and space. But the texts of stationary monuments are also copied, in ways that are essential to their functioning. Rubbings were a form of protoprinting that produced a paper-based image directly relatable to the singular original written object, and inscriptions on stone or metal were also widely transcribed and quoted, entirely or in part, in historical or literary works.53 Movement between the media of paper and stone/metal is essential to the creation and effectiveness of epigraphic writing. In an inscription made with the consciousness that it will disseminate via rubbings or simple copies of the text, an expected mobility lies at the heart of what seems on the surface to be a stationary act of writing par ——— 53. On copying of stele inscriptions, see endnote 3.17.

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excellence. In this sense, stationary monuments can also be said to circulate despite the singularity of the original stele, plaque, or statue. A relatively small amount of monumental epigraphy survives from the seventh and eighth centuries (the standard collections compiled in the early nineteenth and early twentieth centuries [KI and ZKI] incorporate 49 surviving inscriptions, to which can be added a handful of subsequent discoveries). It is likely that a significant amount of additional material has been lost, but we need not assume that this form of writing was that widespread. In the case of paper-based writing, we can be more sure that what survives from the late seventh and eighth centuries is the barest fraction of a much larger body of original material. The wide variety of early Japanese books, both imported and domestically produced, is apparent from extant texts, reliable references to lost works, and transmitted manuscripts. The fundamental framework of learning and knowledge—and of written expression itself, as discussed in following chapters—was provided by numerous Chinese texts. To these imported works can be added those that were domestically composed: legal codes and their commentaries, poetry anthologies, official and family histories, gazetteers, dictionaries and glossaries, commentaries on Buddhist texts, and so on.54 Little direct evidence of these early writings remains, but much can be extrapolated from information gleaned from extant texts and the book culture of later periods. Seventhand eighth-century books were valuable possessions, maintained in libraries attached to the royal palace, noble residences, major temples, and, eventually, the capital university (daigakuryō 大學寮) and provincial academies (kokugaku 國學). Even though a particular work itself may have originated abroad, circulating manuscripts were produced by domestic copying, sometimes in highly organized contexts like the scriptoria, or sutra-copying bureaus (shakyōjō 寫經所) so well attested by the Shōsōin documents. ——— 54. Haga 1993 is an enormously erudite survey, with extensive references, of imported writings in early Japan; Ikeda 2006 is also very helpful. For general surveys of early Japanese literary writings, see Cranston 1993a and Keene 1993. For a collection of citations and quotations of lost works, a number of them from the early period, see Wada 1995.

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The form in which objects survive into the present is inseparable from the problem of their lives in the past. Paper-based works were certainly copied and prized, but unlike epigraphs on durable materials their original forms usually do not to survive. Early manuscripts of belletristic works like the Man’yōshū (not to mention its no-longer extant source anthologies) were preserved in libraries and multiplied into new objects through copying, but the catastrophes to which paper is most vulnerable—moisture, fire, consumption by vermin—decimated them. Buddhist texts were subject to similar dangers, but because of the sacred value of both the manuscripts themselves and of the act of copying them, and because of the commitment of large, powerful institutions to their collection and preservation, they survive in far greater numbers than secular works. The earliest extant Japanese sutra copy dates to the late seventh century (the 686 Kongōjō daranikyō, described above)—and thousands remain from the eighth century—but extant Man’yōshū manuscripts begin in the eleventh century with the fragmentary Katsura-bon 桂本. Ironically it is because of their disposability that other classes of written artifact survive in such enormous numbers from the seventh and eighth centuries. Documents like mokkan served a specific, temporally limited purpose, and then were discarded, destroyed, or recycled. Written according to particular determined formats, they exist in series extending through time (evaluation forms for bureaucrats were produced annually) and space (a luggage tag attached to a bundle of tax goods is surrounded by other tags attached to other bundles). Some inscriptions gain value from their material basis (quite literally in the case of gold or silver inlaid writing like that on the fifth-century swords); in others, like the Hyakumantō darani, the text itself is the source of value. With quotidian documents, the text becomes nearly valueless once its purpose has been served (last year’s calendar, an expired gate pass), but the material itself (whose cost includes the labor required to prepare mokkan or manufacture paper) remained potentially useful. Hence the palimpsestic quality of these materials, which were continually subject to reuse or repurposing before meeting their ultimate fate in the trash. Given its high value, reuse of paper was widespread: almost all extant paper documents from the Nara period, and many from later periods as

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well, have related or unrelated writing on the reverse.55 This is famously the case with the aforementioned Shōsōin documents (Shōsōin monjo 正倉院文書), a collection of over 10,000 paper documents mostly from an official scriptorium associated with Tōdaiji, the largest eighth-century temple. In addition to revealing much about the structure of the scriptorium and the lives of its copyists, many of these records and reports were written on the reverse sides of discarded central government documents, and thus they also provide unique examples of census registers, tax surveys, directories of official communications, and so on.56 Once both sides had been used—or, occasionally, even when one side remained blank—paper documents could be recycled into pulp for new paper, made into lining or backing for screens and other articles, or used as covers to keep buckets of liquid lacquer from drying out. This last practice results in the unintentional preservation underground of lacquer-impregnated paper scraps (urushigami [or shisshi] monjo 漆紙 文書) that attest to categories of ephemeral document that would otherwise be too fragile to survive outside of an archive. The dozens of lacquer documents that have been discovered to date are particularly valuable because they have been found at sites far from the capital, many of them in northeastern Honshu (Hirakawa 1989; 1994). Similar recycling phenomena can be observed in mokkan (the Kōrokan toilet mokkan is no less a repurposing than a lacquer bucket cover). More frequently, tablets whose contents had expired were erased by shaving off their written surfaces with a small knife (tōsu 刀子). Decorated knives of this sort are included in the Shōsōin and Hōryūji treasures, and archaeological finds attest to everyday use of less ornate versions by scribes and bureaucrats.57 As much as 80 percent of the tens of thousands of ——— 55. With reverse-side documents, there are some cases in which the original written item is not a document whose usefulness has expired, but a piece of a book (such as a dictionary or a Chinese classic). Even a carefully copied book can lose its value through age, damage, or replacement by a newer copy or more authoritative version (Hirakawa 1994, 54–63). 56. On the Shōsōin documents, see Farris 2007; Maruyama 1999; Kokuritsu rekishi minzoku hakubutsukan 2002, 141–94; and Sugimoto 2003. 57. Such knives, which were used for correcting discrete mistakes as well as erasing entire wooden (or, in China, bamboo) documents, were so associated with the work of clerks and scribes that the term 刀筆 (taobi/tōhitsu) came to mean not only the tools of

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mokkan discoveries are fragmentary shavings bearing incomplete texts— sometimes even only a single character, or portion of a character (Ikeda 1996, 30). Among the most common categories of mokkan found in sites of government and household offices (accompanied by clerical materials like documents and labels) are those that bear certain characters written over and over. As was sometimes the case with paper documents, blank spaces and margins of expired mokkan were devoted to writing practice, but it also appears that often the entire surface was erased and re-erased until the strip of wood was consumed. As mentioned in the previous chapter’s discussion of the Wani episode, the Analects and the Thousand Character Classic were commonly used as textbooks, so it makes sense that passages from them appear frequently. Other works so used include the Laozi and the Wenxuan, and other common forms of writing practice include multiplication tables—necessary knowledge for any clerk— and important terms from official forms for bureaucratic reports and requisitions.58 The fragmentary document produced for writing practice has fulfilled its purpose the moment it is completed, and thus instantly expires, so copying that aims to reproduce a work is distinct from partial copying carried out for training or education. Nonetheless, the fact that paperbased works provided the models for so much writing practice is a reminder that ephemeral writings are dependent on intellectual, social, legal, and technical structures embedded in other bodies of written material that are longer, more complexly structured, more highly valued, and less subject to expiration. Another way in which different categories of media are interconnected is through the use of ephemeral materials as rough drafts, whether for formal documents or for more extensive works.59 Whereas the use of tablets and strips of wood and bamboo in Zhou, Qin, and Han China predated the invention of paper, in Japan mokkan ——— bureaucratic writing, but also the functionaries who employed them (also termed 刀筆 吏), and even the documents with which they worked. 58. On writing practice mokkan, see JMSS 192–207; Yokota and Kitō 1979, 82–84; Satō Makoto 1988, 559–83; and Tōno 1997, 2–19. 59. On rough drafts, see endnote 3.18.

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were used from the start alongside paper documents and books.60 In seventh- and eighth-century Japan, there were clear divisions of labor in media. Paper was employed for highly valued books, but also for less durable purposes like formal government documents, and wood was used for shorter communications, labels and passes, and rough drafts of documents or reports. Paper was lighter, more flexible, and better suited to brushed ink inscriptions, but a number of factors underlay continued reliance on wood in certain capacities. In addition to their superior erasability, mokkan were cheaper and easier to make, sturdier and longer lasting, and available for specialized uses: for example, by boring holes in them and linking them with string, they could be made to serve as a database or filing system.61 INHABITING THE REALMS OF WRITING

To the extent that the diverse types of writing and written materials surveyed here are linked together, they are connected by human interactions. Ephemeral materials rely on the institutional and ideological structures embodied by more permanent ones, often even through direct copying, but it is also the case that, after the seventh-century transition, durable forms of writing depended on a vast cloud of ephemera that surrounded them. Mokkan were essential to elegant works like the Yue Yi lun, in the sense that such quotidian documents maintained the networks of people who kept the calligrapher (Kōmyō) in the material conditions necessary for the creation of such an artwork—including supplies and equipment for her writing: imported paper, fine brushes, ink, inkstones, and so on. Similarly, the Taga Fortress would have been unable to function without paper and wooden documents to keep track of military and civilian personnel and supplies, and to record dates and distances like those that appear on the stele. These are not just points ——— 60. On the range of early Chinese media, see Tsien 2004 and Shaughnessy 1997. The combination of paper and wood employed in early Japan represents an adaptation of an adaptation: taking over Korean uses of writing that themselves were derived from bureaucratic practices of Six Dynasties China. 61. On the media ‘division of labor’ between paper and wood in early Japan, see Kitō 1988 and Hirakawa 1999c. For a classic discussion of a famous example of a mokkan ‘database,’ see Tōno 1977c.

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about writing per se, but about the ways in which human actions maintain linkages among disparate artifacts. Tracking the development of writing systems, or the movements of written artifacts, through space and time is akin to watching the Brownian motion of small particles, as it is the impacts of (mostly) unseen human lives that determine the trajectories of written materials. This brings us to the threshold of a realization at once discouraging and intoxicating: a truly complete history of writing would be a history of the entire society within which that writing existed. As was the case with the discussion of the history of the ‘unread’ in the first chapter, the limits of the present study are visible here. It is unsurprising to find so many interconnections between the bodies that ultimately constitute the state and the various written materials that were a principal means of organizing and deploying them. The livestock-branding provision from the administrative code with which this chapter began served as a reminder of the multilevel embodiment of writing. As noted there, one of the ways in which writing was officially envisioned as a means of incorporating the state in its totality was the official census, which seems (like the ritsuryō state itself ) to have begun under Tenji at mid-century and assumed a newly elaborated form with the promulgation of the Taihō penal and administrative code in 701. Census registers were intended to record in writing every member of the population, with accompanying annotations of distinguishing physical characteristics. Imperfectly and incompletely centralized though it was, the late seventh- and eighth-century state exerted a centrifugal force on writing, though much of the provincial expansion of literacies was mediated by local needs and ambitions. With the exception of a few intriguing epigraphic inscriptions, all of the extant local writing from remote areas was produced in relation to central authority. (This certainly includes the most famous category of provincial writing, the fudoki gazetteers.) But there are tantalizing signs of uses of writing at surprisingly low levels of society, including document mokkan directives issued to villages by district chiefs ( gunpu 郡符) and inscribed potsherds from district seats and villages.62 ——— 62. On district chief mokkan ( gunpu) see Hirakawa 2003. For more on inscribed potsherds, see endnote 3.19.

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Another consequence of the feedback between the development of writing and the state formation process over the course of the seventh century was the appearance at the center of a far denser and more complex realm of literacy. The successive palaces of the Yamato kings were replaced in the decades after the anti-Soga coup with more extensive administrative structures, in Naniwa and Asuka, in Ōmi, and eventually back in Asuka with the Kiyomihara 浄御原 palace of Tenmu and then Jitō. But this expansion was as nothing compared to the emergence, at the turn of the century, of a true capital city. The Fujiwara capital, founded in 694, was followed in 710 by the more familiar Heijō (Nara) capital, which was to remain the seat of government (with some interruptions, and accompanied by secondary capitals like later Naniwa) for most of the eighth century.63 The appearance of these cities heralds new realms of writing, as the developments from the mid-seventh century onward were consolidated and scaled up. This is attested by changes in the nature of mokkan discoveries. Where the largest pre-urban finds (from the mid- to late seventh century) involve dozens at most, excavations of the capital cities have produced enormous quantities of mokkan: over 5,000 from a single site in the Fujiwara palace (connected to the administration of the palace guards [ejifu 衛士府]), or about 100,000 from the site of the Prince Nagaya mansion in Nara.64 These great quantities encourage speculation about literacy rates, but such statistics generally assume a unitary literacy that could be meaningfully quantified, rather a range of different relationships to and competencies with the technology of writing.65 There is little doubt that even at the height of the eighth-century state, any calculation of a ‘literacy rate’ would be low by modern standards. Even given a very liberal estimate of what would qualify as literacy, in the Nara and early Heian (794–1185) ——— 63. Nagaoka (the short-lived capital from 784 to 794) presents much the same picture as Heijō as far as the history of writing is concerned (see Van Goethem 2008), but Heian (occupied from 794, and at least nominally the capital until 1868) is different, because of different archaeological conditions, the sparse nature of ninth-century sources, and eventually because of developments internal to the writing system (discussed in Chapter 7). 64. On the recent discovery of the Fujiwara palace guards mokkan, see Ichi 2005; the Prince Nagaya mansion mokkan are discussed further in the following chapter. 65. William Harris (1989) acknowledges many of the difficulties involved, but argues thoughtfully against totally avoiding estimated literacy rates for premodern societies.

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periods a ‘national’ rate would have been between 1 and 5 percent; however, in the capitals (especially Heijō [Nara], and perhaps Fujiwara before it), it is likely to have been significantly higher—as much as 20 to 25 percent. But the important point is less that ‘literacy’ was widespread than that writing was commonplace. Bureaucrats of both high and low status, sutra copiers, provincial administrators and their staffs, monks and nuns, noble poets and politicians, the royal family and their attendants; those who were involved with textual production and consumption were thoroughly surrounded by various written artifacts. A reminder of this ubiquity is provided by a mokkan that was unearthed in 1969 from a roadside site along one of the principal thoroughfares of Heijō. The inscribed date does not include the year, but judging from items found alongside it, scholars have placed it in the early ninth century. From its comparatively large size (almost a meter long and just over seven centimeters wide), its sharply pointed bottom end, and the inscription itself, it is clear that it was a roadside public notice. Announcement to passersby: One runaway dark bay stallion (has distinguishing marks: one eye is white, some white on forehead) At the hour of the monkey on the 6th day of this month, the aforementioned horse ran away from the side of the pond in the flower garden of Yamashina temple. If anyone sees and captures him, please come and report to the third chamber from the southern end of the middle cloister of Yamashina temple. The 8th day of the 9th month. ( JMSS 20)66 告知 往還諸人 走失黒鹿毛牡馬一匹 在驗片目白 額少白 件馬以今月六日申時山階寺南花薗池邊而走失也 九月八日 若有見捉者可告来山階寺中室自南端第三房之

Taking the trouble to write a sign like this and position it at the roadside evinces considerable faith in the power of writing to communicate with ——— 66. Other similar signs, mentioning another missing horse and also one that had been found, were unearthed from the same site. “Yamashina temple” is another name for Kōfukuji, the great tutelary temple of the Fujiwara lineage group; the pond is Sarusawa no ike, which can still be found downhill from the temple’s pagoda. See JMSS 21 and NKMS 249–50.

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significant numbers of anonymous passersby (at least in the area around the capitals, with their concentration of government offices and centers of religious learning). The speed with which such a world emerged over the course of the seventh century is striking, but so is its extraordinary heterogeneity. The preceding chapter and this one have shown how hard it is to find anything like a uniform transition from orality to ‘literacy’; rather, different modes of writing appear, simultaneously and in succession, and eventually coexist in a variety of mutual configurations. With such radically different realms of literacy within the space of the archipelago in this period, does it even make sense to think in terms of a single history of writing? Certain unifying forces can be identified, as in this chapter, which particularly stressed the power of political and religious structures working through and within the development of different literacies. But perhaps the most important element is one that has not yet been addressed: the relationship between writing and language. In examining this question, the following chapters open up a series of new problems for the history of writing, and provide a different vantage point on the developments described thus far.

PART II

Writing and Language

FOUR

Kundoku: Reading, Writing, and Translation in a Single Script

People often did not really know what language they were writing in, Chinese or Japanese; and we are often in no better position to make a judgment on the question when we study some of the documents they produced. —R. A. Miller To some degree, all texts contain their potential translation between the lines. —Walter Benjamin

With the earliest inscriptions from the Japanese archipelago, the likely absence of extensive acts of what we would call ‘reading’ made it preferable to defer consideration of the relationship between writing and spoken language. Because of the increase in surviving artifacts and transmitted texts, and because an explosion of language-dependent uses of writing is apparent in such materials, the seventh and eighth centuries do not allow a similar postponement. Addressing this issue shows one way that the disparate realms of writing in this period were held together, and suggests some reasons that the configuration of literacies could change so dramatically over such a short span of time. The interrelation between writing and language discussed in this chapter are fun-

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damental to the dynamics of Japanese inscription, not just in this early period, but for many centuries thereafter—even until the present day. Language and Writing in Chinese and Japanese Until the modern period, the ultimate basis of all Japanese writing was the Chinese script. Indic writing was used ‘alegibly’ in Buddhist contexts, especially in connection with the esoteric Shingon school that exerted an immense influence on Heian and medieval culture and thought. Despite significant effects on the way writing was conceptualized, this script was never adapted to inscribe the Japanese language; nor was it used for everyday communication or record-keeping, or indeed for any of the various ‘legible’ functions of writing.1 The Roman alphabet was first encountered in the sixteenth century, and its differences from East Asian writing were noted with interest by scholars, especially in the nineteenth century. Late in that century it was absorbed into the overall writing system in the auxiliary, often decorative, role it continues to play. This means that a consideration of the ‘glottographic’ functions of writing in early Japan—the ways in which script was intertwined with spoken language—must begin by addressing the nature of writing in China, its connections with Chinese languages, and the differences between those languages and the forms of Korean and Japanese that were spoken on the peninsula and in the archipelago during the period of expanding literacies surveyed in the previous chapter. CHINESE-LANGUAGE WRITING

Generalization about Chinese is constrained by its geographic and temporal variety. Whether to refer collectively to Shanghainese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and so on as ‘languages’ or ‘dialects’ is a contentious issue. To call them languages runs counter to Chinese tradition and contemporary usage (animated to some extent by nationalist investment in lin——— 1. For an account of Shingon and its influence in early Japan, see Abé 1999. Although the portions concerning Japan should be consulted with care, Gulik 1980 and Chaudhuri 1998 provide English-language introductions to the history and influence of Sanskrit studies, or siddham ( J. shittan 悉曇); Japanese-language overviews can be found in Furuta and Tsukishima 1972; Mabuchi and Izumo 1999; and, in more detail, Mabuchi 1962–65.

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guistic unity), but terming them dialects papers over differences at least as profound as those that separate French, Portuguese, and Italian. Historically as well, even limiting inquiry to the standard language, profound changes in phonology and morphology—many masked by the writing system—make it difficult to generalize across a wide span of time.2 Despite such caveats, the traditional account of the shape of the Chinese language is still relevant to discussion of its connection to its writing system, and of the relations between Chinese language and writing and the non-Sinitic languages of Korea and Japan. Since its emergence into historical times, literary Chinese has been marked by monosyllabic morphemes (the minimal meaningful components of words) with little sign of inflection or affixing (hence the traditional designation as an ‘isolating language’).3 The vocabulary of modern Chinese is dominated by bisyllabic (and also bimorphemic) compounds, and thus cannot be characterized as a ‘monosyllabic language,’ but in earlier stages of the language, at any rate as written, far greater numbers of words comprise a single morpheme/syllable. The typical syllable structure involved an initial consonant (in earlier times, often a cluster of consonants), a vowel nucleus, and an optional final consonant. The origin of the tones that are such a distinctive feature of more recent stages of the language is controversial, but they may have developed as the consonant repertory was reduced; they were already present in Middle Chinese, the standard language of the centuries following the fall of the Han dynasty (in the mid-third century CE). In general, relations between words are expressed through grammatical particles and word order, the patterning of which, like English, is Verb-Object. The general shape of the language both contributed to, and was influenced by, the development of Chinese characters.4 The best-known ——— 2. For more on the spatial and temporal diversity of the Chinese ‘language,’ see endnote 4.1. 3. I use the problematic term ‘literary Chinese’ for the written language exemplified by, and then modeled on, the transmitted classics of the Warring States and Han periods (accompanied, as written languages are, by a standard—and by no means static— vocalization considerably different from the spoken language of later periods, and possibly also from the speech of the periods in which the written language developed). 4. On the early history and development of the Chinese writing system, see Boltz 1994; Boltz 1999; Qiu 2000; and Moore 2000.

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taxonomy of character structure and origins appears in the Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 (ca. 100 CE), perhaps the most influential East Asian lexicographic work. But the six classes into which it divides characters are contradictory, and in some cases even their meanings are debated. 5 A simpler division is that employed by the title of the work itself: between basic graphs (wen 文) and compound graphs (zi 字). The basic graphs originated as pictographs associated with Chinese words, both simple depictions of objects (馬 “horse”; 目 “eye”) and more abstract representations (上 “above”; 三 “three”). Such simple pictographs were extended through the rebus principle to words not amenable to pictorial representation: pictographs associated with concrete terms were reassociated with completely or largely homophonous words (a common example is 來, a pictorially originated graph for “barley” associated with the homophonous verb “come” [mod. C. lai]). Early Chinese writing abounds with such phonetic substitutions, often for reasons less obvious than the absence of an independent character for the newly associated word. Compound graphs were a means of disambiguating the multivalent graphs that resulted from this phonetic extension. Graphs for homophones or near-homophones were distinguished from one another through combination with other determiners (or ‘radicals’), which were other basic graphs used synecdochically as indicators of general semantic classes (thus, the “wine” sense of 酉 is distinguished by the addition of a ‘liquid’ determiner derived from the graph for “water” [水]: 酒). It is clear that the foregoing was the process by which the system of characters developed, but it emerges into history more or less fully formed, with an advanced degree of stylization already obscuring pictographic origins, and a wide repertoire of phonetic substitutions and extensions functioning with and without clarification by semantic determiners. Around 1200 BCE, evidence of Chinese writing as a functioning script, with no obvious antecedents, appears in the form of divination records incised on mammal bones and turtle shells from the court of the Shang dynasty. In these oracle bones, and in other early inscriptions (mainly from the following Zhou dynasty), phonetic association and character compounding remained active, yielding considerable flexibil——— 5. Chapter 7 includes a more extensive overview of the six classes of the Shuowen jiezi.

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ity and variety in the associations between words and the characters used to write them.6 Despite the efforts of the First Qin Emperor (r. 246–10 BCE) and his minister Li Si 李斯 (280–20 BCE) to reform Chinese writing, silk manuscripts from ca. 200 BCE show that “even a generation after the [. . .] attempts at standardization, the writing system was still characterized by much orthographic instability and variation” (Boltz 1996, 196). Boltz argues that the script at this point showed signs of becoming a “desemanticized syllabary,” in which the sounds of the syllables were indicated without regard for the meanings of their morphemes, but that this transformation was arrested by the inclusion of semantic elements in the standardization of the characters (Boltz 1994, 168–77; Boltz 1996; but see Galambos 2006). The resulting system of characters—as types that transcended, at least in principle, their distinctive manifestations in various calligraphic styles—was an intensely modular one. Viewed purely as a system of mutually distinguished graphic forms, it was a huge repertoire of components that could be combined and recombined, recursively, into compounded units (Ledderose 2000).7 The question of how this complex graphic system connected to the Chinese language (and eventually to non-Chinese languages as well) is a difficult one. As discussed in Chapter 1, few scholars today would employ the outmoded term ‘ideograph’ (“a mode of writing consisting in symbolizing an idea directly, as distinguished from the linguistic form by which it is expressed” [Coulmas 1996, 224]). Even the term with which it is usually replaced, ‘logograph’ (“a written sign which represents a word or morpheme” [ibid. 309]), has come under severe criticism.8 With respect to the modern Chinese writing system, such criticism rests on the ——— 6. The media for post–oracle bone inscriptions include bronze vessels, and, eventually, stone stelae and wood, bamboo, and silk manuscripts (Shaughnessy 1997; Tsien 2004). 7. On the standardization of this system, see endnote 4.2. 8. On the controversy surrounding the notion of ‘ideography’ in Chinese writing, see Lurie 2006. One of the problems presented by this sort of discussion is the difficulty of sorting out the role played by the characters themselves in the development of concepts like ‘word,’ not to mention their more concrete role in fostering particular metalinguistic ideas that affected the actual functioning of written (and, eventually, certain registers of spoken) language.

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argument that graphs correspond primarily to syllables and only secondarily to the morphemes that make up words alone or in combination. However, in discussing literary Chinese writing, it makes sense to maintain the term ‘logograph,’ though it is important to recognize that in this context as well graphs can often be said to correspond to morphemes rather than entire words. Because literary Chinese morphemes are generally monosyllabic, and the majority of words in the classical language are monomorphemic, characters correspond in many cases to words, but also, simultaneously, to the syllables that are the phonetic form of those words. This means that the system is inherently hybrid, regardless of whether it is taken to be dominated by a logographic principle. A separate but related issue is the philosophy or culture of writing. Although discussion of this topic risks cultural essentialism, it does seem to be the case that investment in a particular cosmological vision of the nature and structure of the script, and the actualization of that vision in lexicography and beyond, contributed significantly to the development of the system. This intellectual commitment (discussed in Chapter 7) helped Chinese characters remain a remarkably stable and productive script following their structural and calligraphic standardizations. But that formal stability did not necessarily correspond to an unchanging linguistic function. Paradoxically, the lack of dramatic graphic changes both enabled and concealed radical changes in the associations between the script and the various languages it has been used to write. Such was certainly the case when it came into contact with Japanese. Even a cursory survey shows that the Japanese language could not be more different from the Chinese. At least on first impression these differences suggest a severe incompatibility between Japanese language and Chinese writing. Excepting Sinitic loanwords, Japanese morphemes are polysyllabic; verbs and adjectives are highly inflected; and plentiful affixing creates complex conglomerations of free and bound morphemes (hence the traditional designation as an ‘agglutinative’ language). Syllables, comprising a vowel nucleus and an optional initial consonant, are open and structurally simpler than those of Chinese, and there are comparatively fewer total consonants and vowels as well.9 Grammatical rela——— 9. As with Chinese, the earlier stages of Japanese seem to have been phonologically more complex than the language in later, better attested periods, although the simplifi-

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tions are indicated in part by inflections and postpositioned particles, but also by word order, which, though amenable to a degree of inversion, is fundamentally Object-Verb. Given these profound differences, and the degree to which the Chinese script seems tailored to the nature of that language, it would seem natural that Japanese-speaking inhabitants of the archipelago would have had to adopt different strategies for the two processes of reading Chinese writing and inscribing their own language. That is, one would tend to assume that they would have had to learn the unfamiliar spoken language of China to read Chinese texts, and that only by adapting the Chinese script to spell out the sounds of Japanese would they have been able to write their own language. Both of these strategies did play a major role in the growth of reading and writing in early Japan, but another, more comprehensive method of linking the new writing system with the local language proved to be more important. As it turns out, an unexpected compatibility of reading with writing, and of Chinese script with Japanese language, provides the key to understanding the history of writing in Japan. This compatibility is the product of a complex of writing and reading practices known as kundoku 訓讀, literally “reading by gloss.”10 THE NATURE OF KUNDOKU

Approached initially in terms of reading only, kundoku can be defined as a complex of practices that: (1) (2) (3)

associate logographs of Chinese origin with Japanese words and transpose the resulting words into Japanese order while adding necessary grammatical elements,

thereby producing an actual or imagined vocalization in Japanese. ——— cation of the vowel system and reduction of the consonant inventory that occurred in the Nara and Heian periods were counterbalanced to some extent by an influx of Sinitic loanwords and associated phonemes. For recent discussions of the much-debated nature of the early vowel system and other aspects of the early linguistic history of Japanese, see Marc Miyake 2003 and Frellesvig and Whitman 2008. 10. For a discussion of the term kundoku and references to scholarship on the history of the practice, see endnote 4.3.

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Crucially, even if the characters are arranged in accordance with the vocabulary and syntax of Chinese—in other words, what would normally be taken as being ‘written in Chinese’—they are still subject to kundoku, and thus are still read as Japanese. For example, the following string of five characters is the familiar opening of the Analects of Confucius: 學而時習之, “To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learned” (LY 1:1; Waley 1938, 83). A romanization of the modern Mandarin reading of this passage would be xue er shi xi zhi. The standard kundoku reading of these characters in (literary) Japanese is “manabite toki ni kore wo narafu,” which amounts to a translation into an unrelated, and very different, language. And yet, both are readings of the same string of characters, which can be confirmed by retracing the components of kundoku in more detail, working through each of the three parts of the preceding definition in turn.11 (1) Associate logographs of Chinese origin with Japanese words. Analysis of the five characters 學而時習之 in terms of literary Chinese reveals two xue xi verbs in coordination: 學, “study” or “learn,” and 習, “practice” or “repeat.” The coordinate relationship between the two is marked by the er particle 而, a connector for verbs in series (here translatable as “and” or “and then”), and the second verb is preceded by a noun used adshi zhi verbially ( 時, “time”) and followed by the object pronoun 之, “it” (here, “what one has learned”).12 The three ‘full’ words have relatively straightforward connections to their Japanese equivalents, yielding associations manabu narafu with the Japanese verbs for “study” 學 and “practice” 習 and noun toki zhi for “time” 時 . The object pronoun 之 lacks a precisely corresponding Japanese term, but the standard kundoku reading makes use of the dekore monstrative pronoun 之 “this” as a rough equivalent. (The connecting er particle 而, which on the surface appears to have been similarly equated ——— 11. The modern Mandarin reading is very different from the way these graphs would have been vocalized in the Warring States period, which in turn differs from the Six Dynasties reading tradition that would have been contemporary to Japanese (and Korean) encounters with the Analects. But such differences pale in comparison to the gap between Chinese readings of the text and the Japanese kundoku. For examples of the standard “manabite toki ni kore wo narafu” reading, see LY 1:1; Hiraoka 1980, 39; and Kanaya 1963, 17. 12. The grammatical terms and underlying analysis used here follow Pulleyblank 1995.

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with the Japanese te, is addressed in the discussion of Japanese grammatical elements below.) Such associations between Japanese words and Chinese graphs are traditionally called kun 訓 or kun’yomi 訓讀み; literally, “glosses” or “gloss-readings.” The correspondences involved are complex: lexical differences between Chinese and Japanese mean that graphs have multiple readings, multiple graphs conversely have identical readings, and compounds of two or more graphs can take unitary kun readings. 13 Moreover, if a corresponding Japanese word is unavailable, or if the reader prefers for stylistic or interpretive reasons not to select one, it is possible to read the character(s) in question with an approximation of their Chinese pronunciation. For example, like many other passages of the Analects, the example clause is preceded by the quotative introduction 子曰, “The master said” (C. zi yue). In the standard kundoku, shi ifaku 子 曰 , the reading of the first character is based on the pronunciation of the Chinese word it originally represented (Middle Chinese tsi [rising tone; Baxter 2000]). Viewed in the Japanese linguistic context, such ‘sound’ readings (on’yomi 音讀み) are loanwords; indeed, they are the ultimate source of most of the Sinitic loanwords that are such a prominent part of the Japanese lexicon.14 (2) Transpose the resulting words into Japanese order. Character strings in Chinese order can sometimes be read off in Japanese without rearrangement, as is the case with the first three graphs of the Analects example. But the profound syntactic differences between Chinese and Japanese mean that an important part of kundoku is rearranging words into the Japanese order.15 Here, the Verb-Object order of the Chinese ——— 13. For example, among the many kun readings for the character 生 are iku “to live,” nama “raw,” and ki “pure”; the verb kiru “to cut” is associated with characters including 切, 斬, 断, and 截; and two-character compounds read by single Japanese words include 蜘蛛 kumo “spider” and 小豆 aduki [type of bean] (examples from Tsukishima Hiroshi’s article on kundoku from the Kokushi daijiten [Tsukishima 1984, 1049]). 14. Rendition of such common phrases as 子曰 is largely standardized in modern editions, but some opt for the honorific notamafu rather than the straightforward ifu to render the quotative 曰 (Kanaya 1963, 17). For more on on’yomi readings, see endnote 4.4. 15. The traditional terms for transposition are handoku (also hendoku) 反[返]讀 or, rarely, tōdoku 倒讀; both indicate the ‘returning’ or ‘inversion’ that occur during kundoku reading.

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xi zhi

習之,

“practice it,” is made over into the Object-Verb order of the Japa之 習 nese kore [wo] narafu “it [accusative case marker] practice.” Transpositions range in complexity from simple reversal of adjacent characters, as with common constructions involving the negative particle 不 or relative pronoun 所 , to baroquely nested rearrangements in which complex Chinese syntax calls for repeated movements back and forth along the character string.16 (3) Add necessary grammatical elements. Thus far in this explanation, it may appear that kundoku reading is a mechanical concatenation of steps. Treating it as such makes it easier to explain, but in actuality it does not involve discrete stages in unvarying order. For fluent readers, the string of characters is experienced more holistically, with the context and ordering of characters influencing the Japanese vocabulary with which they are associated, which in turn affects the transpositions that are employed. Nowhere are such interactions clearer than in the procedures grouped under the third component of our working definition: incorporation of Japanese grammatical elements, which also includes inflection of verbs and adjectives. This step of addition can also involve a passive subtraction, for there are some Chinese characters that are traditionally not given readings, or are expressed indirectly elsewhere in the resulting Japanese sentence. Starting from the beginning of the example, the uninflected Chinese xue verb “study” 學 is linked with the Japanese verb manabu, which then must inflect in the continuative form manabi because this verb coordinates with the following verb narafu. Under the influence of the coordinating er particle 而, manabi is also followed by the continuative particle te.17 This can be seen as a ‘reading’ of the role 而 plays in coordinating the two verbs, much like those readings that derive Japanese verbs from 學 and 習, and a noun and pronoun from 時 and 之. But the presence of 而 ——— 16. Several techniques eventually evolved to reduce confusion in cases of extensive transposition: the most familiar is that of treating certain constructions as ‘twice-read’ (saidoku 再讀), which means that an adverb is inserted into the reading when a character is first encountered, to be followed by an auxiliary verb that completes the construction when the reader returns to the character in question. For example, 未 is read imada . . . zu “never yet . . . not” and 當 as masa ni . . . beshi “certainly . . . should.” 17. The form manabite can also be analyzed as the verb stem manab- followed by the subordinative gerund -ite (Vovin 2003).

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is only part of an overall context calling for the addition of te, and such grammatical elements can also be added without a corresponding character in the string.18 This is the case for the locative case marker ni in 之 時 toki ni and the accusative case marker wo in kore wo. This addition of unwritten elements in reading is traditionally termed yomisoe 讀添 (“additive reading”). Conversely, particular characters can be omitted from the vocalization: these are most often final particles like 也 or 焉, called okiji 置き字 because they are “left” (oku) on the page in reading. This does not mean that they are ignored; much like silent spelling distinctions in English, they often play an important role in distinguishing meaning or in dividing the text into smaller components. To sum up, kundoku involves a lexicon of equivalences between characters and Japanese words, and a set of transformations for rearranging syntax and adding grammatical elements. In a sense, this is a form of translation, not least because in practice it involves complex interactions between an emerging sense of the whole and specific decisions about how to treat particular characters or patterns of characters. But kundoku also differs from intralingual acts of translation, at least as they are commonly conceived. Translation can be taken to be the production of an utterance or text modeled on, and in some way equivalent to, another pre-existing utterance or text from a different language. As such it replaces—or at least displaces—one text with another (even in the case of parallel-text translations, the two texts do not occupy the same space), but as a transient act of reading kundoku does not involve the production of a separate text.19 Though the nature of ‘reading’ is no simple matter, we tend to imagine it as the generation of an utterance from graphic signs that, through their presentation of sufficient linguistic information, are intrinsically linked to the language of that utterance. But this is not the case for the act of reading/translation that is kundoku. The ‘Chinese original’ and ——— 18. For example, in a passage a bit further into the Analects, Confucius declares, “a di zi ru ze xiao young man’s duty is to behave well to his parents at home” 弟子入則孝 (Waley 1938, 84; LY 1:6). In addition to treating “young man” as a loanword, the standard kundoku reading demonstrates the context-driven addition of grammatical elements including 弟子 入 則 孝 the subordinative gerund, despite the lack of the coordinative 而: teisi irite fa sunafachi kau . 19. For more on kundoku and translation, see endnote 4.5.

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the graphs that are read as its Japanese translation are literally identical: in a step beyond Pierre Menard’s Quixote, the text of the translation is the text of the original. THE SIGNIFICANCE AND HISTORY OF KUNDOKU

Much of the remainder of this book is devoted to the implications of kundoku for the history of writing, but there are four particular points to emphasize here: it is interlingual, reversible, productive, and in many cases, invisible. The first of these is in many ways the most important. The interlinguality of kundoku means that linguistic difference need not be reflected in writing, difficult though it is for us to overcome the assumption that all texts must be written in one and only one language, in the sense that this sentence is ‘written in’ English. This interlinguality has profound implications for Japanese cultural history. Many have seen that history as marked by a fundamental bilingual contrast between Chinese and Japanese, but because even texts that originated in China could be read as Japanese, traditional reading practices did not necessarily involve awareness of texts as written in one language or the other. This means that the diversity of literacies discussed thus far included even linguistic differences (potentially in readings of the same texts). To say that kundoku is reversible means that it can be run in both directions: it is a method of writing as well as of reading. It was used to produce Japanese-language logographic texts (or at least, logographic texts that could potentially be read in Japanese) as well as to read/ translate texts with non-Japanese origins. From the seventh through twentieth centuries, Japanese authors composed poetry and other belletristic texts in the Chinese style. This has traditionally been seen as writing in another language, akin to composition in Latin by Europeans after the emergence of the written vernaculars. But the role of kundoku as a method of writing makes it clear how misleading that analogy is. Just as writers of English or French endure long years of training, and continually consult reference works (or computer programs) to maintain elaborate spelling distinctions that are inaudible when texts are vocalized, Japanese authors writing ‘in Japanese’ were—at least in principle— capable of creating logographic writings elaborately arranged in accord with literary Chinese ordering and usage.

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This was a complex process, in which writers starting from Japanese would encounter problems stemming from the impossibility of translation (or at least, of complete translation). Rarely would there be a oneto-one correspondence between the Japanese words to be inscribed (or, for that matter, used in reading a pre-existing text) and the Chinese words originally represented by the characters. There are entire classes of Japanese words for which kundoku-based logographic inscription is problematic: particles, auxiliary verbs, and, for different reasons, proper nouns. Beyond this are problems of syntax and morphology (such as inflection), or honorific and humilific prefixes and auxiliary verbs.20 But the inherent flexibility of kundoku, with its provisions for the addition of Japanese elements and omission (or phonetic borrowing) of hardto-represent Chinese elements, enabled it to serve as a method for inscribing logographic texts. The inherent reversibility of kundoku is intimately related to the third point, which is its extraordinary productivity. It contributed to the enormous volume of Chinese-style writing in Japan well into the modern period, but it also gave rise to a number of styles of logographic or principally logographic inscription that departed in varying degrees from literary Chinese order and usage. In some cases those departures were inadvertent: such errors in Chinese-style writings by Japanese authors were traditionally stigmatized as washū, “Japanese practice” 和[倭]習, sometimes more pejoratively written as the “reek of Japanese” 和臭 (see Kojima 1998). But there are also numerous styles of logographic writing that deliberately mix the Chinese style with Japanese word order, or indication of honorifics and humilifics, or elements spelled out phonographically. These variant styles are produced less by failing to correctly employ the Chinese style than by taking shortcuts that render it superfluous. If the author starts from Japanese, and expects a reading that will return to it, then in informal settings there is no need to reproduce all of the ‘spelling rules’ of orthodox Chinese-style logographic orthography. The catch-all term used by modern scholars to label styles of writing that mix Japanese and Chinese word order and usage is hentai kanbun ——— 20. For more on problems of the fit between the Japanese and Chinese languages in kundoku, see endnote 4.6.

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Kundoku

変體漢文, which can be translated as “variant form Chinese writing,” although precisely because of kundoku, “Chinese writing” is a misleading way of translating kanbun. A looser rendition of hentai kanbun more in accord with the actual history of writing would be “mixed logographic writing.” The structural hallmark of these styles is simultaneous use of elements of the grammar of literary Chinese—especially particles but also word order—along with the grammar of Japanese, the influence of which is usually explicit in Object-Verb ordering of phrases and implicit in the kundoku process that governs the entire text. Inasmuch as the arrangement of characters is at times consistent with the rules of literary Chinese and at times not, this could be called a mixture, but both arrangements are recuperated into the Japanese order when the text is read via kundoku.21 Another even more fundamental sense in which kundoku is productive is in the influence it exerts on the Japanese language. Kundoku involves distinct locutions and vocabulary. Some are unusual because the inherent conservatism of this form of reading preserves earlier forms and terms that have fallen out of use elsewhere, but many are circumlocutions produced under the influence of literary Chinese writing—a kind of translationese. The language of kundoku is a hybrid dialect, or perhaps ‘grapholect.’ In a general sense it is not incorrect to refer to this grapholect as ‘Japanese,’ but in doing so we must keep in mind that it is a new linguistic register generated through an intense involvement with Chinese-style logographic writing—a kind of creole—rather than a written record (or reflection) of pre-existing oral speech.22 This is true even if we assume that kundoku involved the complete rendition of all logographs with non-Sinitic vocabulary, but as mentioned earlier it is common to employ Sino-Japanese readings (on’yomi) for bigraphic compounds and terms difficult to render in Japanese (including Chinese proper nouns). Within the overall framework of kun——— 21. For an English-language introduction to hentai kanbun, see Rabinovitch 1996. Aldridge (2001b) discusses mixed character order from a syntactical perspective, arguing that it is more systematic, and more linguistically relevant, than has heretofore been assumed. 22. On the historical development of the style of language used in kundoku, see endnote 4.7.

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doku, on’yomi readings are inserted piecemeal when for stylistic or other reasons the reader chooses to avoid ‘translating’ those terms. This incorporation of Sino-Japanese readings was a major vehicle for the adoption of the Chinese loanwords that by the eighth century had already begun to reshape the Japanese lexicon.23 The development of Japanese writing is commonly conceptualized in terms of the emergence of phonographic methods of inscription, but this profoundly underestimates the significance of logographic writing. Phonography is certainly important, but it is logography, in both Chinese and non-Chinese styles, and mediated throughout by kundoku, that provides the key to understanding the history of Japanese inscription, even up until the present day. But one of the barriers to grasping this key is the final point outlined above: the potential invisibility of kundoku.24 When logographic texts depart in characteristic ways from Chinese usage, or when they are accompanied by diacritic marks indicating syntactic transpositions or annotating Japanese readings, then it is obvious that kundoku was being employed by writers and readers. But the essence of the practice is that it can function to maintain links between Japaneselanguage readings and Chinese-style logographic texts, even when there are no accompanying signs of such readings—even, as has already been stressed, when the text in question originated in China and might be said to be have been ‘written in Chinese.’ This potential invisibility of kundoku is rendered more problematic by the parallel existence of another mode of reading: ondoku 音讀, “reading by voice” (or “sound”). This involves vocalizing the string of characters in their written order, using Sino-Japanese pronunciations that approximate the sounds of the Chinese words with which they are originally associated.25 This is reasonably close to ‘reading in Chinese,’ albeit with a ——— 23. On’yomi terms can be called ‘Sinitic logographs,’ although taxonomists of Japanese writing generally refer to them as seion 正音 (loosely, “orthodox voicings”). These are more a matter of vocabulary than of inscription (note that they are exceedingly rare in the poems of the Man’yōshū ). They do not involve the variety of inscription found in kun’yomi words, because as loanwords they were imported along with the particular graphs with which they were associated in Chinese. 24. Semizu (2006) provides an introduction to kundoku entitled “Invisible Translation.” 25. For more on ondoku, see endnote 4.8.

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heavy accent. In absence of direct indication of kundoku reading through diacritic marks or annotations, one cannot categorically exclude the possibility of ondoku, but materials from the eighth century onward strongly suggest that this form of reading was generally employed in specific limited settings. Such contexts included recitation of rhymed Chinese-style poetry, memorization of introductory textbooks, and ritual chanting of sacred Buddhist scriptures like the Lotus Sutra. Also, ondoku reading was always accompanied by the possibility of kundoku reading—obviously invaluable for confirming comprehension—of the same text.26 The traditional account posits ondoku as originally the sole method of reading, gradually replaced by kundoku after it originated and developed (in Japan) and as Japanese knowledge of spoken Chinese deteriorated (Miller 1967; Seeley 1991). But there are reasons to question this narrative. There is no doubt about the eventual dominance of kundoku. Sources from the Heian period onward amply attest to its nature and influence, in the form of dictionaries and glossaries that record kun readings for characters and phrases, as well as huge troves of annotated manuscripts in which Chinese-style logographic writings (Buddhist and secular classics imported from China) are accompanied by diacritic transposition marks and phonographic annotations (kunten 訓點). 27 But it now appears that kundoku’s dominance can be traced even further back, as far as the seventh century. Rather than following the expansion (and ‘naturalization’) of the diverse literacies surveyed in the previous chapter, it seems that kundoku existed simultaneously with them—and played an important role in the rapidity with which they emerged. Back to the Beginning? The Seventh and Eighth Centuries The earliest extant manuscripts with kunten annotations of readings date to the late eighth century, which is also the approximate date of the ——— 26. In addition to the Thousand Character Classic, which uses rhyme to facilitate memorization, a major textbook from the ninth century on was the Mengqiu 蒙求 (a 746 compendium of rhymes alluding to famous anecdotes; see Watson 1979). 27. The earliest kunten were punctuation of clause endings and simple marks showing reading order. Over the course of the ninth century, the emergence of systems of abbreviated phonographs and diacritical markings allowed for more extensive annotation of kundoku readings.

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earliest complete glossary, the Shin’yaku Kegonkyō ongi shiki 新譯華嚴經 音義私記 (SKOS).28 But there is ample evidence that widespread use of kundoku significantly predated its emergence into visibility in such sources. As discussed in the following chapter, the Kojiki and Nihon shoki incorporate reading notes and other explicit references to the kundoku process. But the reversibility of kundoku means that this sort of inquiry is not limited to direct evidence of reading: Japanese-style logographic writing also attests to the role of kundoku. In eighth-century materials, the styles of everyday documents, the prose of the Kojiki, and many of the poems of the Man’yōshū are all inconceivable without an extensive kundoku toolbox of association, transposition, and addition. It has long been apparent, then, that kundoku was an important component of Japanese reading and writing from at least the eighth century. But further evidence of the early presence and pervasive influence of the practice is provided by archaeological discoveries of written material, many of them quite recent. They establish that kundoku played a major role in the emergence of widespread reading and writing during the seventh century. Surveying them clarifies the basic parameters of writing and language in other types of texts and in later periods as well, and is made easier by the brevity of the mokkan inscriptions and the relative firmness with which many of them can be dated. Seventh-century mokkan that demonstrate the early prevalence of kundoku include glossary- and dictionary-like fragments that show direct evidence of reading, generally Chinese-style texts with tell-tale departures from orthodox syntax and usage, and everyday logographic writing that clearly relied on kundoku to function. DIRECT EVIDENCE OF READING PRACTICES

A small but important category of mokkan explicitly illustrates correspondences between Chinese characters and words or phrases in Japanese. Such tablets include a fragment copied from what may have been a full-length dictionary (presumably on paper) and a glossary that accompanied the kundoku reading of an unknown work. The first is a mokkan ——— 28. The entries of the Shin’yaku Kegonkyō ongi shiki with kun readings are excerpted in NI III:937–46; for a classic analysis of their philological bases, see Okada Mareo 1931.

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Kundoku

dated to the end of the seventh century that has been described as the oldest evidence of a character dictionary found in Japan (Inukai 2000). Found at the Kannonji 観音寺 site in Tokushima city on Shikoku, it is a small fragment of about 8 by 3 centimeters that is the lower portion of what was originally a longer rectangular tablet. On one side of the face of this tablet, small phonograph characters spell out asi . . . pi1no2ki2 安子□比乃木, while on the other the larger logographic character 椿 is glossed with similar phonographs as tubaki1 “camellia” 川婆木 (NKMSS 508).29 The juxtaposition of these two plant names, in the form of phonographic glosses on logograph characters, suggests this mokkan was copied from a dictionary that grouped characters by semantic determiner, or ‘radical.’ There are several later mokkan bearing traces of writing practice in which semantically associated characters ( JMSS 165 and 174) or characters sharing the same radical ( JMSS 151 and 222) are copied out together. The presence of a dictionary including kun readings in a relatively remote location by the end of the seventh century is suggestive on its own, but there is another early lexicographic artifact that provides even more convincing evidence of early kundoku reading. This is a well-known mokkan unearthed in 1974 from a ditch near the remains of buildings dating to the latter half of the seventh century at the Kita-Ōtsu 北大津 site in Ōtsu city, Shiga prefecture. A rectangular strip of wood 69.5 centimeters long and 7.3 centimeters wide, it is broken into five sections, only one of which bears legible characters (see Figure 4.1). This is a list of characters with annotations of meanings and readings written in smaller characters underneath them. Some of these employ synonymous logographic characters, such as 披開 (“open”) or 采取 (“take”), but others spell out phonographically the kun readings of their characters: 賛田須久 (tasuku; “help”) or 久皮之 (kupasi; “fine”).30 ——— 29. For more on the Kannonji site and the glosses seen on this mokkan, see endnote 4.9. 30. In the second of these notations, the character is probably a variant of 精 (C. jing “refined,” “pure,” “detailed”), a graph that is read kufasi (mod. J. kuwashii “detailed”) in early Japanese dictionaries like the late Heian-period Ruijū myōgishō (RMS 785). For more on this mokkan, see endnote 4.10.

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Fig. 4.1 Kita-Ōtsu glossary mokkan (after Hirakawa and Kōnoshi 1999, 17)

This tablet is the earliest known Japanese example of a glossary (ongi 音義) explaining how to read characters from a particular text. 31 Although we do not know the original work from which it derives, it is clear that this glossary accompanied reading by kundoku. The longest legible annotation leaves no room for doubt: 阿佐牟加牟移母 (azamukamu ya mo2; “could [it] deceive [us]?”). This is not simply a note about the meaning of the character, but a record of how it should be read in a particular context, including additions (of auxiliary verbs and particles) and inflections.32 Had this glossary simply supplied isolated kun readings for particular characters, they could be seen as discrete translations included in definitions, as in modern bilingual dictionaries. But this particular annotation shows that the glosses are integral components of the reading process. In addition to further clarifying the contextual basis of kundoku, this mokkan provides solid evidence of its use as early as the latter half of the seventh century. CHINESE TEXTS AND GENRES

Further confirmation is provided by a second class of mokkan: those that are derived from Chinese exemplars but depart from them in ways consistent with a kundoku environment for reading and writing. A striking example is another tablet from the Kannonji site. Dating from the latter half of the seventh century or somewhat earlier, it is a 63.5-centimeterlong strip with writing on four sides, a rare format for Japanese mokkan.33 ——— 31. Another glossary mokkan without the Kita-Ōtsu tablet’s clear indication of kun readings was found in the late seventh-century Asukaike site (NKMSS 502; see Tranter 2001). 32. All of the characters in the “azamukamu ya mo2 阿佐牟加牟移母” gloss are mu commonly used phonographically in seventh-century Japanese sources. The graph 牟 is abbreviated ム, which is the origin of what subsequently became the katakana graph for that syllable. 33. On this multisided tablet from Kannonji, see endnote 4.11.

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On one of the four sides, the following graphs have been deciphered: 子曰 學而習時不孤□乎□自朋遠方來亦時樂乎人不知亦不慍 (NKMSS 494)

This is a copy of the familiar beginning of the Analects: 子曰、學而時習之、不亦説乎。有朋自遠方來、不亦樂乎。人不知而 不慍、[不亦君子乎] (LY 1:1) The Master said, To learn and at due times to repeat what one has learned, is that not after all a pleasure? That friends should come to one from afar, is this not after all delightful? To remain unsoured even though one’s merits are unrecognized by others, [is that not after all what is expected of a gentleman?]. (Waley 1938, 83)

But there are several errors in the Kannonji (K) tablet’s version: K: 學而習時 不孤□乎 □自朋遠方來 A: 學而時習之 不亦説乎 有朋自遠方來

亦時樂乎 人不知亦不慍 不亦樂乎 人不知而不慍

As reflected by the books supposedly brought to court by the scribe Wani in the Kojiki account, copying the Analects was a common method of writing practice in the seventh and eighth centuries. A beginner working to gain proficiency in reading and writing must have brushed this garbled text, reproducing the passage from memory, or perhaps practicing the basics of individual characters without much concern for their position in the original. The specific circumstances behind these mistakes are elusive, but the scrambled first and third clauses are potentially significant for the problem of kundoku and its origins. Sema Masayuki argues that the reversal of the phrase “at times to practice” 時習, which appears as 習時 in the mokkan, is a sign that kundoku lay behind the inscription of this passage (Sema 1999, 39). In Chinese, adverbs precede verbs, while locative complements follow them; in Japanese, both precede the verb, requiring transposition of the latter in kundoku. For example, in a later Analects passage, “He who can bring his powers into play steps into the ranks” 陳力 就列 (LY 16:6; Waley 1938, 202), the locative clause “into the ranks” 列 就 is transposed to retsu ni tsuku . Sema suggests that the Kannonji scribe was confused by the parallel between this type of locative -ni construction 時 and the adverbial toki ni, and overcorrected to produce the mistaken in-

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version of the two characters 習 and 時. The placement of the character 自 also probably stems from an overcorrection, but even more convincing support for Sema’s suggestion is provided by the omission of the object marker 之, which was left unread in the earliest attested Analects reading traditions. These errors are not conclusive evidence, but they suggest that this inscription was ‘reverse engineered’ from a kundoku reading more familiar to the scribe than the written form of the text. A discovery from the Asukaike 飛鳥池 site in Asuka village, Nara prefecture, provides a more certain example of kundoku-based writing from the seventh century. 34 This well-preserved mokkan from a ditch in the northern portion of the site is 21.3 centimeters long, with a line of ten characters on each side. Part of a group of mokkan thought to date to Tenmu’s reign (672–86), it bears a bit of suggestive doggerel modeled on the five-character quatrain ( jueju 絶句), a common Chinese genre. The white horse whinnies toward the hills, He wants to graze up there. The young woman titters at the guy, She’d like to romp down here. ・白馬鳴向山 欲其上草食 ・女人向男咲 相遊其下也 (NKMSS 437)35

This violates the expected form of a quatrain (the second and fourth lines do not rhyme), but there are other, more significant departures from Chinese models. The parallelism between the first and third lines is botched by the placement of the verb 鳴 (“neigh”) in front of the locative “toward the hills” 向山. This seems to be a kundoku-influenced overcorrection like that proposed for the Kannonji Analects mokkan: the order of the first line was probably the result of an overzealous attempt to produce a correct text by simply reversing the order of the 山 向 鳴 presumed reading of the last three characters ( yama ni muka pi1te naku). An even stronger suggestion of kundoku is provided by the second line, ——— 34. On the Asukaike site, see endnote 4.12. 35. The translation, for which I am very grateful, is Gari Ledyard’s (personal communication). An alternate rendering would be: “The white horse neighs at the mountain, / He wants to eat the grass atop it. / The woman smiles at the man, / They play together beneath it.”

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which, in addition to not paralleling the fourth one, reflects Japanese rather than Chinese grammar in the placement of the object (其上草) before the verb (食). This may be an attempt to recreate from memory something a scribe had heard or read, or it may be a new composition, but either way it is further evidence that kundoku was already being used to read and write by the last quarter of the seventh century. KUNDOKU’S ROLE IN WRITING

Other artifacts demonstrate the role of kundoku in everyday written communication. Inscriptions on mokkan show departures from Chinese syntax and usage much like those discussed thus far, but in contexts where reproducing the orthodox Chinese written style would not have been a priority. The standard format for everyday communication was, as it would be for many centuries to come, largely or entirely logographic, with characters arranged in both Chinese and Japanese orders. Among the best-known examples of the early everyday style is a 41by-3.5-centimeter strip of wood unearthed in 1985 at Nishigawara Morinouchi 西河原森ノ内, a site in Shiga prefecture somewhat inland from the southeast coast of Lake Biwa.36 Kura no Atai says, as for the rice sheaves that I was to bring, I was unable to obtain horses, so I came back. Therefore you, Urabe, / should yourself bring boatmen and go [to retrieve them]. The location of the sheaves is Echi district, Heru village, in the house of Tanba no Fubito.37 直傳

持往

馬不

・椋□□之我□□稲者□□得故我者反来之故是汝卜マ ・自舟人率而可行也 其稲在処者衣知評平留五十戸旦波博士家 (NKMS 421; JMSS 9)

Governed by kundoku, this logographic text exhibits a typical mixture uma wo ezu of Chinese and Japanese ordering. Phrases like 馬 不得, “[I was] unable funabito wo wite to obtain horses,” and 舟人 率而, “bring boatmen” reflect the Japanese Object-Verb order. Mixed in are character groups whose word order ——— 36. The Morinouchi site, which is near burial mounds and settlements from the fifth century to the Nara period, is thought to be the remains of an administrative office, but it is unclear whether it was connected to a local notable or to the provincial government. On the site and the mokkan excavated from it, see Yamao 1990. 37. On the reading of this mokkan, see endnote 4.13.

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is consistent with Chinese and therefore requires simple transpositions: 得 不 行 可 from 不得 to e -zu and from 可行 to yuku-be2s i (both common patterns in vernacular Japanese writing from the eighth century on, even in styles that otherwise follow the Japanese order). The style of the Morinouchi mokkan also relies on Chinese-style usages to clarify the logical flow of the message. The characters 者 as a topic marker, 故 to mean “therefore,” and 而 as a coordinator of verbs, as well as the combination 是故 for “therefore” are all in keeping with literary Chinese usage. This style, already present as mokkan-based communication exploded in the late seventh century, continued to be the foundation of everyday communication in the eighth century as well. A somewhat later mokkan incorporates another prominent feature of the kundoku-based everyday style: indication of Japanese honorific and humilific elements that lack obvious literary Chinese parallels. This eighth-century mokkan is from the site of the Prince Nagaya household 長屋王家 in central Nara city, adjacent to the lower southeast corner of the Heijō palace site.38 Written on both sides of a well-preserved 21.9-by-1.4-centimeter strip, it shares a kind of classic status with the Morinouchi mokkan as an oft-cited example of early written communication. On the 21st day of this month we finished reaping the prince’s field, but as for the prince’s great rice, because old sheaves/ had been shifted into the granaries, we were unable to store it. Therefore your lordships should make haste and sojourn down here. ・当月廿一日御田苅竟大御飯米倉古稲 ・移依而不得収故卿等急下坐宜 ( JMSS 34; NKMSS 259)

There are a number of possible alternate readings of this text, but regardless it is clear that here also the characters are arranged in a mixture m i t a karioparinu of the Japanese and Chinese word order. On the one hand, 御田 苅 竟 yonekura furuine uturisini yorite (“we finished reaping the prince’s field”) and 米 倉 古稲 移 依 (because old sheaves had been shifted into the granaries”) are Object-Verb, and thus need no transposition in reading, but 不得収 (“we were unable 収 得不 to store it”) is Verb-Object, and is transposed as wosam e2- e z u . As they did in the Morinouchi mokkan, graphs like 故 (“therefore”) and 而 ([co——— 38. On the Prince Nagaya household site, see endnote 4.14.

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ordination of verbs]) clarify the relations of the clauses, consistent with their literary Chinese meanings. But here certain additional Japanese linguistic elements are inscribed: the concluding 下坐宜 (“should sojourn kudari down here”) follows the verb “to go down” 下 with explicit indication of two auxiliary verbs, honorific masu 坐 and advisory be2si 宜. There are also indications of two honorific noun prefixes, 御田, readable as mi1-ta (“the lord’s field”), and 大御飯, readable as opo2mi1-ke2 (“the lord’s great rice”).39 Such notation of honorifics reflects socially significant linguistic elements, but as in modern Japanese conversation, it also removes ambiguity, for example by clarifying the subjects of particular verbs.40 From the latter half of the seventh century, this style is the basis of everyday communication in mokkan and other documents, but it also appears in monumental inscriptions. The following chapter will have more to say about what it means that stelae and literary works employ variations of what seems at first glance to be an informal method of writing, but here a short example will illustrate the broad scope of kundoku-dependent logographic writing, geographically as well as in terms of genre and subject. The Yamanoue stele 山上碑 is a grave marker that still stands in Takasaki city in Gunma prefecture, remote from the capital region (see Figure 4.2). Its 54-character inscription is noted for the prominence and format of its genealogy, which some see as part of an eastern Japanese tradition stretching even as far back as to the Sakitama-Inariyama sword inscription (Hirano and Atarashii kodaishi no kai 1999; Hirakawa 1999). Written on the 3rd day of the 6th month of the 16th cyclical year [681]. / The granddaughter of Lord Takemori who inaugurated the Sano royal demesne [mi1yake2], Kurome no Toji; / The child she bore after marrying Ōko no omi, the grandson of Shitatami no sukune, son of Niikawa no omi: / The priest Chōri; this is a text he wrote for his mother. He is a priest of Hōkōji.

——— 39. On this term, see endnote 4.15. 40. In a provocative re-reading of an inscription famous for its inclusion of honorifics (on the Yakushi image of Hōryūji, discussed in the following chapter), the linguist Komatsu Hideo argues for the importance of the syntactical disambiguating function of honorific and humilific forms (Komatsu 1998, 211–72).

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Fig. 4.2 Rubbing of the Yamanoue stele (Masamune 1928)

辛巳歳焦月三日記 佐野三家定賜健守命孫黑賣刀自此 新川臣児斯多々弥足尼孫大児臣娶生児 長利僧母為記定文也 放光寺僧 (KI 8)

It is nearly certain that the cyclical date corresponds to 681, which is the middle of Tenmu’s reign (Kumegawa 1966). The role played by kundoku in writing (and presumably reading) this logographic inscription is clear from its extensive Japanese word order and explicit indication of the honorific auxiliary verb tamapu: Sano no miyake wo sadametamapi 佐野 三家 定賜 (“inaugurated the Sano royal papa no demesne”) is in Object-Verb order, and 母 tame ni 為 “for his mother” reverses the orthodox Chinese position of the coverb 為, in keeping with the typical Japanese reading of such constructions. Both the genealogical format and the Japanese-style elements have parallels in other epigraphic inscriptions from the latter half of the seventh century. The kundoku-based logographic style was particularly suited to use by groups with varying types of literacy. As discussed in the following chapters, close transcription of spoken language would not have produced clear and comprehensible texts. On the other hand, complete reliance on the norms of literary Chinese would ensure comprehension, but only if both writer and reader had sufficient control over the style and usage of that medium. The mixed logographic styles employed in everyday writings like mokkan and in monumental inscriptions like that of the Yamanoue stele combined the best of both worlds. Verb-Object patterns and particles in the style of literary Chinese clarified the relations of sentence elements, but kundoku-based shortcuts, relying on the vernacular linguistic competence of readers and writers, reduced the level of orthographic training necessary to participate in written communication. It was traditional to assume that Chinese classics like the Analects were first encountered in academic contexts, and that as Japanese-language explanation and translation became increasingly formalized into kundoku reading, its techniques of equivalence and reordering became available in

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turn for the creation of new texts (see Miller 1967, 116–17). This might be termed a classroom-based ‘reading, then writing’ model. But it is better to think of both techniques developing in tandem—that is to say, a ‘reading and writing’ model. Because the primary reason to learn how to read and write during the seventh-century transition was to communicate for everyday, utilitarian purposes, it makes sense that kundoku would develop in a context where people were writing as well as reading from the beginning. In this connection, it is important to recall that mokkan containing traces of writing practice are almost always found among other, business-related texts. Indeed, very often writing practice was done on discarded mokkan that had already been used for administrative purposes. It looks like early scribes were learning on the job. The value of reading and writing via kundoku is that it provided an efficient and clear means of communication that was robust enough to support participation by newcomers to literacy, or by people competent in spoken languages differing from those of other reader/writers. The combination of kundoku reading and writing was, in other words, tailor-made for the circumstances under which legible inscription expanded in the mid- to late seventh-century archipelago. The traditional notion was that kundoku must have arisen gradually, as Japanese readers struggled to interpret Chinese-language writing, and become dominant only after the spread of writing through a significant expanse of society. But evidence of kundoku reading and writing appears in parallel with the emergence of widespread and varied ‘practical’ literacies. It is hard to believe that kundoku could have sprung up out of nowhere in several decades, no matter how pressing the new demand for clerks during the mid- to late seventh century. It is likely that it was present from the beginning of writing’s expansion, and indeed served as one of its driving forces. Of course this pushes back the question of when (and now, where) kundoku originated. As discussed in the final chapter, there are signs of similar reading practices in different linguistic contexts on the Chinese periphery, many of which are likely to be independent developments. Even so, given the current state of the evidence, it now seems that kundoku as employed in early Japan originated on the Korean peninsula, and was brought to the Japanese archipelago by the waves of scribes and refugees who arrived in the sixth and seventh centuries.

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Early Korea and the Spread of an ‘East Asian’ Script Although this book does not aim to trace the ultimate origins of all elements of early Japanese inscription, it is worth pausing here for a brief overview of the role played by early Korean practices of writing and reading. As scholars like Wayne Farris (1998, 55–122) and Hyung Il Pai (2000) have shown, there are strong nationalist investments in the interpretation of relations between the early states of the Korean peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. These knotty problems cannot be addressed here, but it is important to note that this period predates by many centuries the emergence of the modern nation-states that foster such investments. Moreover, we find ample creativity and innovation in the history of writing throughout the region; it is not somehow disparaging to indicate the flow of influences that fostered new developments.41 Comparatively little written material remains from early Korea. But extant inscriptions, unearthed artifacts, Chinese historical sources, and later Korean works make it possible to see the roots of early Japanese writing in the Korean peninsula, especially in the ‘Three Kingdoms’ of Koguryŏ, Paekche, and Silla during the sixth and seventh centuries.42 Evaluating the role of Korean practices in the development of early Japanese writing and literacy means taking into account: (1) plentiful evidence of involvement of scribes and refugees from the peninsula, from the age of the Sakitama-Inariyama and Eta-Funayama swords, through to the seventh century transition to widespread written communication; (2) limited but nonetheless convincing evidence of Korean use of kundoku for writing and reading in the sixth and seventh centuries, predating the Japanese evidence of the practice; and (3) later evidence from the ninth century and onward, in the form of Korean annotations of equivalents and transpositions, and mixed use of logographs and phonographs. ——— 41. For reasons outlined below, my sense of this flow of influence in seventhcentury writing is fairly straightforward: techniques from the Korean kingdoms were brought to Japan and adapted there by scribes of immigrant stock and others of ‘native’ lineages. It is, however, important to bear in mind the general point that mutual influence—involving the adoption on the peninsula of writing techniques from the archipelago as well—cannot be ruled out (Yiengpruksawan 2009), although I think it is unlikely in this particular period. 42. On the history of writing in Korea, see endnote 4.16.

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As with the sources for Japanese kundoku from the late eighth century onward, such later material strongly suggests temporal continuity with earlier practices. WRITING AND LANGUAGE IN EARLY KOREA

Owing to the subsequent history of the peninsula, more is known about the language of Silla, commonly thought to be the source of modern Korean, than about those of the other two states, though the language of Paekche seems to have been closer to that of Silla than that of Koguryŏ. Linguistic attempts to reconstruct these two languages, hampered by limited sources, rely largely on place-names recorded in the Samguk sagi. It is likely that Japanese and one or more of the early Korean languages are descended from a common ancestor. However, the issue of linguistic affiliation is distinct from the question of the relations between writing practices, because by the time of writing’s transmission to the region, these languages had long since diverged from one another.43 In considering the role played by early Korean writing in the developments surveyed by this study, we need not enter into the details of the affiliation debate, or of the attempts to reconstruct the languages of the Three Kingdoms. It is sufficient to note that in the broadest sense (ObjectVerb order, and plentiful inflections, suffixes, and post-positioned particles) the hallmarks of early Korean languages are much the same as those that distinguish Japanese from Chinese. As discussed in Chapter 2, the first appearance of writing in the general area of the Korean peninsula probably dates as far back as early contacts between peoples in the north (the area that later became Koguryŏ) and the Chinese state of Yan 燕 during the late Zhou period. However, the first major influx of written material came after 108 BCE, when the Han wiped out the Wiman Chosŏn state in that area and established commanderies at Lelang 楽浪 and on the Liaodong penin——— 43. For surveys of the languages of early Korea, see Fujimoto 1988, 185–96; Sohn 1999, 37–44; and Lee and Ramsey 2000, 273–80. A helpful survey of linguistic debates on the affiliation of the Japanese language can be found in Hudson 1999, 82–102. Recent treatments of these issues include Unger 2001; Vovin and Osada 2003; Beckwith 2004; Unger 2009; and Vovin 2009. For a very brief and general summary of the arguments for and against a relationship with Korean, see Lurie 2009b.

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sula. Excavations of tombs in Lelang by Japanese archaeologists during the colonial period yielded much written material. There are arguments about how many of these objects belonged to Chinese administrators and how many of them should be attributed to acculturated ‘Koreans,’ but at any rate they attest to the presence of writing at this early period. The last of the commanderies, at Daifang 帯方 (established 220 CE), lasted until 313 CE, when it was wiped out by the newly expanding state of Koguryŏ. As might be expected from its location in the north, Koguryŏ appears to have had more and earlier contact with Chinese texts than the other two states. It is to be expected that the long presence of the Han commanderies in the area would have supported subsequent literacy among Chinese immigrants or captives, and perhaps among local scribes as well. According to the twelfth-century Samguk sagi, King Sosurim 小獸林 (trad. r. 371–84) accepted Buddhism and established a state academy in 372, promulgating Chinese-style law codes the following year (SGSG 18:187b). Such specific claims seem anachronistically early, but the famous stele adjoining the tomb of the Koguryŏ King Kwanggaet’o 廣開 土 (trad. r. 384–412 CE) on the Yalu river in modern Jilin province, China, bears an inscription of more than 1,800 characters in literary Chinese style, attesting to extensive command of writing by Koguryŏ affiliates by the early fifth century. There are more extensive signs of Koguryŏ writing from this period and after: the Songshu (early sixth century) mentions the submission of manifests to Eastern Jin in 413 (SS 97:2392), and the Weishu 魏書 (554) reports a manifest to Northern Wei in the second quarter of the fifth century (WS 100:2214). The earliest text that attests to the development of writing in Paekche is the Seven-Branched Sword inscription. As discussed in Chapter 2, it most likely dates to 369. This is a sign of early employment of writing for diplomatic purposes, and the apparent use of an Eastern Jin era name suggests a close textual connection with China. The Samguk sagi account fits with this chronology, as it dates the origin of writing in Paekche to the time of King Kŭnch’ogo 近肖古, said to have reigned from 346–75 (SGSG 24:239a). Given that Paekche and Koguryŏ were culturally close, it makes sense to assume that the adoption of writing in the two states would have occurred at around the same time. The Chinese dynastic histories also mention fifth-century manifests from Paekche, although

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the first, in 471 (WS 100:2217–18), is somewhat later than the references to Koguryŏ diplomatic texts. By the sixth century, Paekche appears to have had a thriving written culture: the Suishu describes the study of historical and belletristic texts, and says that there were many temples and priests (SuS 81:1818). According to the Liangshu 梁書, which records the arrival of an envoy in 521, at that point the state of Silla had no writing and made use of incised wood for mnemonic support of communication (LS 54:806). However, a subsequent transition is suggested by the Suishu, which states of late sixth-century Silla that “their writing and arms are identical to those of China” 其文字、甲兵同於中國 (SuS 81:1820). The timing of the emergence of writing in Silla suggested by these Chinese histories is further supported by the Samguk sagi, which lists the beginnings of a series of textual institutions in the mid-sixth century. There are a few scattered inscriptions that may predate this period, but on the whole the epigraphic record also seems to be consistent with this picture of a relatively late rise of writing in Silla (see Saitō 1983, 26–36).44 Although almost no paper-based texts survive from this period, numerous inscriptions in the form of stelae, grave markers, and statue dedications support the foregoing outline of written culture in the peninsula from the fifth through seventh centuries.45 Some of these inscriptions show signs of reading and writing ‘in’ Korean rather than ‘in’ Chinese: that is, they strongly suggest the existence of Korean kundoku. As is the case in the Japanese sources surveyed in the preceding section, the primary signs are reversal of Chinese Verb-Object order and employment of grammatical markers in ways contrary to literary Chinese usage. The best known of the sources that show such signs of influence by Korean languages is the following 74-character inscription, which is cut into one face of a 34-by-11-centimeter stone tablet that was found in Kyŏngju (the former capital of Silla) in 1935. The cyclical date of this ——— 44. See Yi 2000 for an extensive discussion of the links between Koguryŏ and Silla writing. 45. For a selective list of the better-known fifth- and sixth-century inscriptions of the Three Kingdoms, see Umeda 2000, 94–95. Saitō 1983 provides an invaluable catalog of these—and many other—epigraphic resources, which are also discussed extensively in Tonami and Takeda 1997; Yi 2000; and Yi 2005.

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inscription could correspond to dates between the mid-sixth and late eighth centuries.46 On the 16th day of the 6th month of the 9th cyclical year, the two of us together make a vow and record it. We vow before heaven: for three years from the present we will hold and maintain the path of loyalty. We vow that there will be no errors or negligence. We vow that if we fail in this enterprise, we will receive the great punishment of Heaven. We vow that if the state is unsettled or there is great disorder in the realm, we shall do what is necessary [to set things right]. Also, separately on the 20th day of the 7th month of the preceding 8th cyclical year, we made a great vow to attain the way of the Book of Odes, the Book of History, the Book of Rites, and the Zuo Commentary, [and will do so] in three years. 壬申年六月十六日、二人并誓記。天前誓、今自 三年以後忠道執持、過失无誓。若此事失、 天大罪得誓。若國不安大乱世、可容 行誓之。 又別先辛未年七月廿二日大誓、 詩尚書禮傳倫得誓、三年 47

It is clear that this inscription was written, and presumably read, in an early Korean language (probably that of Silla) with pronounced syntactical differences from literary Chinese. Object-Verb order is present throughout, in the relationship between the verb “to vow” and the various clauses subordinated to it, and also within those clauses (e.g., “hold and maintain the path of loyalty” 忠道執持, “vow that there will be no errors or negligence” 過失无誓, and “make a great vow to attain the way of the Book of Odes, the Book of History, the Book of Rites, and the Zuo Commentary” 詩尚書禮傳倫得誓). Moreover, the conclusion of the final sentence detailing the first set of vows is marked with the final particle 之, a usage that is rare in literary Chinese texts but common in Korean inscriptions. The thoroughgoing non-Chinese syntax of this inscription is powerful evidence of the use of kundoku in early Silla, although unfortunately it is impossible to specify when in the sixth through eighth centuries CE it was written. The parallels with ——— 46. The “9th cyclical year” mentioned in the Kyŏngju inscription could correspond to 552, 612, 672, 732, or 792. 47. For more on the Kyŏngju inscription, see endnote 4.17.

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early Japanese writing are unmistakable; recall, for example, the seventhcentury Morinouchi letter mokkan, which contains both Object-Verb character arrangement and use of 之 as a final particle: 馬不得故我者 反来之 (“I was unable to obtain horses, so I came back”).48 Since the 1970s, mokkan have been excavated from several sites on the Korean peninsula, though not yet in the massive quantities of the Japanese discoveries.49 Among these finds are about 120 unearthed in Kyŏngju (the capital of Silla), Puyŏ (the capital of Paekche), and the sites of two Sillan mountain fortifications, one near Seoul and one in the Kaya area to the south. The first discovery was a particularly rich one: the 52 Anapchi 雁鴨池 mokkan, which were excavated in 1975 from an eighthcentury pond on the ground of the palace at Kyŏngju. Bearing two Tang era names and several cyclical dates ranging from 751 to 774, they comprise mainly memoranda about weather and courtier’s schedules, but there are also some labels and at least one mokkan that employs phonographs. A few more mokkan have been found at sites in Kyŏngju, but the other large Silla finds are from two mountain fortresses. Isŏngsansŏng 二聖山城, a site near Seoul that is thought to have been a seventhcentury Silla military base, yielded over 20 mokkan; one long inscription with a cyclical date corresponding to 608 or 668 has pronounced similarities to the style of seventh-century Japanese document mokkan (Yi 1997, 235–46). The other fortress site, Sŏngsansansŏng 城山山城, is in the Kaya area at the southeastern tip of the peninsula, but appears to be a Silla base established in the late sixth century. The 30-odd mokkan found there include labels on packages of provisions sent south to this new ——— 48. Much as is the case with vernacular phonograph (kungana) usages in Japanese texts, indirect evidence of the early development of kundoku in Korean contexts is also provided by character usages in the old place-names of the Samguk sagi and in some poems of the Samguk yusa 三國遺事 (1289) that are predicated on the existence of vernacular readings (kun; K. hun) of characters (Sema 1999, 39). 49. Surveys of Korean mokkan can be found in Yi 1996 and 1997; Kokuritsu rekishi minzoku hakubutsukan 2002, 27–35; and Chōsen bunka kenkyūjo 2007. A recent collection (HKM), published in both Korean and Japanese versions, includes photographs and transcriptions of the mokkan discovered to date along with introductory material, maps, tables, and an essential collection of essays.

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base (Hirakawa 1999b). Fewer mokkan have been found in Paekche territory, but a palace pond site in that state’s former capital of Puyŏ yielded one bearing a long inscription that included a personal name, districts of the capital, and the name of a provincial fortress (Yi 1997, 227).50 Parallels in format and content provide evidence of connections between mokkan-based communication in late sixth- and seventh-century Korea and the similar practices that emerged in mid-seventh-century Japan. Among the most significant aspects of these are phonograph usage in the Anapchi mokkan and the similarities between the long Isŏngsansŏng inscription and those on early Japanese document mokkan. (It is also important to note that the large late sixth-century find at the southern Sŏngsansansŏng site considerably predates the earliest Japanese mokkan yet found.) Perhaps most strikingly, a mokkan with remarkable similarities to the Kannonji Analects tablet was excavated in South Korea from the Ponghwang-tong 鳳凰洞 site near Pusan. It shares the rare four-sided configuration and also bears a passage of writing practice taken from the Analects (HKM 147; Kokuritsu rekishi minzoku hakubutsukan 2002, 55). Fragmentary though they are, such discoveries establish a clear connection between Japanese writing during the seventh-century transition and Korean precedents. To this can be added practices attested in later periods of Korean history that create a strong impression that scribes and scholars of the Three Kingdoms had developed a variety of kundoku-based systems to read and write early Korean languages. 51 Perhaps the most famous latter-day method of writing is hyangch’al 郷札, a system used to record 25 Silla poems (hyangga 郷歌) contained in two Koryŏ-period (935–1392) works. Hyangch’al involves the combination of characters used logographically (for kun [K. hun] readings of words) and phonographically (spelling out syllables using the sounds of both the Chinese and the Silla words with which the characters were associated). There are striking Japanese parallels in the inscription of ——— 50. Two mokkan were also found in a Puyŏ site, Kwanpukri 官北里, from what is also thought to have been a palace pond. 51. For discussions of Korean kundoku, see Fujimoto 1988; Kim Mun-kyŏng 1988; and Kim Yŏng-uk 2005.

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the poetry collected in the eighth-century Man’yōshū (discussed in Chapter 6).52 A similar mixture that frequently preserves Chinese word order and uses Chinese compounds is found in the idu 吏讀 system, a method of writing that was widely employed in official documents, memoranda, and textual annotations up until the early twentieth century. In addition to phonographic elements, idu is marked by idiosyncratic usage of particles similar to the employment of 之 and 中 discussed above; these similarities have led scholars to trace its roots as far back as the fifth century.53 Many of the phonographs associated with idu were abbreviated and otherwise graphically simplified, yielding a partial syllabary of graphs called t’o 吐 that were frequently added as reading marks to texts written in accord with literary Chinese norms. This process parallels that which produced graphically simplified syllabaries (hiragana and katakana) in ninth-century Japan (discussed in Chapter 7). It was long assumed that diacritic use of t’o was limited to the addition of interpretive notes to texts that were to be read in the Chinese order and pronounced with Korean approximations of the Chinese pronunciations of the words associated with the characters (the equivalent of the Japanese on’yomi).54 However, recent discoveries have revealed that, as early as the eleventh century, t’o were being used along with orderchanging diacritics (analogous to the Japanese kaeriten) to record both logographic readings (associations) of characters in Korean and their transposition into Korean syntactical order. There is concrete evidence from the early Koryŏ period onward of full-fledged kundoku of texts in literary Chinese style. It seems very likely that such practices originated earlier, in the Three Kingdoms period, and were the source of the Japanese kundoku practices that are attested there by the mid- to late seventh century.55 ——— 52. For more on hyangga and hyangch’al, see endnote 4.18. 53. On idu and its uses, see Ledyard 1966, 42–46; Fujimoto 1988, 201–7; and Umeda 2000, 97–98. 54. For an example of this use of t’o, see Ledyard 1966, 47. This method of reading is still employed in Korea to construe literary Chinese writings, although the interpretive notes are now written in the han’gŭl alphabet. 55. On kunten-style notations in Korean manuscripts and the stylus method often used to inscribe them, see endnote 4.19. Interestingly, the late seventh-century scholar

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KOREA, JAPAN, AND THE EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEM

There is both direct and circumstantial evidence that all of the techniques that revolutionized Japanese inscription in the latter half of the seventh century were grounded in practices brought by scribes who arrived from the Korean peninsula in the sixth and seventh centuries. Given the prominence with which such scribes and their descendants are featured in the early Japanese histories (especially the Nihon shoki), and the similarities in phonograph usage and logographic style already apparent in fifth- and sixth-century Japanese inscriptions, this comes as no surprise. But it now appears that during the expansion of writing as a language-dependent means of communication, the reading and writing techniques of kundoku were a decisive aspect of this Korean influence.56 This means that we need to revise the traditional assumption that Chinese-language writing was gradually adapted to the Japanese language. Like Buddhism, the technology of writing took off in seventhcentury Japan because it was already pre-adapted to both Sinitic and non-Sinitic environments. For the scattered fragments and display inscriptions of the Yayoi- and Tomb-period archipelago, it is uncertain with what language they might have been associated—or, indeed, if they were directly associated with language at all in most contexts. But when practices of literacy expanded and diversified in the seventh century, they did so via a system of writing/reading that was already a multilingual package. The final chapter of this book will show how this leads us to reconsider the notion of a ‘Chinese script’: it might make more sense to think in terms of an ‘East Asian’ writing system spanning linguistic and cultural boundaries. But here, and in the following two chapters, I will return to the more local problem of how writing functioned in seventh- and eighth-century Japan. In this context new aspects of the ——— who was traditionally thought to have invented idu, Sŏl Ch’ong 薛聡, is memorialized in his Samguk sagi biography in the following terms: “He used local speech to read the Nine Classics, and taught and guided later students” 以方言讀九經訓導後生 (Ledyard 1966; SGSG 46:468). Leaving aside the traditional attribution of creative agency, it is still provocative to find such a method of reading associated with an early figure in this twelfth-century work. 56. On subsequent developments in the history of Korean and Japanese writing, see endnote 4.20.

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history of writing emerge when we discard assumptions about straightforward linkage between scripts and specific spoken languages. A Variety More Stylistic Than Linguistic Grasping the significance of kundoku opens up new avenues for analysis of the intense variety of Japanese writing, in large part because it allows us to overcome the outmoded opposition between inherently Chineselanguage and inherently Japanese-language writing. Eliminating this opposition involves taking Korean writing into account, but more fundamentally it means abandoning the assumption that particular texts are necessarily written in one and only one language. I am not denying that there were real differences among Chinese, Japanese, and Korean spoken languages.57 Rather, I am insisting that texts were potentially unaffected by such linguistic differences. It is counterintuitive to the alphabetcentrism of most thinking about writing, but we must consider textual variety on its own terms rather than assuming it inevitably reflects or is determined by linguistic variety. The distinctions of genre, media, and context discussed in the previous chapter take on new depth when they are considered in light of the technical interconnections between writing and language. SPELLING OUT SYLLABLES

Kundoku was not the only method of writing in early Japan. In adapting the ‘Chinese’ script to inscribe the Japanese language, another strategy was to use the syllabic values of the Chinese graphs as phonographs for similar Japanese syllables.58 There is a long history of such phonographic use of characters in Chinese-language environments. One cause of the controversy over the original nature of the Chinese writing system is the prevalence in early texts of sound-based substitution and glossing of characters. Characters used phonographically, with little or no attention to the semantic associations of the morphemes with which they were ——— 57. The consequences of the mutual incomprehensibility of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese spoken languages can be seen in the frequent appearance of oral interpreters in early historical sources (Yuzawa 2001). 58. On the distinction between syllable and mora, see endnote 4.21.

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otherwise associated, were also widely employed in the transcription of special terms and proper names from non-Sinitic languages. In Chinese translations of Buddhist sutras, such characters were even used to record entire incantations, or dhāran.ī, which provided a precedent for phonographic transcription beyond the limits of individual foreign words. Early Chinese treatises on the culture and society of neighboring ‘barbarians’ transcribe terms and names in this manner, and those devoted to the Wa (C. Wo 倭), like the Sanguozhi description of Himiko’s Yamatai, contain phonographic transcriptions that are commonly believed to be the first recorded forms of pre–Old Japanese.59 This Chinese practice (as adapted by Korean scribes) underlies the first phonograph writings of vernacular terms within the Japanese archipelago. The fifthcentury inscriptions produced by scribes from the Korean peninsula transcribe numerous proper nouns: for example, the genealogy on the Sakitama-Inariyama sword spells out nine personal names and one toponym. In this period it appears that the large number of Chinese graphs available for particular syllables had already been reduced to a smaller set of characters, and furthermore there are parallels between this set and the characters used for phonographic transcription of names and terms from Korean languages in sources quoted in later Japanese histories. Over the course of the seventh-century transition, a variety of phonographic registers emerged. All of the phonographs in these sets were formally indistinguishable from the logographs from which they were derived; the difference between them is always a matter of context.60 Although the kundoku-based logographic style seen in the Morinouchi and Nagaya mokkan was the basic mode of everyday writing from the late seventh century onward, in many cases it was supplemented by varying admixtures of phonograph characters. The Kita-Ōtsu Glossary and Kannonji ‘Dictionary’ mokkan both use them to specify the kundoku readings of particular characters (paralleling practices with a long ——— 59. For an overview of phonographically inscribed terms from the Sanguozhi, see Miller 1967. Although it is not certain that such terms are in fact from earlier stages of what became Old Japanese (Marc Miyake 2003, 6–7), that has no bearing on their significance as precedents for phonographic transcription of non-Sinitic words. 60. Different phonographic registers, and the contexts that determined their significance, are discussed in Chapter 6.

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tradition in Chinese commentary and lexicography). Another common use of phonographs is to record proper names (already seen in the Eta-Funayama and Inariyama sword inscriptions) and indigenous nouns (food items, manufactured products, and so on). Phonographic inscription of the latter is already seen in early finds like the Naniwa palace mokkan, and is common in late seventh- and early eighth-century mokkan.61 In early mokkan there are some examples of the exclusive use of phonographs to record entire texts, although they are rare, and generally involve vernacular poems or fragments that seem to be from poems. The Asukaike site contained such a fragment: a 10.3-by-1.6-centimeter piece of a tablet with one legible column of writing on each side. The front contains the string of characters 止求止佐田目手 to2ku to2 sadame2te (“Deciding to undo”), while the back has 久於母閉皮 ku omo2pe2ba (“because . . . think [continuative ending]”) (NKMSS 509; Terasaki 1999b, 19). These bits of writing look to be part of a poem (the front inscription is a seven-syllable phrase, and the dominant vernacular poetic forms of the day had lines of five and seven syllables). The mokkan was found along with one bearing a cyclical date corresponding to 677, but similar items have been found from mid-century sites (see Chapter 6). Tantalizingly, two eighth-century letters written out phonographically survive in the Shōsōin storehouse in Nara (SZ 87–88; NI III:959). It is unclear whether they represent rare flukes or chance survivals of a widespread practice.62 Phonograph glosses of logographic characters may have inspired a new departure that is already apparent in seventh-century Japanese writing: the supplementary usage of phonographs to record, partially or completely, additive elements of kundoku, such as inflections and auxiliary verbs. Such phonographs explicitly specify elements of the kundoku reading that would otherwise remain implicit, spelling them out syllable by syllable in between the logographic characters that would be the ——— 61. In the eighth century, kundoku characters were increasingly used to record names of domestic foods and products, which seems to be connected to the orthographic standards provided by the Taihō administrative code of 701 (Kobayashi Yoshinori 1983; 1988, 306–18). 62. On the all-phonograph letters of the Shōsōin, see Okumura 1978a and 1978b.

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sole constituents of writing based on kundoku alone.63 Among the first mokkan to be discovered at the late seventh-century Fujiwara capital was the upper portion of a wooden strip that is roughly 20 centimeters long and 2 centimeters wide. It contains a typical example of a mixture of phonographs and logographs: Most respectfully submitted before your lordships [. . .] / Stating that [I ] would like to humbly receive from your lordship [. . .] 卿等前恐々謹解□□. . . 卿尓受給請欲止申( JMSS 46; NKMS 56)

This is from a formal communication between an official and his superiors. On the reverse side, two phonograph adjuncts are added to the ni to logographs that form the basis of the inscription: 尓 and 止; removing them would not change the reading. This kind of mixed use of characters is prominent in a variety of longer and more formal writings, including the Kojiki and the vernacular proclamations of the Shoku Nihongi (both discussed in Chapter 5) and the poetry of the Man’yōshū (discussed in Chapter 6).64 Whether directly or indirectly, such a mixture of logographs and phonographs is also the ancestor of the modern Japanese writing system. But in seventh- and eighth-century mokkan and other everyday contexts, it was still the exception rather than the rule. Addition of phonographs seems to have served as a kind of reading aid, and also, as with Chinese grammatical markers, as a kind of punctuation. BOTH MORE AND LESS THAN TWO LANGUAGES

The styles of writing in early Japan involve two axes of variation. The primary one is the contrast between logography and phonography: it was possible to write exclusively relying on one or the other, or in a ——— 63. As noted above and in endnote 4.18, there are parallels between this form of mixed inscription and the Korean hyangch’al system. 64. On the emergence of this mixed system, see Kotani 1986 and Okimori 2000; and, especially, Inui 2003. Much as discoveries from the Kannonji site suggest the geographic distribution of techniques more thoroughly attested closer to the capital, a fairly broad spread of this mixed style is implied by the use of supplementary phonographs in late seventh-century mokkan from the Iba site in Shizuoka prefecture (NKMS 386; JMSS 58).

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mixture of the two. The second axis of variation applies to entirely or principally logographic writings, and involves their degree of conformity to literary Chinese norms. The resulting range of styles does not map onto the linguistic contrast between the Chinese and Japanese languages, although that contrast ultimately underlies elements such as the different possible word orders of logographs. It is now clear that the entire range of possible styles was already represented as the seventh-century transition got under way. This picture of early writing is at odds with what has long been the dominant paradigm in historical accounts of Japanese inscription. This was a narrative in which writing began as Chinese, after which hybrid forms were created through the addition of Japanese elements, and eventually the invention of phonetic scripts (kana) allowed the untrammeled emergence of ‘native’ literary forms. But in extant seventhcentury texts, the early appearance of logographic, phonographic, and mixed styles, and their broad geographic distribution, suggests they existed simultaneously, with scribes selecting among them depending on the nature of a given text. Despite this simultaneity, the logographic principle dominates, with all-phonograph writing and phonographic adjuncts serving as subsidiary possibilities generally linked to particular contexts. Within the range of primarily logographic styles, orthodox writing in the literary Chinese style occupied the center, providing a standard of meaning (for basic written vocabulary as well as for the logical connections expressed by grammatical markers) and a common mode of communication shared by elites within the Japanese archipelago and throughout the East Asian region. Kundoku served as the glue that bound these various styles together, because it ensured that all of them could, when read, inhabit a common linguistic space. On the page nothing could be starker than the contrast between purely phonographic transcription and logographic writing in literary Chinese style, but it is possible in principle for the vocalizations of two such texts to be identical. It is in this sense that one can claim of this period, and indeed of almost the entirety of Japanese cultural history, that there are fewer than two languages at work. But one might just as well argue for more than two: in the sense that the Korean languages also play a role in the region and within Japan, but also in the

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sense that dramatic stylistic contrasts can be seen as producing multiple written ‘languages.’65 As with the earlier discussion of Korean influence, these assertions risk misunderstanding when they collide with the preoccupations of modern readers. On the one hand, it may seem that claiming a ‘flattening’ role of kundoku in reducing or eliminating linguistic difference asserts the linguistic homogeneity—the inherent ‘Japaneseness,’ if you will—of writing and culture in this and later periods, and thus denies their hybridity in general, and their debt to Chinese and Korean elements in particular.66 But on the other hand, talk of the diversity and variety of styles of writing may seem like a paean to a premodern paradise of difference. Certainly it is a central concern of this study to show that there is great variety in types and uses of writing, with little sign of modern notions of a ‘national language’ linked to a distinctive script, but this does not mean a utopia. As is clear from the preceding chapters, in early Japan there were strong political values for writing in general, for different specific styles of writing, and for the public use of language with and without direct connections to writing. One aspect of the political history of the seventh century was the engineering of new styles of inscription—in a sense, new written languages for the state. A great deal of innovation and variation percolated throughout the period, but there was also a central impetus toward model-making and standardization, and a correspondingly strong hierarchy of access to and control over the most socially valuable styles. As with the discussion of agency and the powers of literacy with which this book began, this history needs to be considered in terms of multidimensional interactions. An unfamiliar foreign language em——— 65. It is possible that some of the entirely logographic mokkan and other everyday texts of the late seventh (especially) and the eighth centuries could have been written or read in Korean linguistic contexts. Ultimately that flexibility is one of the chief advantages of the system. But because of the numerous cases of phonograph or mixed logograph/phonograph notations of recognizably Japanese words, it seems likely that most of these materials were associated with readings in Japanese. 66. This is essentially the argument made by Thomas Lamarre (2000, 38–40) in a provocative critique of homogenizing discourses of national identity in modern scholarship. But we need not discount the significance of kundoku to debunk modern assumptions of a unified or homogenous past.

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bedded in a new form of writing was not seamlessly imposed from above on a supine and pliant populace, but neither was this period a precolonial picnic of free diversity. The concluding chapter of this book will pursue such issues further, but for now I will return to the specific questions of what the stylistic differences in early Japanese writing were, what they meant, and— most vexing of all—how to sort out differences in inscription from differences in language. One might take as one limit the role of capital letters in English orthography (or the comparable role of the katakana syllabary in modern Japanese orthography). Despite the obvious difference between the first and second halves of this sentence, THERE IS NO MEANINGFUL WAY IN WHICH THEY COULD BE TAKEN AS BEING WRITTEN IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES. But on the other hand, si écrit dans l’alphabet, la différence entre l’anglais et le français est claire. The difficulty of the contrasts in written style at issue in early Japan is that the difference between them is not as clear-cut as either of the preceding cases. On the one hand, kundoku means that the distinction between logographic and phonographic inscription can be viewed as akin in important respects to the use of capital versus lowercase letters: that is, as a difference between two different orthographies for substantially the same linguistic entities. On the other hand, the shaping influence of kundoku on vocabulary and usage, and the presence of character compounds and passages directly lifted from literary Chinese and Buddhist Chinese sources in so many works, are more suggestive of linguistic discontinuity. An added difficulty is the aforementioned productivity of kundoku. By the Heian period, when extensive kunten diacritic annotation revealed its details, the language of kundoku was very different from other styles of writing (as recorded in phonographic and mixed styles). But it is apparent, from admittedly more fragmentary evidence, that it was a kind of circumlocutionary translationese in earlier periods as well. As there is no access to early Japanese language except through the texts under discussion here, any claims about the relationship between the language of their readings and that spoken at the time risks contradiction or circularity. However, as Okumura Etsuzō and other scholars have argued, the written style of the Kojiki, as well as those of other eighth-century works such as the Man’yōshū, show intriguing traces of circumlocution

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and other syntactical patterns that seem to be ‘unnatural.’ This points to the linguistic influence of the kundoku process, which produces ‘artificial’ effects in a range of texts, even phonographic ones not directly subject to kundoku reading. The ‘Chinese influence’ on early Japanese was not solely—or even most fundamentally—a matter of loanwords, the familiar on’yomi compounds that are so ubiquitous in modern Japanese. The kind of ‘unnaturalness’ or influence at stake here is not a matter of the incorporation of new vocabulary items. It is akin to loan-translation, or calque formation, a trans-linguistic phenomenon exemplified by phrases like the English ‘a certain I-don’t-know-what,’ where the italicized words replace the French je ne sais quoi. Here we might recall the issue of ‘Latinate style’ in the work of authors like Milton, which refers more to distinctive syntactical convolutions and patterns of expression than to the comparatively straightforward matter of highfalutin vocabulary. The language of early Japanese texts—whether written with logographs, phonographs, or a mixture of the two—is heavily affected by this sort of calque influence. The relationship of the resulting ‘calcolect’ to prewritten, purely oral speech is indirect, at best. It is with these arguments in the background that we may consider further the links between written styles and the contexts in which they are used. If a linguistic contrast between Chinese and Japanese is not the dominant structuring influence, the question then becomes what differences did distinguish various modes of writing. Starting from the fundamental contrast between logography and phonography, there are two avenues of inquiry: (1) the relationship within logographic writing between the Chinese and non-Chinese styles, which Chapter 5 considers in connection with the 712 Kojiki and 720 Nihon shoki; and (2) the relationship between logographic and phonographic styles, which is taken up in Chapter 6 through an examination of the writing of poetry, primarily in the late eighth-century Man’yōshū. In the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the selection of differing styles is still tightly bound to the ideological projects of the texts, but this is not necessarily the case with other examples of varied forms of writing, especially those showcased in the Man’yōshū. These juxtapositions of contrasting works demonstrate how style was deeply intertwined with content and context. Writing is never just a method of inscription; it

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always involves the sociolinguistic problem of the fit between register and situation, in which the texture of the text is itself inherently communicative. As exemplified by the massive—though often hidden— influence of kundoku, writing is also inherently productive, in multiple senses. The following chapters further demonstrate how the complex interactions between spoken language and writing did not simply reflect linguistic forms—or historical ‘realities’—but actively created them.

FIVE

Governing in Prose: Written Style in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki

Study the historian before you begin to study the facts. —E. H. Carr The first question confronting anyone who studies the Kojiki is how the text was written down. —Donald Keene

The various methods of inscription in use by the late seventh century were bound together by kundoku techniques of associating charactertexts with the Japanese language, but this does not mean that these methods were homogenous, linguistically or otherwise. This and the following chapter examine in greater detail the range of possibilities for writing that existed in early Japan, and more importantly, consider the meaning of the differences among those possibilities. In so doing we turn from the focus of the previous chapter on ephemeral, excavated materials of the seventh and eighth centuries—whose survival is a coincidence of water tables and soil composition—to a consideration of writing committed to durable materials or actively preserved by generations of scholars and scribes. These are the central works of the early

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Japanese canon: in this chapter, the Kojiki and Nihon shoki; in the following one, the Man’yōshū. The different circumstances of writing prose and poetry are one reason for this division, but it is also motivated by the combination of close parallels and stark contrasts demonstrated by the two eighth-century histories. The Kojiki and the Nihon shoki overlap considerably in their inclusion of mythic and legendary materials about early sovereigns and the gods from whom they claimed descent. But these two works are different in fundamental ways, most prominently their written styles. The significance of this difference is clearest when these two works are not considered alone, but in conjunction with other materials that present similar problems. Accordingly, this chapter begins with an examination of stylistic differences in two dedicatory inscriptions juxtaposed in the main hall of a prominent early temple, and concludes with a brief look at the distinctive style of vernacular royal proclamations (senmyō 宣命) of the eighth century. My basic theme is the power of ‘Chinese’ models of writing and their role, mediated by kundoku, in the creation of new styles that project different kinds of royal authority. The dominant contrast is not a simple opposition between texts in different languages, but a more complex one among texts in a variety of styles. An examination of the nature of written style, which combines visible patterns of graphs and linguistic patterns in their readings, requires taking into account both the ‘content’ and the ‘context’ of inscription. In early Japan, writing took on new significance as it was manipulated in projects to legitimate the new state and its royal institutions. The welling-up of technical innovations in everyday writing (such as that seen in mokkan) seems to have been largely spontaneous, driven by practical considerations: the nature of the intended communication and the abilities of the scribes. By contrast, deliberate engineering of new styles, often highly systematized and sophisticated ones, was integral to several projects dedicated to the legitimacy of the line of sovereigns and the new state whose apex they occupied. Parallel Inscriptions in the Main Hall of Hōryūji The temple of Hōryūji is a complex of wooden buildings about 10.5 kilometers southwest of the old capital city of Nara. It is renowned for its holdings of sculptures and other early Buddhist art, and also for its

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architecture (the earlier of its two precincts is said to contain the oldest extant wooden buildings in Japan—and, perhaps, the world). Within the Main Hall (kondō 金堂) that sits next to a pagoda at the center of that precinct, there are two renowned early sculptures: large gilt bronze images of the Buddhas Śākyamuni and Bhais.ajyaguru (the ‘medicine Buddha’ dedicated to healing; J. Yakushi 藥師).1 Simply as sculptures, both images would be important for art historians, scholars of religion, and historians of Buddhist thought and institutions, but they also bear extensive dedicatory inscriptions on the back of their flat flame-patterned backings, or aureoles. In addition to their place in ongoing debates in the field of art history about the authenticity of the sculptures themselves, these inscriptions are important sources for the biography of ‘Prince Shōtoku’ and the history of the temple itself. As discussed in Chapter 3, the early history of Japanese Buddhism is characterized by a transition from lineage-group sponsored temples (in the sixth and early seventh century) to increasing official oversight and sponsorship from the sovereigns and the state institutions that supported them. Because of the ways that this transition was legitimized and backdated by state historians and temple apologists, the dating of the inscriptions and their images, and their links to the development of Hōryūji itself, are historiographically complex problems. Although there are reasons to suspect a later origin, the Shaka inscription may well date back to the first half of the seventh century (the traditional dating is 623), whereas the Yakushi inscription was definitely produced in the late seventh century, and possibly even afterward, making it significantly newer than its traditional date of 607. The two images, and thus the two inscriptions, were juxtaposed some time after the 680s, probably by the early eighth century, and certainly by 747, when there is textual evidence for their existence and prominent placement in the temple.2 This juxtaposition is the essential point for the following dis——— 1. A third statue, of Amitābha, Buddha of the Pure Land paradise, completes what is now a trinity in the main hall, but it is a late addition that was cast in 1232. For introductions to Hōryūji and its treasures, see Kidder 1999 and Wong 2008. 2. The Hōryūji garan engi narabi ni ruki shizaichō 法隆寺伽藍縁起并流記資材帳, a report on the history and holdings of Hōryūji from 747, includes the Yakushi image at the head of its list of the temple’s treasures, drawing on the inscription in dating the

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cussion, which is concerned not with the origins of these texts, but with the significance of the dramatic contrast between the styles in which they are written. THE SHAKA INSCRIPTION

The dedication of the Shaka image is inscribed in the center of the reverse of the aureole that backs the seated Buddha and its two standing attendant bodhisattvas (each also backed by a smaller, uninscribed aureole). It describes the circumstances of the triad’s creation, and can be divided into five sections: (1) the illness of the figure later known as Prince Shōtoku and his consort, following the death of his mother; (2) in hopes of his recovery, a consort (perhaps the same one) and other members of court vow to make an image of Śākyamuni; (3) he and his consort die; (4) nonetheless the vow to make a statue is carried out the following year; (5) the maker of the statue is credited (see Figure 5.1). Thirty-one years after the arising of the Dharma, in the 12th month of the year with the star in the 18th position of the cycle [621], the Grand Dowager Kamusaki demised. On the 22nd day of the 1st month of the following year, the Dharma Sovereign of the Upper Palace took to his bed in ill health. Due to this the Queen Consort Kashiwade became fatigued and lay alongside him. At the time the Queen Consort, the Princes, and the ministers felt deep grief, and together they vowed, “With reverence, and in accord with the Three Treasures, we shall make an image of Shaka of length corresponding with the body of the Prince. Incurring the merit of this vow, may we reverse his illness and lengthen his life, keeping him in this world. Should his Karma be fixed, and he turn his back on the world, then may he pass on and ascend to the Pure Land, and quickly gain enlightenment.” On the 21st day of the 2nd month, 10th day of the cycle, the Queen Consort departed this life. On the following day, the Dharma Sovereign ascended into the empyrean. During the 3rd month of the 20th year of the cycle [623], in accordance with the vow, they reverently completed making the image of Shaka along with

——— image and in its brief opening history of the temple; similarly, its entry for the Shaka image also depends on that statue’s inscription (HE 344–45). On the dating of the two images and their inscriptions, see endnote 5.1.

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Fig. 5.1 Rubbing of the dedicatory inscription of the Hōryūji Main Hall Shaka Triad Aureole (Masamune 1928). The area occupied by the characters is 34 centimeters square.

attendants and appurtenances. Taking advantage of this slight merit, may the sponsoring community of believers be at peace in this life, and having left it and passed into death, may they follow the three rulers, receive and flourish in the Three Treasures, and finally reach the other shore together; may all sentient beings of the six paths everywhere attain release from suffering and causation, and together proceed to enlightenment. They had the Buddha-Master, Tori of the Shiba, head of the Saddler’s Guild, make it. 法興元丗一年、歳次辛巳十二月、鬼前太后崩。明年正月廿二日、 上宮法皇、枕病弗 、干食王后、仍以勞疾、並着於床。 時王后王子等、及與諸臣、深懐愁毒、共相發願、「仰依三寳、當 造釋像尺寸王身、蒙此願力、轉病延壽、安住世間、若是定業、以背 世者、往登浄土、早昇妙果。」 二月廿一日癸酉、王后即世。翌日、法皇登遐。 癸未年三月中、如願敬造釋迦尊像并侠侍及荘嚴具竟。乗斯微福、 信道知識、現在安隠、出生入死、随奉三主、紹隆三寳、 共彼岸、 普遍六道法界含識、得脱苦縁、同趣菩提。 使司馬鞍首止利佛師造。 (KI 3)

This inscription’s heavy reliance on continental standards is apparent even from its layout. The 196 graphs are arranged in fourteen lines of

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fourteen, aligned with an invisible grid in a perfect square: typical of Chinese stele inscriptions, this format would have required exact planning during composition. Care has also been taken to arrange the inscription in four-character groups whenever possible (the priority placed on forming such groups seems to have contributed to the cryptic two-character proper names and titles that still bedevil commentators [鬼前, 法皇, 干食, 王后, 三主]). Moreover, as was the case with the inscriptions predating the seventh century discussed in Chapter 2 (such as that on the Sakitama-Inariyama sword), the cyclical year dates link the text to an overarching East Asian temporal frame, albeit one less connected to particular political regimes than the parallel era name system. These points are echoed by the style of the inscription, which is arranged in accord with literary Chinese syntax throughout, and which, in its account of the motivation for and intended consequences of producing the image, relies on the vocabulary of Chinese Buddhist writings and the secular imagery of Chinese kingship. This vocabulary harmonizes with the collective origin of the vow to produce the sculpture, projecting an idealized image of court society. Much like the concluding ‘signature’ of the fifth-century Eta-Funayama inscription, the final explanation that “they had the Buddha-Master Tori [. . .] make it” 使[. . .] 止利佛師造 emphasizes the power of the court and its rulers to command technologically advanced artisans: the causative structure here is significant. The inscription’s stylistic consonance with continental practice has much the same function, implicitly crediting the royal originators with command of advanced scribes as well as accomplished sculptors. Elevated by the titles used for them here, the “Dharma Sovereign,” “Queen Consort,” and “Grand Dowager” are also given greater prestige and authority by virtue of association with transcultural discourses of secular and Buddhist kingship, even including the basic Sinitic syntax and vocabulary that form the backbone of the inscription.3 ——— 3. The reading of the Shaka inscription is open to question: it could potentially have been vocalized in Chinese, in one of the Korean languages, or in Japanese. It bears a few traces of Korean influence, but none distinctive enough to suggest a particular linguistic affiliation. (Such generality is part of the point of this style.) Even if one chooses to read the inscription into Japanese via kundoku, there is wide latitude in the degree to which the reading relies on Sino-Japanese loanwords (on’yomi).

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Fig. 5.2 Rubbing of the dedicatory inscription of the Hōryūji Main Hall Yakushi Image Aureole (Kokugo chōsa iinkai 1911). The area occupied by the characters is 29 by 13.5 centimeters.

THE YAKUSHI INSCRIPTION

Though it also links the figure later known as Prince Shōtoku to the provenance of the object it labels, the Yakushi inscription departs from that of the Shaka triad in many ways, including its physical format. It also occupies the center of the reverse of the aureole, but rather than being distributed in a regular square, its 90 characters occupy five lines in a 29-by-13.5-centimeter rectangle (see Figure 5.2). Because their size and spacing vary, the number of graphs per line is unequal (16/19/18/ 19/18) even though the lines themselves are of the same length. More succinct than the Shaka dedication, the inscription states that the sovereign later known as Yōmei (trad. r. 585–87) vowed to his sister Suiko and his son Shōtoku that he would make a temple and a statue of Yaku-

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shi to alleviate an illness, but that it was they who carried out the vow after he died. When the Sovereign who ruled all under heaven from the Great Palace of Ikenobe was in poor health, in the 43rd cyclical year [586], he summoned the Great Queen Sovereign and the Crown Prince and made a vow, proclaiming: “Because We hope to ameliorate Our great illness, We intend to construct a temple and make an image of Yakushi.” However, because around that time he passed away and was unable to complete the construction, the Great Queen Sovereign who ruled all under heaven from the Great Palace of Owarida and the Sage Prince of the Eastern Palace accepted the great command and carried it out in the 4th cyclical year [607]. 池邊大宮治天下天皇、大御身勞賜時、歳次丙午年、召於大王天皇与 太子而、誓願賜、我大御病大平欲坐、故將造寺藥師像作仕奉詔。 然、當時崩賜造不堪者、小治田大宮治天下大王天皇及東宮聖王、大 命受賜而、歳次丁卯年仕奉。(KI 2)

The lack of an explicit date is unusual, but even more so is the absence of a dedicatory vow for the image itself. This inscription is concerned less with the provenance of the Yakushi image than with the origins of the temple itself, an emphasis symbolized by the central placement of the phrase “construct a temple” 造寺, which may be the reason for the curious arrangement of characters into unequal lines. Hōryūji has a dual origin, the inscription claims, in the founding impulse of the sovereign later known as Yōmei, and in the furtherance of that impulse by the saintly Shōtoku (“Crown Prince”/“Sage Prince”) and the sovereign later known as Suiko (“Great Queen Sovereign”). This is an attempt to tie the history of the temple to the new institution of the sovereigns and their oversight and sponsorship of religious institutions. As in the anachronistic accounts of the origins of Buddhism in the Nihon shoki and other early sources, to make such a connection it is necessary to blur origins in lineage-group sponsorship and recast the early history of the temple as intertwined with the royal house. Such exigencies shaped the initial development of the cult of Shōtoku himself, and they also underlie this specific inscription.4 ——— 4. Fukuyama 1935 is a classic statement of this interpretation of the Yakushi inscription; see also Yabuta 1950 and the discussion and extensive bibliography in Ōnishi 1990.

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As in the Shaka inscription, cyclical dates link the described events to a transregional temporal order, but the primary chronological device is a different one: the spatiotemporal location of rulers’ reigns, as in “the Sovereign who ruled all under heaven from the Great Palace of Ikenobe” 池邊大宮治天下天皇 and “the Great Queen Sovereign who ruled all under heaven from the Great Palace of Owarida” 小治田大宮 治天下大王天皇. The political orientation of the inscription is revealed by this multilayered terminology for its royal characters, which contrasts with its striking lack of Buddhist terms and concepts. (Perhaps these are taken for granted, but it is very odd to see no explicit reference to karmic benefits in a dedicatory inscription.) The toponym nomenclature involves a strong sense of the reign, as such, and also a priority on its geographic span, indicating both the location of the palace (which still shifted with each new reign) and stressing the universal extent of the ruler’s power.5 The term “Sovereign” (tennō 天皇) itself implies a similar assertion of centrality and omnipotence. Like the “ruled all under heaven” phrase, it has a hidden Chinese pedigree that belies the localized veneer, but it is that veneer that is the main point of the inscription. Much as mokkan do, the style of the Yakushi inscription freely mixes Chinese and Japanese syntax in arranging characters: for example, “We intend to construct a temple and make an image of Yakushi” 故將造寺 藥師像作仕奉 blends Verb-Object (造寺) and Object-Verb (藥師像 作) orders. Another parallel to mokkan such as the Morinouchi letter is the use of characters corresponding to Chinese grammatical elements (於, 而, 故, 然, 者) to clarify connections between sentence elements. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this inscription is the way it indicates several Japanese honorific and humilific prefixes and auxiliary verbs in ways foreign to literary Chinese style, a characteristic shared with the Nagaya letter and other mokkan.6 ——— On recent scholarship skeptical of the existence of ‘Prince Shōtoku,’ see Yoshida Kazuhiko 2006; for an eye-opening account of the development of his cult, see Como 2008. 5. The parallels with the patterns of fifth-century inscriptions such as those on the Sakitama-Inariyama and Eta-Funayama swords are a further reminder of the continuities linking monumental inscriptions before and after the seventh-century transition. 6. For a succinct discussion of the style of the Yakushi inscription, see Seeley 1991, 27–28. A systematic reading, with reappraisal of the honorific elements, can be found in Komatsu 1998, 211–72.

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In its visual format and textual style, this inscription is a departure from transregional East Asian norms. Not completely so—like other distinctive writing of the seventh and eighth centuries, it blends traditional and innovative elements—but nonetheless it reflects a decision to develop a local style for the new state, rather than adopting a universal one more openly grounded in Chinese Buddhist and secular vocabularies of rulership. This is related to the central importance of the royal subject (Yōmei) as originator of the vow that produced the temple: it is significant that the inscription explicitly quotes his words, including distinctive honorific and humilific language. In its style it asserts itself as something ‘native,’ but it cannot be seen as reflective of practices, institutions, or types of vocalization that existed before the establishment of temples and casting of statues, the construction of the institution of the sovereign, and the proclamation of royal patronage. The style of the inscription implicitly declares independence from continental models, but it also reveals, inadvertently, the continuing contribution of those models. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STYLISTIC DIVERGENCE

There are numerous similarities between the objects that bear these inscriptions, starting with the formal parallels between the images and aureoles themselves. (The sculptor of the Yakushi image seems to have deliberately copied many elements of the Shaka.) The basic plots of the inscriptions also overlap considerably: the common connection to Shōtoku, the illness of a ruler, the vow to alleviate that illness through the merit attained by commissioning a sculpture of a Buddha, the death of the ill ruler, and the carrying out of the vow by surviving members of the court.7 But in these inscriptions different claims to authority are also apparent, in connection with the contrasting worlds they depict. The Shaka inscription portrays a larger court community, including not just the primary beneficiary of the vow (Shōtoku) but other royal figures, the nameless princes (王子等) and ministers (諸臣), and the clearly speci——— 7. For more on the parallels between the inscriptions and the problem of their temporal ordering, see endnote 5.2.

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fied artisan himself. There are signs of a hierarchical organization, although the terms used for the ‘royals,’ like “Dharma sovereign” 法皇, are rare or nonexistent in other texts, and hence somewhat opaque. By contrast the world of the Yakushi inscription is far narrower: the beneficiary and originator of the vow are the same figure, no lesser courtiers or artisans are mentioned, and the terminology for the rulers is more prominent, more elaborate, and more consistent with contemporary sources (from the late seventh century onward). These differences are echoed by the dramatically contrasting styles of the inscriptions. As already noted repeatedly, the prevalence of kundoku in seventh-century Japan makes it difficult to conceptualize this contrast in primarily linguistic terms. It is certainly the case that the Shaka is consistent with literary Chinese writing, while the Yakushi is not, but this does not necessarily mean that the former is ‘written in Chinese.’ But if it is not a matter of a linguistic contrast between ‘Chinese’ and ‘Japanese,’ then what is the difference between these two texts, and what does it mean? The stylistic authority of the Shaka inscription stems from the fact that it can be read as literary Chinese. The actual language in which it might have been vocalized could have been Chinese, or one of the Korean languages, or Japanese; the crucial point is not its vocalization but its explicit consistency with a universal, transregional graphic norm. As with elaboration of Buddhist merit or designation of a skilled artisan under the control of the court, deployment of that norm serves as an implicit confirmation of the legitimacy and cultural attainment of the rulers with which it is associated. In contrast to this universal mode, the Yakushi inscription, a text that cannot be read in Chinese, asserts an implicit local origin, grounded in the will—and perhaps even the actual voice, pronouncing (詔) the vow to make the temple and image—of a ruler whose legitimacy is indigenous. That concepts like “ruled all under heaven” and “sovereign” actually had Sinitic origins is another matter; the important point here is the locally oriented ambition that underlay their adoption and deployment. The style of the Yakushi inscription draws on the existing prestige of the royal institution to advance the temple, in contrast to the Shaka inscription’s use of a traditional, and universal, Sinitic vocabulary to elevate its patrons.

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There is a sense in which these two texts involve contrasting notions of authorship, paralleling in some respects the distinct modes of royal literacy portrayed in the Wani and Shinni episodes of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki (discussed at the end of Chapter 2). In the Shaka inscription, the community of sponsors (chishiki 知識) who serve as the patrons of the image (and the text itself ) are authors by proxy, asserting their control over the skilled craftsman as a prominent token of their authority and legitimacy. It is in this sense that the final reference to their having “caused” the Buddha-Master Tori to make the image resembles the signature at the end of the fifth-century Eta-Funayama sword inscription. Such a relationship of patronage is completely effaced by the Yakushi inscription, which attributes all agency to the sovereign, positing him as the ultimate author: the producer of the temple and the image (and implicitly the inscription as well) with only the enabling intermediation of Suiko and Shōtoku. These particular inscriptions may be separated from each other by several decades, or even as much as a century, but the styles they exemplify existed simultaneously from the latter half of the seventh century onward. Just as positing linguistic difference or temporal priority are not viable ways of situating their distinctive significance, they cannot be mapped onto a divide between public (or formal) and private (or informal). Sinitic styles like that of the Shaka image provided a grand register for monumental writings (paper-based as well as epigraphic) in the late seventh and eighth centuries (and for many centuries thereafter), but the non-Sinitic style of the Yakushi inscription encompassed both formal inscriptions like that on the Yamanoue stele and informal jottings on the ubiquitous mokkan. The contrast between these two inscriptions provides an entry point into the issue of the meaning of stylistic difference, especially once we recognize the flexibility of the linkage between texts and language in this period. But their juxtaposition in the Main Hall of Hōryūji also allows them to serve as an introduction to a similar juxtaposition of two more extensive and complex works: the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki. The existence of two parallel eighth-century histories of the lineage of the sovereigns and their rule over the realm of ‘Japan’ is one of the great problems of the period, not just for the history of writing, but also for

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literary, political, and intellectual history. The two works share the same basic project of establishing the origins of the sovereigns and their realms, and of grounding their authority in lineages of descent from gods and mythical humans (both for the sovereigns themselves and for the major lineage groups affiliated with them at court and in the countryside). The Kojiki and Nihon shoki have much mythical and legendary material in common, and also overlap in the form and content of the ‘songs’ they attribute to gods and heroes (addressed in the following chapter’s discussion of poetry). But there are also profound differences between them, and nowhere is their essentially distinct character more apparent than in their contrasting written styles. A Vernacular Style for Ancient Matters: The Kojiki With kundoku-based logography at the core, accompanied by the option of partially or completely phonographic inscription, an enormous stylistic variety was available to late seventh- and early eighth-century writers. One of the most important examples of the shaping influence of authorial choice on this mass of possibilities is the Kojiki (712), the earliest extant complete Japanese work.8 The Kojiki stands out in any account of early Japanese writing for the distinctive logographic style with which its prose passages are inscribed, which is even more striking when contrasted with the simple phonographs used for its ‘songs.’ Much like the Yakushi inscription, the Kojiki eschews the outward structure of orthodox Chinese-style inscription while covertly relying on it to engineer a new vernacular style. THE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THE KOJIKI

Signed by a mid-ranking bureaucrat, Ō no Yasumaro 太安萬侶 (d. 723), the preface ( jo 序) of the Kojiki dates the work to 712 (Wadō 5) and claims that it is his transcription of ‘recitations’ of older historical records by an otherwise unknown figure named Hieda no Are 稗田阿礼, as part of a project initiated by Tenmu and then renewed by his niece, Genmei

——— 8. On the Kojiki manuscript tradition, see endnote 5.3.

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Sovereign 元明天皇 (661–721, r. 707–15).9 This preface is an elaborate attempt to legitimize the work by grounding it in a narrative of royal sponsorship of history-making and establishing it as a faithful representation of the ancient language of the myths and songs of the sovereigns and their courts. But it cannot be taken as a reliable guide to the nature of the main text or the language with which it is associated, and even less so as an account of the general state of writing in late seventh- and early eighth-century Japan. It is an important document in its own right, but approaching it should take second place to engaging the main text of the Kojiki.10 The main text is a collection of mythical, legendary, and quasihistorical material stretching from the appearance of the first gods in the High Heavenly Plain (taka-ama no2 para 高天原) to the reign of the female sovereign later known as Suiko. The first, or “upper,” of its three books (巻) describes an early age of the gods, beginning with heaven and earth already in existence, narrating the creation of the earthly realm that would come to be ruled by the sovereigns, and ending with accounts of the descent of Ninigi, grandson of the goddess Amaterasu, to this “land amid reed plains,” and of the exploits of his children and grandchildren. The second (“middle”) book portrays the origins of rule by legendary sovereigns, starting with the great-grandson of Ninigi (later known as Jinmu), and describes the expansion of their realm, following reign-by-reign until that of the fifteenth legendary ruler, Ōjin. The third (“lower”) book continues from the famously virtuous sixteenth ruler (Nintoku) to Suiko (Shōtoku’s aunt, trad. r. 592-628); the final ten accounts are limited to basic information about reigns and descent, with essentially no narrative material. (Suiko’s reign, implicitly here and explicitly in the Nihon shoki, represented the beginning of a new era for eighth-century historians.) ——— 9. The Shoku Nihongi 續日本紀 (797), official history of most of the eighth century, does not mention the Kojiki, and about Yasumaro it records only routine promotions and appointments, culminating in his death in 723 at a rank somewhat higher than that with which he signs the preface. On Yasumaro’s career and the discovery of his grave marker, see endnote 5.4. 10. For an extensive discussion of the Kojiki preface, see Lurie 2001, 246–305.

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The Kojiki is known for oft-excerpted narratives like those describing trips to other realms such as the world of the dead or an undersea palace, journeys of conquest by early ‘sovereigns’ and their relatives, and vivid tales of love and jealousy involving both gods and humans. Its three books also contain 112 vernacular poems (uta 歌) and numerous genealogical notes about the descent of the sovereigns and the backgrounds of prominent lineage groups and organizations. The genealogies tie the work to the political and social circumstances of the early eighth century, but they also animate much of the narrative material.11 Unlike the Nihon shoki, the Kojiki is not divided into dated entries in separate annals for each ruler, but it is loosely organized into sections for the successive sovereigns. These are tied together by a consistent format: in the account of each reign, explanations of parentage, consorts, and offspring at the outset, and indication of tomb location at the conclusion (these are the sole content of the final portion of the third book). THE WRITTEN STYLE OF KOJIKI PROSE

It is a sign of the neglect of kundoku that even so fundamental a matter as the manner in which the Kojiki is written remains a topic of confusion in recent Anglophone scholarship.12 But work by Japanese linguists and literary historians has clarified the essential nature of the inscription of the work, which is firmly grounded in basic techniques that were ubiquitous in everyday writing by the latter half of the seventh century. As seen in the mokkan examples in the previous chapter, these techniques resulted in a vernacular style that was governed by the reading and writing process of kundoku, using logographs arranged in accordance with both Chinese and Japanese syntax, with the occasional addition of clarifying phonographs. But the strength of this connection to everyday writing should not be overstated. Just as important is the extent to which links between graph and word, on the one hand, and graph and syllable, on the other, have been systematized and refined in the Kojiki. The resulting ——— 11. In the Kojiki, as in other early prose works, narratives often serve to justify or explain a particular genealogical notation. In most cases, a given narrative cannot be understood without reference to the lineages that are involved; for numerous demonstrations of such connections, see Como 2008 and 2009. 12. For examples of such confusion, see endnote 5.5.

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style of writing is profoundly different from the quotidian materials from which it emerged. This essential difference in the quality of its inscription is a key to understanding the Kojiki, but it also raises the broader issues of the variety of early Japanese writing, and of the potential meaning of that variety.13 Unlike the phonographic mode used to write the poems, the prose of the Kojiki does not specify in detail the phonetic dimensions of its own potential vocalization. Nonetheless it employs a precise and readily comprehensible logographic style that attends to shades of meaning and to logical, temporal, and causal connections. Kamei Takashi (1957, 154) famously described this style as “able to be read even though it cannot be read” ( yomenakute mo yomeru ヨメなくても よめる), meaning that although one could not recover a phonetically precise ‘original’ reading, it was possible to generate a correct one, even if that was one of several equally acceptable possibilities. The systematization of Kojiki inscription is apparent relative to other early works like the Nihon shoki or the Man’yōshū, but so is the limitation of the number of distinct characters, and their restriction to simple and familiar types.14 Although in kundoku readings are assigned to characters based on context, so that repeated instances of a graph can have multiple readings, Kojiki character usage carefully limits this multiplicity. As many as 80 percent of the graphs that are not reserved as phonographs or used as parts of compounds are associated with only a single logographic reading (Kobayashi Yoshinori 1979b, 73). Relative to everyday writing, the Kojiki maintains more rigorous connections between graphs and words and greater consistency in the indication of grammatical elements and syntactic structure. In an influential study, Inukai Takashi (1996) examined patterns of logograph use ——— 13. For an overview of scholarship on the written style of the Kojiki, see endnote 5.6. 14. Kobayashi Yoshinori dramatizes the simplicity of the characters employed in the Kojiki through a comparison to the modern tōyō kanji 當用漢字 (“characters for current use”), the 1,850 basic characters selected by a government committee in 1946 that form the core of the logographic repertoire of postwar Japanese orthography (on which see Seeley 1991, 152–59; Gottlieb 1995; and Unger 1996). Despite a gap of over twelve centuries, and vast differences in the function and social contexts of writing, more than two-thirds of the 1,480-odd different characters employed in the Kojiki appear on the tōyō kanji list (Kobayashi Yoshinori 1979b, 71–73).

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in the Prince Nagaya household mokkan and the Kojiki. He found that in many cases where the mokkan indiscriminately mixed synonymous characters or assigned multiple, semantically distinct readings to the same character, the Kojiki rigorously distinguished between synonyms and restricted characters to single readings.15 Another important aspect of its prose style is occasional use of phonographs for words that were difficult to write logographically and also, rarely, for particles and auxiliary verbs. As we saw in the previous chapter, there is precedent for this mixed orthography in mokkan, but another distinctive feature of the Kojiki represents a departure from everyday writing: the hundreds of intralinear notes that indicate readings of logographs or alert the reader to strings of phonographs. All of these refinements clarify how readers should make their way through the text, largely by optimizing the kundoku system. Often the immediate result of the simplified use of characters, the inclusion of phonographs, and the addition of notes is that particular words are written precisely, but this occurs only when specification of those words is especially relevant to understanding the text (Komatsu Hideo 1986). When variability in the phonetic shape of a reading does not affect the meaning of a given sentence, the style reverts to its basis: logographs with no attached notes. Ultimately, what makes this system different from that found in mokkan is not phonetic precision for its own sake but rather greater exactitude in eliciting readings consistent with fine shades of meaning, and more concern for guaranteeing breaks and connections in the flow of the prose. (Given that mokkan texts are generally short and embedded in rich contexts, their lack of attention to such issues is unsurprising.) An example of the essential nature of Kojiki prose is provided by the following passage from the first book, which comes at the end of a long description of the goddess Amaterasu preparing for her brother Susano-o’s threatening ascent to the High Heavenly Plain. Also, she girded on awesome bamboo bracers, and, flourishing the inner part of her bow, trod hip-deep into the hardened ground, kicked the earth away like

——— 15. For further comparisons of the written styles of the Kojiki and the Prince Nagaya mokkan, see Kotani 1996 and Tōno 1996c.

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light snow, and blustered with awesome manlike fierceness. Stamping and blustering fiercely, she waited for him and asked, “Why have you come up here?” 亦所取佩伊都此二字以音之竹鞆而、弓腹振立而、堅庭者、於向股蹈那豆 美三字以音、如沫雪蹶散而、伊都二字以音之男建訓建云多祁夫。蹈建而、待 問、何故上來。(KJK 56)

The passage involves a familiar combination of Chinese and Japanese syntactical patterns: the first phrase maintains Chinese Verb-Object order (取佩伊都之竹鞆; itu no2 takato2mo2 wo1 to1ripakasite [“girded on awesome bamboo armguards”]), and the second phrase conforms to Japanese Object-Verb order (弓腹振立; yubara wo1 furitatete [“flourishing the inner part of her bow”]). As in mokkan, characters associated with Chinese grammatical elements (e.g., 而 and 於) maintain the flow of meaning and the relationship between elements of the sentences.16 As a general principle of inscription, mixture of phonographs and logographs is also found in some mokkan, but primarily as transcriptions of vernacular nouns or as annotation of grammatical elements. Both are found in the Kojiki, although the latter, which includes notation of inflections, is comparatively rare there. An even more distinctive feature of the Kojiki style is the extensive annotation that flags phonographic passages and provides readings for certain logographs. Examples in the passage of the phonographic type of note are the words itu 伊都 (“divine,” “dignified,” or “awesome”) and nadumi1 那豆美 (continuative form of a verb meaning “blocked,” “stuck,” or “attached”), which are both accompanied by notes specifying that they are phonographic (e.g., “for these two graphs, use phonetic [readings]” 此二字以音). The Kojiki repertoire of characters used as phonographs is limited and has little overlap with those used as logographs, so explicit annotation of this sort is hardly necessary—and is not found in other contemporary mixed styles, even ones with greater overlaps. Moreover, even assuming that the first occurrence of 伊都 needed to be flagged as phonographic, the identical pair of characters hardly needs the duplicate note included when it recurs a few clauses later. This superfluity is in keeping with the thoroughgoing concern for clarity displayed by this style of writing. ——— 16. For discussions of the syntactical dimensions of the mixed character order in the Kojiki style, see Aldridge 2001a and 2001b.

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But in addition to its practical utility, it can be seen as connoting precision and solicitude for the reader, and also as calling attention to the phonographic use of characters per se, and thus foregrounding the texture of writing in the reading experience. The passage also contains an example of a logographic note: “In reading 建, say ‘take1bu’ ” 訓建云多祁夫. It may seem that such notes are meant to faithfully record pronunciations of particular words, but as Komatsu Hideo (1986, 209–13) demonstrated in a classic extension of Kamei’s basic argument, that is not the case. In the Kojiki, the character 建 is employed to write the name-elements take1 and take1ru, the adjective take1shi (“fierce,” “brave,” “wild”), and the verb take1bu (“shout with fury,” “become enraged,” “behave roughly or fiercely”), but in this context the last reading is the only possible one, so this graph would be read take1bu even without the note.17 Moreover, if the goal were to ensure maximum phonetic accuracy, there are other logographs included in this passage that would need notes as well: 佩, for example, can be read obu or haku, both of which mean “wear” or “attach to the waist.” Komatsu argues that a note is attached to the character 建 here because it stipulates that the verb take1bu be conjugated in the sentence-final form, guaranteeing a break in the flow of the text, and creating a discrete scene of Amaterasu blustering bravely before her interview with her brother. As with other logographic reading notes elsewhere in the Kojiki, this note expresses a concern for clarity and overall structure rather than narrowly specified vocalizations of characters.18 The Kojiki has been called a blend of Chinese and Japanese, but this confuses orthographic variety with linguistic difference. Some portions of the work are written in phonographs, some in a mixture of phonographs and logographs, and some entirely in logographs (sometimes arranged ——— 17. On the graph 建 and its readings, see endnote 5.7. 18. Komatsu demonstrates that logographic notes, and also a few annotations that specify the accents of given vernacular words, all appear when the graphs in question must be read in a particular way for the meaning of a sentence or a name to be properly understood, not just because a graph has multiple possible readings, or is associated with an important or ‘magical’ word. This is a decisive rejection of the idea that the reading notes are attempts to preserve ‘oral’ language for its own sake (as argued, for example, in Konishi 1984, 164).

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consistently with literary Chinese usage), but the kundoku reading process ensures a degree of linguistic homogeneity inconsistent with the idea of a mixture of languages. This does not mean that the language of the Kojiki’s largely logographic prose is identical to that of its phonographically written poems, or with other vernacular works of the eighth century— not to mention the language of actual oral narratives, of whatever provenance. The language of the Kojiki prose is closely related to the everyday quasi-artificial grapholect/calcolect seen in mokkan. The difference is that great pains have been taken to systematize and support the kundoku process so that the work will be as clear as possible. In this process, orally transmitted myths could have functioned only as raw material, and cannot be recovered in an ‘original’ form. The same can be said for the language of the work; it is of course not unrelated to archipelagic speech before the advent of writing, but it provides no direct access to that ‘original’ language, even though Yasumaro’s preface has been read as ensuring that it does. The narrative of the Kojiki itself envisions a model of rulership whose authority is independent of Sinitic textuality, one in which communication between ruler and ruled is presented in oral terms, centered around the ideal of what Kōnoshi Takamitsu terms the “sovereign who listens” (kiku tennō).19 Much as was the case with the Yakushi inscription, this corresponds with an attempt to create a text with an independent style, minimally dependent on Chinese rhetoric and related visions of statecraft. Just as the actual independence (or lack thereof ) of the state and the sovereigns from Sinitic models is a separate matter, so with the style of the Kojiki its significance lies in its attempt to create a new vernacular mode of expression that does not visibly derive from the transregional formal standard. Localizing a Universal Rhetoric: The Nihon shoki Completed only eight years later, the Nihon shoki both overlaps with and departs from the Kojiki (not least because it is the product of a decades——— 19. On the “sovereign who listens,” see Kōnoshi 1999c, and also the recent discussion in Kōnoshi 2007b, an introductory work that also addresses the contrasting treatment of writing in the Wani episodes of the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki (discussed at the end of Chapter 2 of this book).

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long process involving multiple compilers, and probably multiple teams of compilers). It is about four times longer, and far clearer in its treatment of its sources, several of which are explicitly cited.20 It is also more compendious in the period it covers, becoming more detailed just as the Kojiki peters out into a skeletal list of reigns, and devoting the largest proportion of its historical narrative to the decades following the end of that list (essentially, the seventh century). But the most striking contrast is also the most deceptive one. At first glance the Nihon shoki appears to be written in literary Chinese—indeed, if general legibility to readers of that language were the standard, one could simply say that it was in Chinese. But consideration of the context, format, and reception of the work reveal that to be just as problematic a formulation as the designation of the Kojiki as a ‘mixture’ of Chinese and Japanese. THE STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THE NIHON SHOKI

Previous chapters have repeatedly made the point that as a historical source the Nihon shoki is at once problematic and indispensable. As the most important work for research on pre-eighth-century Japan, even today it provides historians with a foundational chronology of events, especially for the seventh century.21 Its authority over the nearly thirteen centuries since its composition has stemmed in part from its use of the rhetorical devices and narrative structures of the tradition of Chinese official dynastic histories, a tradition that began with the Shiji 史記 and solidified with the Hanshu and Hou Hanshu. The title itself announces this affiliation, while simultaneously implying a departure from the Chinese model: whereas the Kojiki suggests a comparatively neutral “record” of ancient matters, the Nihon shoki is explicitly linked to the new state name ‘Japan’ (Nihon)—less than a half-century old in 720—and also to the ——— 20. The Nihon shoki (Kan’ei woodblock edition) contains 182,588 characters (Nakamura Hirotoshi 1968, 650), as opposed to 45,127 (24.7 percent) for the Kojiki (Shinpukuji manuscript) (Kobayashi Yoshinori 1979b, 69). Incidentally, the standard electronic edition of the Man’yōshū (MYS), on which I have relied for the present book, contains 165,501 characters. 21. In addition to the commentary of Kojima et al. 1994–98, starting points for research on the Nihon shoki are provided by Yamada Hideo 1979 and Mori Hiromichi 1999; for guides to secondary material see Kōnoshi 1995b and Kojiki gakkai 1986–2003.

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traditional format of the Chinese official histories. By analogy, the title can be interpreted as “annals” 紀 of the “book” 書 of “Japan” 日本. Using the “book” element derived from the 書 in the title of official histories such as the Hanshu implies continuity with Chinese models of statecraft and official historiography. But there is also a contrast with the rhythm of dynastic rise and fall that drove the compilation of Chinese histories and provided their moral and temporal armature, because the object of this particular ‘history’ is not a particular dynasty but ‘Japan’ itself, from the beginning of the cosmos to the abdication of Jitō Sovereign in the eleventh year of her reign (697).22 This combination of emulation of and departure from Chinese models is replicated on multiple levels, so that, for example, legendary and quasi-legendary sovereigns are evaluated in Confucian terms even as the overall chronology of reigns denies the interruptions of succession called for by the notion of a ‘mandate of heaven’ (though interruptions are nonetheless apparent if one reads between the lines).23 The first two volumes of the Nihon shoki, commonly referred to as the “God Age Volumes” ( jindaikan 神代巻), tell of the beginning of the cosmos, the appearance of gods, the creation of the islands of Japan, and the descent to them of Ninigi, grandson of the gods Takami-musuhi and Amaterasu. This main narrative is interrupted by 58 variant accounts introduced by the formula “a certain book says” (一書曰), clustered as to divide the main narrative into eleven sections. These issho (一書) accounts range from brief notations of alternate deity names to extended stories quite unlike those of the main narrative.24 From the third volume, which concerns Ninigi’s grandson, the putative first sovereign later known as Jinmu, the format changes into temporally ordered annals organized by year of reign (keyed to the 60-year cycle, and thus tied down ——— 22. Whether Nihon shoki is the original title or a very early alternate is not clear, but regardless it exemplifies the fundamental posture of the work. For more on the title, see endnote 5.8. 23. In the limited sense of cosmological sanction for the overthrowing of a decadent reign and its replacement by another hereditary line, it is correct to say that the ‘mandate of heaven’ concept was not adopted in early Japan (Piggott 1997). But the rhetoric of kingship in the Nihon shoki and other works is permeated with the idea that is the core of the concept: that the cosmos endorses or disapproves of the ruler’s statecraft. 24. On the issho accounts, see endnote 5.9.

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to an absolute chronology), and including entries for given months and days. Brief variant accounts still appear occasionally, but not with the frequency and amplitude that are hallmarks of the God Age Volumes. Each sovereign between Jinmu and Jitō (number 40 by the Nihon shoki’s count) has his or her own annal, with a standard format beginning with a description of the sovereign’s character and genealogy, a narrative of circumstances preceding enthronement (即位前紀), and a list of consorts and offspring. After the year, month, and day-ordered annal is complete, there is a concluding notation of the location of the royal tomb.25 THE WRITTEN STYLE OF NIHON SHOKI PROSE

The most direct way to approach the issue of the stylistic difference between these two ‘eighth-century histories’ is with the Nihon shoki passage that corresponds to the Kojiki description of Amaterasu preparing to meet her brother. But such a close parallel involves risks of distortion. The content and style of the Kojiki passage is generally representative of the whole of that work, but the initial two God Age books of the Nihon shoki differ from the remaining 28 in content, format, and style. More representative of the entire work would be such passages as the Shinni episode (discussed in Chapter 2) or the depiction of the coup of 645 (Chapter 3), or the following, which is the entire entry for the 6th day of the 6th month of the final year of Jitō’s reign (697): “[the sovereign] proclaimed that sutras were to be recited in the temples of the capital and the home provinces” 詔讀經於京畿諸寺 (NS II:533 [ Jitō 11/6/6]). Another potential drawback of this juxtaposition is that the closeness of the Amaterasu passages encourages viewing the works as part of a single complex of mythic narratives, the so-called Kiki shinwa 記紀 神話 (“myths of the [Koji]ki and [Nihon sho]ki”), but to understand these works we must focus on their distinctive elements more than on ——— 25. Most volumes are devoted to the complete reigns of individual sovereigns, but seven contain multiple annals (4, 7, 12, 13, 15, 18, 21); the Queen-Consort Jingū 神功 皇后 has one of her own (9); and Tenmu is the subject of two contiguous volumes (28 and 29), the former of which is an extended account of his victory in the succession war of 672.

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their similarities and overlaps.26 And yet, as in the case of the Shaka and Yakushi inscriptions, close parallels can illuminate fundamental differences. Keeping the foregoing reservations in mind, we can approach the style of the Nihon shoki through the following passage from the first of the God Age Volumes: She fastened an awesome resounding bracer onto her arm, flourished upward the tips of her bow, firmly gripped her sword hilt, trod the hardened earth, sinking her thighs into it, and kicked it into bits like light snow. Brandishing awesome manly fierceness/admonition, she put forth an awesome shout of reproof, and directly interrogated him. 臂著稜威之高鞆稜威此云伊都、振起弓彇、急握劒柄、蹈堅庭而陷股、若 沫雪以蹴散蹴散此云倶穢簸邏邏箇須、奮稜威之雄誥雄誥此云嗚多 眉、發稜威之 嘖讓嘖讓此云擧廬毗、而 詰問焉。(NS I:105 [vol. 1, main narrative section 6])

At first glance, this passage seems remarkably similar to its Kojiki counterpart. Both depict the same sequence of events, with the minor exceptions of the Nihon shoki’s addition of “gripping the sword hilt” and the Kojiki’s repetition of “stamping.” Leaving aside for now the notes, which add significant complications to the Nihon shoki passage, other confluences include twelve identical characters (such as 弓, 堅庭, 沫雪, 問) and four closely synonymic pairs (立/起, 如/若, 蹶/蹴, 男/雄). Another parallel is that between the Kojiki’s 竹鞆 “bamboo bracers” and the Nihon shoki’s 高鞆 “resounding bracers.” Both are read takato2mo2, and can be seen as contrasting graphic interpretations of the same underlying vernacular word. Extensive parallels of this sort underlie the traditional attempts to reconstruct a putative corpus of ‘native’ ‘oral’ myths that existed before the Kojiki and Nihon shoki were written. Of course, there is little chance that these two passages could be completely independent. Whether written or oral, common sources must explain parallels of this sort (and the ear——— 26. The phonetic repetition of the abbreviation kiki produces a powerfully unitary impression which may well have contributed to, and certainly reflects, the approach that dominated modern scholarship on the myths of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki until the 1980s. But since then this line of thinking has been thoroughly undermined, most prominently by Kōnoshi Takamitsu (see especially 1999a, 1999d, and 2007b). In English, see Kōnoshi 2000 and Ooms 2009, 28–48.

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lier date of the Kojiki means that it itself could have been drawn upon in the final stages of the compilation of the Nihon shoki). But the methodological limitations on such a project of reconstruction are severe. As with writing and language themselves—indeed, as with all aspects of early Japanese culture—even the earliest extant sources attest to complex interactions among various ‘Chinese,’ ‘Korean,’ and ‘Japanese’ elements. The goal of resurrecting a pure distillation of the last of these is as chimerical as it is ideologically charged. Moreover, focusing overmuch on parallels in discrete episodes like this one distracts from the stark differences in the overall thematic structures of the works, differences that vitiate the apparent similarities when parallel details are placed in context. An example of a contrast created within apparently identical narratives (or even language) is the “manly bluster” of Amaterasu, which carries a different significance in the bipolar yin/yang cosmos of the Nihon shoki than in the more protean world of the Kojiki. Such cosmological and ideological differences are intimately related to the stylistic divergence of the two Amaterasu passages, which contrasts sharply with the initial impression of similarity. Where the Kojiki departed from literary Chinese norms in numerous and striking ways, the Nihon shoki maintains them almost ostentatiously. The characters of this passage are entirely in Chinese syntactic order, and with few exceptions are arranged into regular groups of four and six graphs. The Kojiki relies on repetition of a few characters denoting grammatical elements—most prominently 而, 者, and 也—and logographic reading notes to punctuate the text, but the Nihon shoki depends on this four/ six pattern, on overall adherence to literary Chinese word order, and on more orthodox and variegated use of grammatical characters (for example, in this passage, 而—less obtrusively than in the Kojiki—but also 以 and 焉). The Nihon shoki also employs the vocabulary of literary Chinese, as seen in several of the bigraphic compounds here, such as 稜威 (C. lengwei “divine majesty”; examples in the Wenxuan) and 詰問 (C. jiewen “interrogate”; examples in Hanshu and Hou Hanshu). Many of the compounds do not have obvious literary Chinese precedents, but they are grounded in normal usage of the component characters, so the passage is legible as literary Chinese, odd though some collocations may be. In this it is typical of the prose of the entire Nihon shoki, wherein debts to Sinitic sources range from incorporating literary Chinese com-

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pounds, to adapting longer passages from Chinese works, to incorporating them wholesale.27 But that the Nihon shoki could be read as Chinese does not mean that it necessarily was, or that its compilers intended it to be. As we have seen, kundoku reading techniques, already prevalent by the early eighth century, dominated everyday inscription, were being used to construe imported works, and provided the foundation for the Kojiki’s prose style. With no more than that context, it would already be difficult to baldly assert that the Nihon shoki was ‘written in Chinese.’ But there is further internal evidence for the importance of Japanese-language reading as, at the very least, one of the options for the reception of this work: the intralinear reading notes that are so prominent in the Amaterasu passage. Unlike those of the Kojiki passage, which combined superfluous phonograph indicators with a logographic reading note that clarified the punctuation of the prose, the notes of the Nihon shoki passage do add linguistic information that is not present in the characters of the main text. In light of the ever-present possibility of kundoku, they determine elements of Japanese-language reading, although their format suggests they have other functions as well. The four notes all use phonograph characters to indicate vernacular readings for bigraphic compounds: (1) 稜威此云伊都 (2) 蹴散此云倶穢簸邏邏箇須 (3) 雄誥此云嗚多 眉 (4) 嘖讓此云擧廬毗

i tu

As for 稜威, here it is 伊都 k uwep a r a r a k a s u As for 蹴散, here it is 倶穢簸邏邏箇須 wo t a k e b i As for 雄誥, here it is 嗚多 眉 kor o p i As for 嘖讓, here it is 擧廬毗

Applying the readings itu (“divine purity,” “awesomeness”) to 稜威 (“awesome majesty”) and ko2ro2pi1 (“upbraid loudly”) to 嘖讓 (“berate and criticize harshly”) involves relatively straightforward translation——— 27. One exception to the overall literary Chinese legibility of the passage is the character 鞆 (tomo, “bracer”), which is unattested in Chinese sources and thought to be a domestic creation, or kokuji 國字. But on the graphic level of this passage, the anomaly represented by this character is not a disruption of the fundamental principles of literary Chinese inscription. The graph appears to have been produced by the combination (sanctioned by the Shuowen jiezi but vanishingly rare in actual Chinese characters) of a semantic determinative denoting leather 革 and a visual representation of the bracer, 丙 (on principles of character structure see the third section of Chapter 7). For more on the connections between the Nihon shoki and literary Chinese, see endnote 5.10.

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equivalents. Kuwepararakasu for 蹴散 (“kick and scatter”) specifies an otherwise unattested verb for “scatter” ( pararakasu); in absence of the note the graph 散 would be read with the much more common tirasu, as in the parallel Kojiki passage, but the core meaning of “render into scattered pieces” is the same. These three terms are generally consistent with the kundoku expectation of a firm semantic equivalence between Japanese readings and the Chinese words associated with their characters, but the collocation 雄誥 is unprecedented—or at least exceedingly rare—in literary Chinese sources. Based on the individual senses of the component characters, it means something like “manly admonition.” The character 誥 (C. gao) is associated with orders handed down by a ruler, and as the editors of the most recent Nihon shoki commentary point out, its use here elevates Amaterasu to that position with respect to her brother (Kojima et al. 1994-98, I:64n1). But the reading note departs considerably from this meaning, pairing the graph with our familiar take1bi2, (“bluster” or “act fiercely”). This creates a double layer of meaning, in which the graph and its specified reading signify in parallel, but with a surprising degree of independence. The result is a complex compound of “admonition,” with its associations of regal command and inherent hierarchy, and the vivid though less politically colored image of “blustering fiercely.” This kind of interplay between logographs and their written phonetic glosses has persisted as a resource for Japanese inscription right up to the present (see Ariga 1989). As shown in the following chapter’s discussion of Man’yōshū writing, in sufficiently robust contexts it is possible for graphs to be paired with expressively divergent readings even without notes providing specific glosses. This case of “fierce admonition” is not a dramatic departure from but rather a natural extension of the kundoku process, and as such it points to an essential characteristic of the Nihon shoki style, and of other works with Chinese-style inscription. As with the Shaka inscription, the written style of the Nihon shoki hews to literary Chinese precedents, staking an implicit claim to authority grounded in cross-cultural orthographic universals. But this is one layer of the text, and a primarily—though not exclusively—visual one. The accompanying vocalization, whether potential or actual, has a flexible relationship to the Chinese language that is the ultimate source and grounding of the orthodox written style. It is possible, in principle, to

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vocalize writings of this style in Chinese, but that is not necessary: their vocalization can strike off in a more independent direction. They are legible in the languages of Koguryŏ, Paekche, or Silla, but also in Japanese; and it is this final possibility that is explicitly acknowledged and regulated by the reading notes of the Nihon shoki. Their incorporation of unusual vocabulary like pararakasu, or pairing of expressively dissonant takebi words and characters, as in 誥 , are extreme examples of the inherent echoing and interaction between characters and their various possible readings that form the core of writing in early Japan. The reading notes in this passage vividly demonstrate that the authority of Chinese-style writing, as such, can coexist with claims for a different kind of authority grounded in non-Chinese vernacular language. But the overall character of the reading notes of the Nihon shoki adds to the complexity of the situation. They are less straightforward than those of the Kojiki, and much about them remains controversial. Perhaps most striking is the significance of the standard format maintained by all 314 of them: X 此云 Y, “as for X, here it is Y,” where X is one or more logographic characters (often a bigraphic compound), and Y is a phonographic indication of its Japanese reading.28 The traditional understanding of this format was that the demonstrative pronoun 此 (C. ci) recapitulated the subject of the note (the graph or graphs being glossed): X, kore wo ba Y to ifu “as for X, this is said Y.” But postwar scholarship has emphasized that the format of the Nihon shoki reading notes is derived from annotations of non-Sinitic words in Buddhist travelogues like the DaTang Xiyuji 大唐西域記 (646) of Xuanzang. This suggests that 此 is not a recapitulative “this” but a locative “here,” and there is disagreement about how to interpret it. Some have argued for “here in the text of the Nihon shoki” (allowing for different readings of the same graphs in other contexts), whereas others insist that 此 must be taken along ——— 28. Rendering 云 [C. yun] as the English copula reflects its use to designate equivalence in commentaries, but a more literal rendering would be “says Y” (the standard kundoku reading of 云 Y is Y to ifu); it essentially means “is read as Y.” For a convenient list of all the Nihon shoki reading notes, see Obata 1988, 406–22. It is important to bear in mind that these reading notes (訓注) are one of several categories of intralinear notation in the work. A general survey of all types of Nihon shoki notes can be found in Kojima 1962, 297–313.

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the lines of the Buddhist/Chinese precedents, as “here in Japan.”29 Of course, it could be seen as having both nuances, but the important point is what the format communicates by echoing a Sinitic precedent. The result is the imposition of yet another layer onto the text. Absent the notes, the style of the Nihon shoki prose is at once consistent with literary Chinese (meaning that it is legible ‘in Chinese’) and available for kundoku reading in Japanese (or, for that matter, one of the Korean languages). The vernacular content of the notes affirms the possibility of kundoku reading, while also forcing it further from direct translation, into paraphrase and beyond, in a manner that can be taken as an implicit claim that a vernacular narrative underlies the Sinicized surface of the text. Using the ‘foreign gloss’ format from works like the Xiyuji emphasizes this separation between the orthodox surface and its local reading, foregrounding the linguistic distinctiveness of the vernacular. Much like other non-reading notes that gloss aspects of the culture of early Japan that would be obvious to anyone who lived there, the reading notes could perhaps be said to pose as assistance for a Korean or Chinese ‘foreign’ reader. But the glosses indicate, not the universally comprehensible literary Chinese, but locally restricted phonograph readings that would be opaque to anyone without Japanese-language competence. The potential outward orientation, if it is to be recognized at all, is therefore more a surface claim than an actualized component of the text. Even so, it is clear that the format of the reading notes serves to reinforce the ‘universality’ of the Nihon shoki’s orthodox prose style, implicitly holding vernacularization at arm’s length. Reading notes are not evenly distributed throughout the Nihon shoki. More than half of them (178 of 314) are concentrated in the first 3 of the 30 books: the God Age Volumes and the first annalistic book, which is devoted to Jinmu. There is some fluctuation in the prevalence of reading notes in the remaining 27, only one of which (the Tenji annal) has none, ——— 29. Once the reading tradition had established 此 as “this,” that meaning would have been primary for readers of the Nihon shoki, and even before it is attested such an interpretation would have been possible. Helpful overviews of the debates about the reading notes of the Nihon shoki are provided by Mōri 2002 and Yamaguchi Yoshinori 1995b; Kamei 1957 also includes a seminal discussion of this still-unresolved problem. For more extensive discussion see Koizumi 1992 and Nishimiya 1993.

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but their presence is never as overwhelming as in the early books. This pattern is connected to the mythic and legendary content of the earlier sections of the Nihon shoki. We might surmise that perhaps the compilers confronted a large body of material reflecting older strata of the vernacular language. But more importantly—and less speculatively—they seem to have aimed to foster the sense that such a body of material underlay the Sinicized, universal rhetoric of the work. The content and format of the reading notes therefore serve paradoxically to at once bind together and hold apart the universalized text and its potential vernacular vocalization. In doing so the notes help to establish the trajectory of the work’s reception, but they also enable it to fulfill demands that seem to have been placed on it at its inception. The writing of the Nihon shoki has a paradoxical relationship to the Kojiki’s vernacular style, diametrically opposed in surface adherence to transregional Sinitic norms, but on another level parallel in the manipulation of kundoku to create a local logographic mode. Written Style and Authority in the Eighth Century The Kojiki and Nihon shoki have different approaches to balancing literary Chinese structures of meaning, allusion, and reference, on the one hand, and the assignment of Japanese linguistic forms to writing, on the other. But it is essential to realize that both works do involve such a balancing process. The reading notes of the Nihon shoki, especially in its beginning sections, explicitly address the association of literary Chinese graphs with particular Japanese terms, whereas in the Kojiki the reading notes are aimed more at fostering particular syntactic constructions and clarifying the meaning of certain terms, mostly proper nouns. However, if we consider the role of Chinese lexicographical precedents in Yasumaro’s selection of characters and refinement of everyday vernacular styles, it is clear that there is a strong subterranean literary Chinese influence in his work as well. Where the Nihon shoki keeps the written text and its kundoku reading in parallel, linked at times by reading notes, the Kojiki combines writing and Japanese-language reading into a single fabric. Especially given the obviously artificial quality of so many Kojiki locutions, it is difficult to construe this contrast in terms of one of the two being ‘more faithful’ than the other to vernacular language.

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The variant accounts (issho) that are such a prominent part of the beginning portions of the Nihon shoki are often interpreted as traces of varied oral myths predating the processes of Sinicization and ideological unification enacted by the Nihon shoki itself. It is likely that the ultimate sources for much of this material are preliterate, though reconstructing a version ‘uncontaminated’ by writing is impossible. But more important than such speculation is the point that these variant accounts emphasize the authority of writing through the very format with which they are introduced: “a certain book says” 一書曰. To some extent this extensive reference to alternate versions involves an implicit claim to a literate culture marked by large numbers of books.30 But the issho are made possible by the authority claimed by the work as a whole, and asserted, prominently, by its orthodox style of writing. It is precisely because the compilers have the power, as official historians, to determine the main line of the narrative that they are free to include variant accounts. Rather than weakening the authority of the main narrative to which they are subordinated, the issho exist only because of its solidity. Much the same can be said for the kundoku specified by the reading notes, and by extension for the general kundoku of the entire work: at the very least as a possibility, it is an inherent part of the style, but nonetheless it is subordinated to the literary Chinese graphic form of the text. It is important to remember that isolated juxtaposition of the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki can be misleading. There were a variety of other attempts to create histories in the late seventh and early eighth centuries, as is apparent from the organization of the Nihon shoki itself, from references to editorial projects there and in other sources, from traces of alternate chronologies (like the 538 date for the “advent of Buddhism” mentioned in Chapter 3), and from citations in later works of lost texts like the Jōgūki 上宮記. We tend to see the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, anachronistically, as a pair, but in the eighth century they were surrounded by other competing works (and, apparently, by abridgements and other ——— 30. The implication by the issho accounts that there are many books in circulation is vitiated somewhat by the lack of titles in these general citations. Some scholars argue that the texts cited as issho are not independent accounts but draft materials prepared as part of the compilation of the Nihon shoki itself.

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reworkings of the Nihon shoki itself, such as the Rekiroku 暦録).31 One of the reasons it was appropriate to begin this chapter with the Shaka and Yakushi inscriptions from Hōryūji is that when and how they came to be juxtaposed with one another is not clear. In the case of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, we have a clearer understanding of the relatively recent emergence of an exclusive pairing of the two as the ‘chronicles’ or Kiki 記紀, but it is no less problematic to unquestioningly project that pairing back to the period in which the works originated. Moreover, if we wonder why two works with so many overlaps and commonalities were both required, we should remember that their production was not a matter of ‘the court’ simply deciding that ‘we’ve got the Kojiki, let’s have the Nihon shoki too,’ or ‘we’re making the Nihon shoki, but we’ll commission the Kojiki as well.’ The actual circumstances of official or quasi-official patronage are much more complex. Viewed with sufficient skepticism, Yasumaro’s preface to the Kojiki can be read as a retroactive justification, as a claim of official approval or sponsorship after the fact, in which the founding role played by the sovereigns Tenmu and Genmei is exaggerated in true courtier-author fashion (see Chartier 1995). In approaching the Nihon shoki as well, we also need to keep in mind the obvious point that its identity as the first of the Six National Histories (rikkokushi 六國史) is retroactive. There are signs even in the eighth century that it had considerable authority—in its treatment in the Shoku Nihongi (discussed below) and in the way it is quoted in other sources, including the Man’yōshū—but its position at the beginning of a sustained project to produce Japanese equivalents to the Chinese dynastic histories still has the potential to distort our understanding of the circumstances and significance of its initial compilation. KOJIKI AND NIHON SHOKI: NARRATIVES OF INCEPTION AND RECEPTION

The traditional literary-historical separation between the significance of a work at its inception and in its subsequent reception is at best a heuristic device, and in the case of the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki it is particularly difficult to maintain. The most intimate, and often the earliest, ——— 31. On the Jōgūki and the Rekiroku, see endnote 5.11.

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stage of reception of a work lies in what Gerard Genette (1997 [1987]) referred to as its paratexts: titles, prefaces, tables of contents, blurbs, and so on. To these might be added the satellite pieces of writing generated by official state promulgation. It appears that both the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki aspired to official status, but only the latter achieved it. The Kojiki has a preface but lacks any references in the official history of the period in which it was completed; the Nihon shoki lacks a preface, but there is a clear—though not unproblematic—reference to its completion in the 797 Shoku Nihongi. The annal for 720, the fifth year of the reign of Genshō Sovereign 元正天皇 (r. 715–24) includes the following entry: Earlier, Prince Toneri (first royal rank) had received a royal order to compile the Nihongi [Annals of Japan]. Now, he had achieved success, and submitted it to the throne. There were 30 volumes of annals and 1 volume of genealogical tables. 先是、一品舎人親王奉勅修日本紀。至是功成奏上。紀卅巻、系圖一 巻。(SN II:72 [Yōrō 4/5/21])

This entry refers to the final stage of what seems to have been a long and complex compilation process, involving several groups of scholars (some of Chinese or Korean origin) and originating with history-editing initiatives ordered by Tenmu, as described in the Kojiki preface and the Nihon shoki itself.32 In the absence of a preface, this short entry provides the most immediate framework for situating the Nihon shoki—a framework that links it to the continued enterprise of compiling the Shoku Nihongi and the four other official works that, along with the Nihon shoki, make up the Six National Histories mentioned earlier. These works, the promulgation of which spans nearly two centuries between 720 and the beginning of the tenth century, implicitly endorse the Nihon shoki’s

——— 32. Many accounts of this process are devoted to speculation on the role played by putatively pre-existing “imperial chronicles” (teiki 帝紀) and “ancient dicta” (kyūji 舊辞), but these terms are better considered as rhetorical elements of the Kojiki preface than as works whose features can be extrapolated from the existing texts of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki (see Kōnoshi 1983b). On Prince Toneri, see endnote 5.12.

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project of linking antiquity to the present realm by continuing its annalistic record, unbroken at least in principle all the way back to Jinmu.33 The details of subsequent reception history are beyond the scope of this book, but a brief overview here will further underline the significance of the stylistic contrast between these eighth-century histories. Until the eighteenth century, the Nihon shoki overshadowed the Kojiki so profoundly that it would not be a major distortion of intellectual history to ignore the latter entirely. To the extent that it was taken up by scholars and commentators before the kokugaku (國学 “native philology”) movement, the Kojiki (like a variety of other early works, including the Kogo shūi and the Sendai kuji hongi) was simply an adjunct to the work of reading and interpreting the Nihon shoki, especially the initial God Age Volumes.34 The Nihon shoki, on the other hand, quickly became the object of veneration and intense scholarly interest. Official lectures (kōsho 講書) on it were held at the Heian court on multiple occasions from the early ninth through the mid-tenth centuries, and there is evidence of scholarly discussion of it as early as the eighth century. There are several extant “personal records” (shiki 私記) of these lectures, which include simple notes on readings of terms and dialogues on questions of interpretation.35 The most important source for the early reception of the Nihon shoki is the Shaku Nihongi, compiled by Urabe Kanekata 卜部兼方 (fl. late thirteenth century). Based on lectures given in 1274 and 1275 by his father Kanefumi 兼文 (fl. mid-thirteenth century), this is a giant compilation of Heian period scholarship. At the center of this commentarial enterprise was the establishment of correct kundoku readings for the entire work, which amounted to a continuation of the basic structure sketched out by the reading notes ——— 33. The four histories that follow the 797 Shoku Nihongi are the 840 Nihon kōki 日本 後紀, the 866 Shoku Nihon kōki 續日本後紀, the 879 Nihon Montoku Tennō jitsuroku 日本 文徳天皇實録, and the 901 Nihon sandai jitsuroku 日本三代實録. For a survey of the Six National Histories in English, see Sakamoto Tarō 1991. 34. For an English-language overview of the reception of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, see Kōnoshi 2000; a recent discussion of the kokugaku revaluation of the former from the perspective of intellectual history can be found in Burns 2003. A basic reference on the reception of these works is provided by Kōnoshi 1995b. 35. On the shiki, see endnote 5.13.

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contained in the text of the Nihon shoki itself. The result was a reading tradition distinct in several ways from more general kundoku practice. As outlined by Tsukishima Hiroshi (1965, 128–81), the unusual characteristics of traditional Nihon shoki readings include: (1) almost no on’yomi readings; (2) loose translations that depart from the literal meaning/ reading of characters; (3) use of vocabulary not found in records of kundoku of other materials, but found in Heian vernacular prose works; (4) use of older vocabulary not employed in more general kundoku practice; and (5) special expressions limited to the reading of the Nihon shoki.36 One reason to reject the notion that the use of literary Chinese style and rhetoric in the Nihon shoki was somehow strained, or contradictory to its ideological project, is the overwhelming success of the work, which greatly depended on the role that kundoku played in its reception. It is characteristic of its many contrasts with the Nihon shoki that the Kojiki makes no appearance in the official historical record of the Shoku Nihongi. This discrepancy has given rise to doubts about the authenticity of Yasumaro’s preface itself, although the 1979 discovery of his grave marker weakened the skeptical case considerably.37 The preface tells an elaborate tale of multigenerational sponsorship by Tenmu and his niece (Tenji’s daughter) Genmei Sovereign, linked by a much-debated claim that the mysterious Hieda no Are somehow underwrote the linguistic authenticity of the work through “reciting and learning” 誦習 earlier historical materials (see Lurie 2001, 292–96). Once this somewhat unconvincing link to ancient narratives has been made, Yasumaro’s preface turns to a description of the style he adopted for the prose of the main text: In high antiquity words and meanings were both forthright; spreading out sentences and constructing phrases, it is very hard to put them in writing. If one compiles them completely in accordance with the readings of the characters, the words do not extend to the meaning; if one strings them together totally relying on the sounds of the characters, the impression of the passage becomes very long. Herewith, at present, I sometimes used both sounds and readings

——— 36. On kundoku of the Nihon shoki, see endnote 5.14. 37. On arguments about the authenticity of the Kojiki and its preface, see endnote 5.15.

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within a single phrase; I sometimes recorded only with readings inside a single passage. Thus, when the logic of the words was hard to see, I clarified it with notes; when the form of the meaning was easy to understand, I did not annotate at all. 上古之時、言意並朴、敷文構句、於字即難。已因訓述者、詞不逮 心。全以音連者、事趣更長。是以今、或一句之中、交用音訓、或一 事之内、全以訓録。即、辭理 見、以注明、意况易解、更非注。 (KJK 24)

This famous passage has been taken as a blanket statement of the difficulty of writing ‘in Japanese’ in this period, but a more accurate interpretation is that it provides a rationale for the specific mode of logography, with phonographic adjuncts and notes, that was apparent in the Amaterasu passage examined earlier. Yasumaro is explaining—and justifying—the manner in which the prose of the Kojiki, while remaining primarily logographic, departs so dramatically from the stylistic norms of literary Chinese writings. The purported connection to ancient (vocalized) narratives is cited as the reason for this departure, but I would argue that a contributing factor to the development of the Kojiki’s innovative and unusual style was actually the reverse relationship: the written style may be motivating the claim about archaic language. The Nihon shoki shows that it is possible— at least in principle—to hew to the surface patterning of orthodox literary Chinese writing and simultaneously project, through kundoku, an ‘oral’ antecedent to that ‘surface’ text (although, as already stressed, the authenticity of that antecedent cannot be established). It is therefore possible to suspect, reading between the lines of Yasumaro’s preface narrative, that the Kojiki style was arrived at not because recording ‘old language’ necessitated avoiding a literary Chinese stylistic veneer, but because avoiding that stylistic veneer itself necessitated a new, more directly kundoku-based style of writing, which in turn was justified through the implication that it was both based on ‘recitations’ and necessary to be faithful to them. The usual understanding, partly derived from a misreading of the links between language and writing in Yasumaro’s claims about style, is that he had to avoid ‘writing in Chinese’ to preserve the ‘native’ Japanese language. Awareness of kundoku, and careful reading of the preface, make it clear that the salient contrast is not between the Chinese and

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Japanese languages, as such, but rather between the orthodox, transregional style of formal writing and the purportedly ‘ancient language’ reflected in the Kojiki. But beyond this matter of understanding what Yasumaro claims, I am proposing that he engineered this new prose style in an attempt to avoid orthodox Chinese writing, and then justified that new style with claims about old language (claims that are themselves paradoxically tied up with written records). Nothing could be more symptomatic of the influences he wished to avoid than the way the preface itself so naturally assumes the form of elaborate Chinese-style parallel prose, grounded in a four-/six-character rhythm and larded with direct borrowings from, and indirect references to, the classical Chinese cosmological and political canon. Another, more pertinent paradox is the depth of literary Chinese influence on the underlying structure of the logographic prose style of the main text of the Kojiki. Although Yasumaro achieved a clear and effective means of writing that on its surface was not literary Chinese, he continued to rely on that orthodox style of writing for the determination of fine shades of logographic meaning, and also depended on grammatical markers (e.g., 而 and 者) as an armature connecting and separating phrases and clauses. Given the importance of the claimed connection to ‘ancient language’ itself, there obviously must have been reasons for maintaining these connections rather than writing entirely phonographically. (Composing entirely in phonographs would not actually dispel the influence of the literary Chinese style, but it would conceal it more thoroughly.) The preface itself addresses this question, claiming that “if one strings together” the words of antiquity “totally relying on the sounds of the characters, the impression of the passage becomes very long,” but as with so many other aspects of this convoluted text, this does not tell the whole story. Certainly, brevity could have been a major consideration: the Amaterasu passage from the Kojiki that was examined above contains 45 graphs (excluding the notes), whereas a fully phonographic transcription (of the Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū [KJK] reading) would contain 91. This particular passage already contains a fair amount of phonography, so if the entire Kojiki had been written out syllable by syllable, it would have been over twice as long as it is. But a crucial aspect of the writing in the Kojiki is passed over in silence by the preface: all

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112 of the ‘songs’ are spelled out phonographically, without exception. This suggests that brevity was not the sole consideration and that genre obviously played a role in the selection of style. As examined in depth in the following chapter, there are structural features of verse that can make it more congenial for all-phonograph inscription, but the reverse is also true: there seem to be aspects of prose that suit it to logographic inscription. One is the aforementioned problem of punctuation: indicating breaks, continuities, and transitions. But another factor in favor of logographic writing (one which, as discussed in the following chapter, also pertains to poetry) is its inherent authority as the normal or expected method of inscription. As mentioned earlier, the excessive inclusion of phonographic notes (onchū) in the Kojiki can be seen as an effort to foreground that aspect of the style, in tandem with its explicit description in the preface. But the logographic notes (kunchū), contrastingly, only appear in special cases: the vast majority of logographs are unaccompanied by any notation, which in itself is an implicit recognition of the propriety or normality of logographic inscription. It may have been difficult to conceive of a formal piece of writing that did not adhere, at least in general, to the principle of logography. Another striking case of the continued vitality of this form of inscription despite strong ideological connections to spoken language is that of the vernacular royal proclamations (senmyō) of the eighth century, in which the putative voice of the ruler is inscribed and provisionally embodied, in preparation for official public vocalization by a designated official mouthpiece. Accordingly, this chapter concludes with a brief examination of the written style of this distinctive early Japanese genre. THE IDEOLOGY OF MIXED WRITING: ROYAL PROCLAMATIONS AND THE SHOKU NIHONGI

Government documents of early Japan are generally written in one of two broad styles: formal, literary Chinese style, pure logography; and informal kundoku-influenced logography, clarified in some cases by phonographic adjuncts. The most important exception to this pattern is the written style of the vernacular royal proclamations, which are highly formal but nonetheless employ a striking mixture of logographs and phonographs. The hallmark of senmyōgaki 宣命書き (“proclamation style”) is that phonographs indicating many (though not all) particles and

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inflections are added to a core of logographic characters. The opening sentence from an original draft senmyō of 757 that survives in the Shōsōin documents will suffice to demonstrate the characteristic repetition and lofty tone of these proclamations.38 The phonographic adjuncts (lowercase in the transcription) are generally written smaller and to the right of the logographic characters, sometimes in two columns. I proclaim: everyone shall lend their ears to the great command proclaimed as that which is the command of the Sovereign. 天皇我大命良末等宣布大命乎、衆聞食倍止宣 SUMERA ga OPOMI1KO2TO2rama to2 NO2RITAMApu OPOMI1KO2TO2 wo, MO2RO2MO2RO2 KI1KI1TAMApe1 to2 NO2RU

The most-studied such proclamations are those found in the Shoku Nihongi, which contains 62 of them in the standard division, spanning the 92 years between 697 and 789.39 Despite their careful notation, which supported the public vocal performance of these texts by officials designated to read them, the language and rhetoric of the senmyō is far from primeval orality, as they employ many structures and locutions derived from literary Chinese writings mediated through kundoku (Kotani 1986). Much like the Yaku——— 38. For transcriptions of the entire draft proclamation, summary of its contents, and discussion of the circumstances in which it was written, see SN III:512–13 (supplementary note XX-2). For English-language introductions to the senmyō of the Shoku Nihongi, see Sansom 1924; Linn 1950; and Bender 2007 and 2009, which represent the initial stages of an ongoing project devoted to these important texts. 39. The Nihon shoki proclamations are in the formal literary Chinese style, a register also employed for some official proclamations even in the Shoku Nihongi and subsequent histories that include senmyō as well. The standard division and count of the Shoku Nihongi senmyō are those of Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 in his classic 1803 commentary, Rekichō shōshikai 歴朝詔詞解 (MNZ VII). Essentially the same style of writing is employed in the 27 norito 祝詞 prayers included in the 927 Engi shiki 延喜式 (KT XXVI; for commentaries, transcriptions, and translations, see Kurano and Takeda 1958; Kaneko 1998; Aoki 2000; and Philippi 1990). The extensive stylistic commonalities between senmyō and this other formal, publicly performed vernacular genre led some mid-twentieth-century scholars to treat them together as a “literature of report and proclamation” 奏宣の文学 (coined by Andō Tametsugu [1935, 35–90] and adopted by Kurano Kenji [1943, 328– 451]).

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shi inscription and the prose of the Kojiki, these proclamations are concerned more with producing texts that can be convincingly vocalized than with reproducing pre-existing orality in writing. They are attempts to assert royal authority through the voice, that is, through a projection of the body or presence of the Sovereign, delegated by means of the text itself to the official reader-surrogate.40 Some scholars refer to all texts with mixed logographic and phonographic orthography as being written in senmyōgaki, but this obscures important underlying differences. Senmyō were formal attempts to manifest the royal voice, although this manifestation is better imagined as an act of construction rather than of recording. Mixed logograph/phonograph mokkan and paper documents, on the other hand, were produced in an environment where the priority was on clear and speedy communication rather than ceremonial grandeur. Given the nature of kundoku and the availability of phonograph systems, we need not postulate a direct evolutionary link between quotidian mixed writing and senmyō texts, but if there is a connection it is likely that senmyō represent the adaptation and refinement of practices that arose in everyday, practical settings. Such a course of development has interesting parallels with the creation of the styles of the Yakushi inscription and the Kojiki, and in fact it is not impossible that both were influenced by prior adaptation of everyday writing in the senmyō themselves. There are two different contexts for eighth-century senmyō: the actual vernacular proclamations that were drafted and delivered by the organs of the ritsuryō state from Heijō and the other capitals; and the 62 proclamations incorporated into the annalistic narrative of the Shoku Nihongi. There is very little direct evidence of proclamations in the first sense; in addition to the 757 draft proclamation quoted above (which was not included in the Shoku Nihongi), the Shōsōin documents also contain a document that overlaps with portions of senmyō 23, and there are mokkan from the Fujiwara palace site that appear to carry portions of drafts. The proclamations of the Shoku Nihongi are probably quite close to the versions that were actually read out loud before assembled officials, but still, as we have them, they are embedded in the context of that history, where they amount to representations of representations of vocal ——— 40. On senmyō and authorship, see endnote 5.16.

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performances. Traditional scholarly discussion focuses on dating the origin of the senmyō. One influential line of thinking has been to propose that the Chinese-style proclamations included in the Nihon shoki are rewritings of earlier vernacular senmyō-style texts. But rather than speculating in this manner, one might well ask why the opposite is not the case: that is, why were the vernacular proclamations in the Shoku Nihongi not rewritten in formal Chinese-style logography? If representation of specific vocalization was so important, on the other hand, then why is it that these proclamations were not written entirely phonographically, but with a mixed system whose logographic portions still required kundoku reading, and thus involved the variation and ambiguity inherent in that process? Within the context of the Shoku Nihongi, the mixed orthography of the senmyō marks these proclamations as the intrusion of a different register into the narrative, much like the phonographically inscribed ‘songs’ of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. In this sense, the shift from one style of inscription to another is inherently communicative. This observation provides the beginning of an answer to the first question, but it leaves open the second one, which asks why senmyō are not spelled out phonographically. Here, as with the prose of the Kojiki, it seems that the principal contributing factors were the ability of logographic style to clarify breaks and continuities, and the inherent authority and normativity of that mode of writing. This persistence of logography is in many ways the central issue of the history of Japanese writing. It is the focus of the following chapter, which considers it from the perspective provided by the poetry of the Man’yōshū.

SIX

The Poetry of Writing: The Man’yōshū and Its Contexts

The sovereign formula in all reading is that we must pass to judgment of details from judgment of the whole. It is always rash and usually disastrous to reverse the process. —I. A. Richards Spring at Naniwa, in the province of Tsu—was it but a dream? The wind rustles across the withered leaves of the reeds. Tu no kuni no Nanifa no faru wa yume nare ya Asi no karefa ni kaze wataru nari 津の國の難波の春は夢なれや蘆のかれ葉に風わたる也 —Saigyō

A place to begin discussion of the Man’yōshū is with the traditional distinction between verse and poetry. The former is a mode of language marked by repeated sound patterns, measured in terms of quantity (groups of set counts of syllables, accents, feet) and quality (assonance, alliteration, rhyme, and other phonic echoes). The latter is a socially defined genre of high status and expected aesthetic value, the composition and appreciation of which are often monopolized or dominated by specialist groups. Verse has typically been, and often still is, considered to be a formal characteristic of poetry, but there are good reasons for maintaining a clear distinction between the two: not all verse language

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is necessarily sanctioned as poetry, and conversely much that is not verse has been accepted as poetry, especially since the rise of Modernism.1 The question addressed by this chapter is how verse—which employs elevated vocabulary, complex syntax, and repetition of sounds—is related to strings of characters that inscribe it as poetry. That is to say, it considers poems as valued and prestigious items of writing, with distinctive aesthetic effects embedded in the texture of their inscription itself. In the Man’yōshū, graphs are used in ways that involve internal aesthetic effects based on glottographic connections between characters and words, or among characters within a given poem, or across multiple poems. These effects can be opposed to calligraphy or typography, in that the latter realms of written aesthetics are—in principle, at least— external to the linguistic functioning of writing. A division between verse and poetry is necessary for a full understanding of the development of writing in early Japan, but it is important to acknowledge that there are few signs of a formal distinction between such categories in contemporary sources. References to Chinese-style belletristic writing employ Sinitic genre categories, the most relevant of which is shi 詩, “poetry,” but the dominant vernacular Japanese term is uta, “song,” most commonly written with the logograph 歌 (C. ge). In a sense this last word adds a third concept to the verse/poetry pair with which we began: that of vocally produced melody (which, once again, is closely related to but not coextensive with verse). Scholars in pursuit of the origins of Japanese poetry have made much of the link with vocal music that is suggested by the term uta, but extant sources present no clear path to trace the ‘songs’ in eighth-century texts to the preliterate oral performances that must be among their forebears. Early Japanese collections of uta display a heterogeneity that suggests the term itself may not denote a rigorously delimited genre. An initial distinction to draw is that between the “songs of the chronicles” (kiki kayō 記紀歌謡) of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki and the “Japanese poems” (waka 和歌) of the Man’yōshū—bearing in mind the essential caveat that ——— 1. In this sense, the term “free verse” is a contradiction in ways that “prose poetry” is not. For discussions of the concepts of “verse” and “poetry,” see Lotz 1972 and the articles on “Free Verse,” “Prose Poem,” and “Verse and Prose” in Preminger and Brogan 1993.

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these are both latter-day terms not found with those meanings in eighthcentury texts.2 The Kojiki and Nihon shoki contain about 200 distinct uta (the usual count for the Kojiki is 112, for the Nihon shoki 128, but dozens of those ‘songs’ are shared by both works, and there are disputes about how to divide them and whether to count some of them). Many of these uta are formally regular “short songs” (tanka 短歌) patterned in groups of syllables of 5/7/5/7/7, but there are also examples of what later came to be called “long songs” (chōka 長歌), which ideally alternate 5 and 7 indefinitely before concluding 7/7. Numerous ‘songs,’ long and short, display varying degrees of irregularity. The Man’yōshū, on the other hand, collects more than 4,500 uta in varying forms, but over 90 percent of them are regular tanka. Much attention has been paid to formal and thematic differences between these Man’yōshū ‘songs’ and those of the eighth-century histories, almost invariably with the goal of organizing them into a historical progression from primitive song to sophisticated poetry, but in many ways these materials are incommensurable. In the Man’yōshū, the logograph 歌 is typically associated with things—the very poems collected in the anthology: A song made by Kakinomoto no ason Hitomaro when the Sovereign sojourned to Thunder Hill, one verse 天皇御遊雷岳之時柿本朝臣人麻呂作歌一首 (MYS 3:235)

But in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, the same graph more often denotes an action taken by a character in a narrative, followed by a quotation of the song: When this God of Eight Thousand Spears went to the province of Koshi to woo the Nunakawa maiden, he reached the house of that Nunakawa maiden, and sang, saying. . . 此八千矛神、将婚高志国之沼河比売幸行之時、到其沼河比売之家、 歌曰. . . (KJK 84)

——— 2. On the origins and significance of the term waka, see Heldt 2009. The kayō genre includes ‘songs’ from other eighth-century works, such as the Fudoki and the Shoku Nihongi, as well as later sources; see Tsuchihashi and Konishi 1957 and Cranston 1993b.

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In the later portions of the Nihon shoki, songs by “people at that time” 時人 or wazauta (“purportedly popular or children’s songs of a premonitory character” [Cranston 1993b, 4]) are sometimes tipped into the text, but even so they are embedded in an immediate narrative environment, implicitly commenting on events or foreshadowing their consequences. Elsewhere, though, the songs themselves are part of the action: the Kojiki and Nihon shoki “present their songs in the conventional context of impromptu composition and utterance—the songs are indeed sung” (Cranston 1993b, 6). This close association with the communicative acts of gods and their legendary human descendants presents a profound challenge to any attempt to begin a literary history with the ‘songs’ of the chronicles. Much in them appears to reflect primeval language and ritual, but to no small extent this is a result of the same deliberate manipulation that embeds them in their narrative contexts. (As discussed below, a similar point can be made about the Man’yōshū, even though this immense and structurally diffuse anthology lacks an explicit narrative thread.) These eighth-century works do contain much that is suggestive of the role of ‘songs’ in contemporary society (and, more murkily, in earlier ages). There are frequent depictions of public vocal performance at banquets or other court functions, often with the accompaniment of the koto, a zither-like stringed instrument (NS II:311 [Taika 5/3], songs 113/114; MYS 8:1594, 16:3816–20). The use of ‘songs’ in courtship also seems to have involved more intimate moments of intonation, although here again the randy singing gods and sovereigns of the chronicles obviously cannot be taken at face value. But much of the material in the Man’yōshū reveals another dimension, as graphically demonstrated by the note following this mid-eighthcentury banquet poem: A single poem from a banquet in spring, the 2nd month, when the ministers gathered at the home of Kose no Sukunamaro ason, the lesser controller of the left. Across the vast plains of the sea I have come, buffeted by waves, To watch you elegant fellows At your amusements

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The preceding poem was written on white paper and hung on the wall. Its heading stated, “A headdress into which a transcendent maiden of Penglai has transformed, for gentlemen of refinement and talent. Commonplace guests cannot gaze upon it!”3 春二月諸大夫等集左少辨巨勢宿奈麻呂朝臣家宴歌一首 うなはらの

とほきわたりを

みやびをの

あそびをみむと

な づ さ ひ そ こ し

海原之

遠 渡 乎

遊士之

遊乎将見登

魚津左比曽来之

右一首書白紙懸著屋壁也 題云 蓬莱仙媛所化 蘰 士矣 斯凡客不所望見哉 (MYS 6:1016)

為風流秀才之

Much about this poem is typical of the Man’yōshū banquet poems: it records the date (the context establishes the year as the 9th of the Heavenly Peace Era [737]), the location, and the name and rank of the host. Along with its prose heading it demonstrates the popularity of Chinese stories of encounters with transcendents, especially lovely transcendent women, with the early Tang Youxianku 遊仙窟 as one of the major intertexts.4 But it also evokes the major role played by written as well as intoned poetry, at least in certain elite circles of the day. Even in the ‘songs’ of the Nihon shoki there are traces of writing’s importance, but it is in the Man’yōshū that this aspect of the uta is most thoroughly showcased.5 To name just the two most prominent examples, exchanges of written ‘songs’ in letters provide the principal materials for Book V—devoted to the coterie of poets centered on Ōtomo no Tabito 大伴旅人 (665–731) during his stint as governor of Dazaifu in Kyushu in the late 720s—and also for a famous series of exchanges between Tabito’s son Yakamochi 家持 (718?–85) and his cousin Ikenushi 池主 (fl. 730s–750s) in Books XVII, XVIII, and XX.6 ——— 3. Penglai 蓬萊 ( J. Hōrai) is a mythical island mountain inhabited by transcendents. For more on this poem, see endnote 6.1. 4. On the influence of the Youxianku in early Japanese literature, especially the poetry of the Man’yōshū, see Kojima 1964, 1013–71; for English language discussions and translations of this work, see Levy 1965 and Rouzer 2001. 5. Signs of writing in the Nihon shoki ‘songs’ include a reference to a song being “sent” 送 (NS II:321 [Hakuchi 4], song 115) and a description of one’s origin in highly textual, Sinitic terms (NS II:29 [Keitai 7/9], song 96). 6. On the Dazaifu group and Book V of the Man’yōshū, see Robinson 2004. In addition to renditions of about two-thirds of Book V, translation and extensive commentary on almost all of the exchanges between Yakamochi and Ikenushi can be found in

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But the transcendent maiden poem of Kose no Sukunamaro’s banquet is significant for more than the vividness with which its accompanying note illustrates paper-based poetry. Its varied means of inscription are technically unremarkable, but the spelling of the final line is suggesなづさひそこし tive: 魚津左比曽来之. Here the phrase “I came, buffeted by waves” (nadusapi1 so2 ko2si) is written in a mixture of Sinitic phonographs (derived from Chinese character readings) and vernacular phonographs (derived from kundoku); the verb “come” 来 is the single logographic exception. The first two phonographs are characters originally associated with words meaning “fish” 魚 and “water crossing” or “port” 津, which echoes the trip across the ocean described by the speaker of the poem.7 If poetry is an intensification of effects and devices present in all language, then perhaps ‘poetic inscription’ might be considered a parallel thickening of the meaningfulness of effects and devices inherent to all writing.8 The inscription of poetry is therefore a central problem for this book: in this area the various connections between writing and (spoken) language are intensified and thrown into relief. Previous chapters have shown the importance of different varieties of inscription, and the meaningfulness of their stylistic differences. The large body of poetry collected in the Man’yōshū provides a particularly valuable resource for extending these arguments. In the abstract, it is clear that radically different principles of inscribing Japanese coexisted from the mid-seventh century on, but in practice there were generally strong links between particular styles and particular contexts or types of content. One of the points of the previous chapter was the strong correlation between prose style and the context and function of works like the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, or inscriptions like those in ——— Cranston 1993b. With their large amount of material from relatively quotidian contexts, the portions of the anthology from what seems to have been Yakamochi’s personal collection (Books XVII–XX) provide many other examples of uta that were obviously exchanged in written form, such as 17:3931–42. 7. To this might be added a more subtle effect: the use of the same graph, 遊, for both みやびを あそび the “elegant fellows” 遊 士 and their “amusements” 遊 . On a textual variant affecting the “fish” graph, see endnote 6.2. 8. This includes both glottographic devices, directly related to spoken language, and also the variety of alegible effects surveyed in Chapter 1.

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Hōryūji’s Main Hall. It is questionable how much expressiveness inheres in the use of a particular style under such circumstances. But with the poetry of the Man’yōshū, which sometimes approaches ‘free variation’ of written style against a constant linguistic background, it is possible to consider in greater detail the problem of choice among parallel means of writing, the potential for aesthetic value and expressive meaning that arises when such choice is possible, and ultimately the potential value of written diversity itself. This diversity depends on something this book has thus far treated only schematically: the contrast between phonography and logography. If one assumes that a poem is not a piece of writing but a vocal performance (potentially) based on writing, then what of aspects of writing that are not vocalizable? To the extent that the written poem can be seen simply as a set of (incomplete) directions for vocalization of verse, then those nonvocalizable aspects are extraneous—at best a waste of time, at worst a distraction. One would therefore expect a strong link between phonography and poetry. In certain areas of early Japanese writing, there does seem to have been such an association. From the earliest historical appearance of inscribed verse, simple methods of phonographic inscription were employed, minimizing nonvocalizable elements and maximizing the clarity and specificity of phonetic instruction to the reader. But the Man’yōshū shows that there was nothing simple or straightforward about this association, because it contains both similar phonographic modes and a variety of principally or almost solely logographic ones, as seen in the banquet poem quoted above (MYS 6:1016).9 The poems of the Man’yōshū demonstrate the fundamental importance of context for the history of writing. ‘Efficiency’ and ‘clarity’ are local rather than transcendent values, and moreover there are significant script features that are only possible because of the existence of other parallel methods of inscription, which means that, in certain contexts, variety and multiplicity themselves are valuable. This simple insight leads towards a radical reappraisal of the overall history of writing in Japan, and beyond that of writing in general (both of which are addressed more extensively in the following, final chapter). ——— 9. For a survey of scholarship on the inscription of Man’yōshū poetry, see endnote 6.3.

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Flowers of Naniwa: Spelling Verse Syllable by Syllable The early tenth-century Kokin wakashū is the first of the 21 anthologies of vernacular poetry that occupied a central place in the literary culture of the Japanese court from the tenth through fifteenth centuries. Its phonographic preface (kanajo 假名序), traditionally attributed to Ki no Tsurayuki 紀貫之 (d. ca. 945), presents a condensed history of waka 和歌 (‘Japanese song’), in which its origins are traced back to the age of the gods. The first two examples to be cited specifically, the “Naniwa Port” (Nanifadu no uta) and the “Asaka Mountain” (Asakayama no kotonofa) poems, are described as “being like the father and mother of poetry, practiced at the beginning by those studying calligraphy” 歌の父母の様 にてぞ、手習ふ人の、初めにもしける (KKS 6). The “Asaka Mountain” poem appears in the Man’yōshū (MYS 16: 3807), but the “Naniwa Port” poem does not, although it is quoted a bit later in the Kokinshū preface as an example of a particular poetic style: In Naniwa port they bloom, these flowers! Proclaiming it is now spring, From within winter’s toils, They bloom, these flowers! Nanifadu ni/Saku ya kono fana/Fuyugomori/Ima fa farube to/Saku ya kono fana (KKS 6–7)10

This poem can be taken as a symbol of the distinctive cursivized phonographs (hiragana) with which the Kokinshū and the other vernacular classics of the Heian period are so strongly associated. Literary and cultural historians have seen the efflorescence of that literature itself as predicated on the emergence of this purportedly new script, but both the “Naniwa Port” poem itself and the practice of writing it in simple phonographs turn out to have a documented history predating the Kokinshū preface by around 250 years.

——— 10. Pre-Heian inscription of the Naniwa port poem suggests that its refrain concerns not “these flowers” 此の花 but the homophonous “tree flowers” 木の花 (KKS 7n25).

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POETRY AND ALL-PHONOGRAPH MOKKAN

The first confirmation of Tsurayuki’s attribution of great age to this poem came in 1948, when reconstruction work on the pagoda of Hōryūji revealed graffitied fragments of it in phonograph characters, thought to have been left by workmen of the early eighth century. Subsequent archaeological discoveries of mokkan versions from the Heijō palace site fleshed out the picture of widespread use of the poem for writing practice in the eighth and ninth centuries, and a fragment of it scratched on a piece of pottery that may date back into the seventh century has also been discovered.11 But the earliest currently known version of the “Naniwa Port” poem appears to predate even that: it is from a mokkan discovered at the Kannonji site in Shikoku, a 16-by-4.3-centimeter rectangular plaque whose lower portion is missing. One side of this tablet bears a phrase followed by a string of phonographs: They bloom in the port of Naniwa! These flowers な に は づ に さ く や こ の は な

奈尓波川尓作久矢己乃波奈

(NKMSS 434)

Based on its position in the layers at the Kannonji site, this inscription has been dated to the reign of Tenmu (672–86) or possibly earlier (Fujikawa and Wada 1999, 206). This discovery suggests that the “Naniwa Port” poem was already in use for writing practice by the late seventh century, but it is also one of the earliest known examples of all-phonograph inscription. Other such examples of all-phonograph writing from the seventh century include the Asukaike mokkan inscription (“thinking to undo. . .”) discussed in Chapter 4, which also dates to the latter half of the seventh century. The earliest yet discovered is a fragment from the Naniwa palace site that was unearthed in 2006. This tablet is 18.5 centimeters long and 2.65 centimeters wide, and is the upper portion of what was once a longer strip. Based on the layer in which it was found and the style of nearby pottery fragments, it has been dated to shortly before the completion of the first Naniwa palace, which the Nihon shoki puts ——— 11. On the Hōryūji pagoda graffiti, see Fukuyama 1971; on earlier Naniwa Port mokkan, see JMSS 61 and 219; and Tōno 1983, 167–84. Satō Makoto 1988 provides a general overview of graffiti and writing practice in early Japan.

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at 652. Eleven graphs are visible on the inscribed side of this tablet: 皮留久佐乃皮斯米之刀斯 (Asahi shinbun 2006/10/13, reproduced in Bunkazai shutsudo jōhō 2006/12, p. 65). All, or all but one, of these are Sinitic phonographs widely used in other sources that predate the eighth century. Although the latter six graphs involve some difficulties of interpretation, the first five clearly read “of spring grass” ( parukusa no2 [春草 の]), an elegant term found in the Man’yōshū (MYS 3:239; 10:1920): this is almost certainly a fragment of a vernacular poem. Along with a number of other mokkan from eighth-century sites, which include more fragments of the “Naniwa Port” and other poems, these finds demonstrate that from a remarkably early point in the midseventh-century explosion of writing there was apparently a link between vernacular poetry and all-phonograph inscription.12 This link can also be seen in the eighth-century histories, where the use of phonographs in reading notes, discussed in the previous chapter, is accompanied by their even more prominent employment to write the aforementioned ‘songs.’ INSCRIBING ‘SONGS’ IN THE EIGHTH-CENTURY HISTORIES

The previous chapter showed how carefully Yasumaro streamlined and systematized the logographic prose style of the Kojiki. As mentioned in passing there, he also exerted similar efforts to create a simple, clear phonographic style for the dozens of uta included in his work. Considering an example will show both the parallels and—equally importantly—the differences between the phonographic registers employed in seventh- and eighth-century mokkan and other ephemera and those used in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. The following ‘song’ appears at the end of the first of the Kojiki’s three books, as a mythic hero is parting from his wife, the daughter of the god of the sea.

——— 12. For some more examples of mokkan with late seventh- and eighth-century allphonograph inscription of poetry, see JMSS 60–74. For a summary discussion of a number of other recent discoveries of all-phonograph poem mokkan, including one with the Asaka Mountain poem, see endnote 6.4.

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I shall not forget The young love I took to sleep Where wild ducks roost, Birds of the offing, in the isles— Not a day of my life (Cranston 1993b, 13–14 [poem 8]) お き つ と り

か も ど く し ま に

わ が ゐ ね し

い も は わ す れ じ

よ の こ と ご と に

意岐都登理

加毛度久斯麻邇

和賀韋泥斯

伊毛波和須礼士

余能許登碁登邇

oki1-tu-to2ri/kamo1 do1ku sima ni/waga winesi/imo1 pa wasurezi/yo2 no2 ko2to2-go2to2 ni (KJK 136, song 8)

As a regular tanka, this poem has a total of 31 syllables. Excluding repetitions, it includes 25 distinct syllables: all are written with Sinitic phonographs, and the 5 that appear more than once (to2 登, mo1 毛, si 斯, ni 邇, and wa 和) are all written with the same graph when repeated. Of the 25 distinct characters, 15 characters—or 60 percent—are the sole phonograph used to write that syllable in the 112 poems of the Kojiki. Of the remaining 10, 4 alternate only with formally similar graphs, and 2 more are almost exclusively employed to write their syllables, so 21 out of the 25 graphs in this poem—84 percent—are the sole means, or the overwhelmingly dominant means, of writing the syllable with which they are associated. Furthermore, each of the remaining 4 non-unique graphs essentially alternates with only one other.13 Although they also seem to have been inscribed with great care, the ‘songs’ of the Nihon shoki are written in a very different phonographic register, as is apparent from the following, nearly identical poem: oki1-tu-to2ri/kamo1 do1ku sima ni/waga winesi/imo1 pa wasurazi/yo2 no2 ko2to2-go2to2 mo2 お き つ

り

飫企都 利

か も づ く し ま に

わ が ゐ ね し

い も は わ す ら じ

軻茂豆勾志磨爾

和我謂禰志

伊茂播和素邏珥

よ の こ

ご

も

譽能據 馭 母

(NS I:181, song 5)

It is clear that deliberate efforts were made to complicate the Sinitic phonographs of the Nihon shoki. This includes resorting to relatively obscure characters (especially when compared with the phonographs of the Kojiki or mokkan), but also adding or changing the semantic determinative portion of the characters, which is inoperative in phonographic contexts. To some extent, then, the resulting complexity can be seen as か ら a surface phenomenon, with graphs like , 軻, and 邏 reducible to the ——— 13. For details on these alternations, see endnote 6.5.

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simpler homographs 登, 可, and 羅 (all of which are used in the Kojiki).14 Another distinctive aspect of the Sinitic phonographs of the Nihon shoki is the prominence therein of what were then newer Tang readings of the graphs (subsequently labeled kan’on 漢音) as opposed to the body of readings thought to stem from southern Six Dynasties readings ( go’on 呉音). An example from the preceding poem is the graph 珥 (mod. C. er; Middle C. nyi [Baxter 2000]), which is used here for its kan’on [zi] rather than its go’on [ni]. Chinese characters correspond to syllables of Chinese, which were— and are—more numerous than syllables of Japanese, but even so there was not a subset of Chinese syllables that corresponded to the Japanese inventory. Distinctions such as tones and finals were not reflected in Japanese syllable structure, and even without the disappearance of such distinctions, there were still varying numbers of homophonous graphs available for any given syllable of Japanese. To this we can add the variety created by different dialects/languages of Chinese and by historical changes within and across dialects, and also the influence of early Korean languages. The different sets of phonographs that coalesced out of this vast potential variety seem to have been in some cases the product of historical changes, in the Chinese languages that scribes of Japanese heard or spoke, and also in the nature of the texts with which they were familiar. Linguists have analyzed the phonological differences among the phonographs used in different texts; for example, phonographs in the Kojiki and parts of the Man’yōshū distinguish between two syllables that other Nara-period texts record as a single mo, and as we have just seen in the Nihon shoki, early Tang pronunciations (kan’on) were a standard for phonograph usage alongside the southern Six Dynasties pronunciations ( go’on) on which earlier texts relied.15 But there are meaningful contrasts in phonographs used in different works that do not have phonological significance, and in any case all such contrasts have stylistic and generic ——— 14. Some of the complexity of Nihon shoki phonograph usage results from deliberate variation of the semantic components of characters (NS I:180n1). 15. On the early Japanese phonograph inventory and its historical-linguistic implications, see Case 2000; Bentley 2001; and Marc Miyake 2003.

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implications that reflect the social and cultural functions of the works in which the graphs are employed.16 As was the case with the prose styles of the same works, the phonographically inscribed ‘songs’ of the Kojiki and the Nihon shoki provide an excellent example of how such sharp stylistic contrasts were possible in early Japanese writing. But, despite the differences in complexity and variety of graphs and the sources of their phonetic values, there are also similarities between these two, the most important being that they both employ exclusively Sinitic phonographs (ongana). As mentioned in Chapter 4, a further source of variety in writing is the existence of a parallel repertoire of vernacular phonographs (kungana), derived from the sound values of logographs with kundoku-sanctioned Japanese readings. A glance back at some of the early poem mokkan shows that this distinction between Sinitic and vernacular phonographs is another source of stylistic difference in all-phonograph writing. In the “Naniwa Port” mokkan from the Kannonji site in Shikoku, the phrase “They bloom!” さくや (saku ya) is written 作 久 矢 . The last of these three characters is a vernacular phonograph based on the kundoku-mediated association between the original Chinese word for “arrow” (mod. C. shi) and the Japanese word with cognate meaning ( ya). Here the syllable ya is an emphatic final particle with nothing to do with archery.17 Similarly, the poem mokkan from the Asukaike site contains the sequence “deciding to undo” (to2ku とくとさだめて to2 sadame2te) 止求止佐田目手, in which 止 to2, 田 da[ta], 目 me2, and 手 te are all vernacular phonographs, based on associations between these characters and Japanese words meaning “stop” (to2[mu]), “field,” “eye,” and “hand.” Despite their mutual differences, both the Kojiki and Nihon shoki maintain more formal registers of ‘song’ inscription by excluding such vernacular phonographs. 18 In addition to the dominance of the “Naniwa Port” poem and other texts that seem to be part of writing ——— 16. See the discussion of strata 層 and spheres 圏 of kana usage in Okumura 1988, 341–59. さ く や 17. Another noteworthy aspect of the orthography of “They bloom!” saku ya 作久矢 is the first character, a Sinitic phonograph with harmony between its normally deleted second syllable and the following syllable (the Sinitic reading of 作 itself is saku). 18. For another stylistic distinction in contrasting phonograph registers, see endnote 6.6.

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practice or casual doodling, the prevalence of vernacular phonographs in mokkan suggests that such ephemeral everyday materials involved much more relaxed attitudes towards inscription itself than those displayed in literary works (and also epigraphs). Another difference between all-phonograph writing in mokkan and in the eighth-century histories is that the latter is fully integrated into elaborate logographic contexts. In fact, one function of all-phonograph inscription of ‘songs’ in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki is to mark a shift from one mode to another, indicating verse by setting it off graphically from the surrounding prose. All-phonograph mokkan are also stylistically distinct from entirely or primarily logographic prose, but they are discrete fragments rather than interludes integrated into a larger, contrasting whole. This issue of integration with logographic prose contexts— and, by extension, with the dozens of other phonographically inscribed poems in the same work—is another major reason not to conflate the inscription of poetry in the histories and other transmitted eighth-century sources with that found in mokkan. Much more could be said about the complexity of phonograph usages in seventh- and eighth-century Japan and the ways they cohere into discrete styles associated with particular contexts, media, and even authors. But the salient point to emphasize here is the apparent strength of the link between all-phonograph inscription and poetry. This is further borne out by most other eighth-century sources: the extant Fudoki gazetteers (FDK), the Shoku Nihongi, the Kakyō hyōshiki 歌經標式 treatise on vernacular poetry (KH), and the “Buddha’s foot” poems inscribed on a stele in the Yakushiji temple of Nara (KI 22) all provide varied examples of formal all-phonograph inscription of poetry. Looking beyond the late eighth century only increases the strength of the association, as the use of graphically simplified phonograph scripts (kana) to write vernacular poetry (and related prose genres) in the Heian period and thereafter is among the most enduring bits of common knowledge about the history of Japanese writing. This brings us back to Tsurayuki’s reference to the “Naniwa Port” poem in the preface to the Kokinshū. It is tempting to see the flowering depicted there as a symbol of the intertwined efflorescence of allphonographic writing and vernacular poetry. It seems reasonable that, in an age when the regular phonic patterns of verse were constitutive

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of poetry, it should be inscribed in a manner that maximally indicates its phonic shape. But more complete consideration of how poetry was written in early Japan reveals a far more complicated situation. The flowers of Naniwa, it turns out, were not the only blossoms of early poetic inscription. The Diversity of Writing in the Man’yōshū It is not clear precisely when the Man’yōshū was compiled. It has no preface, and there are no pre-Heian sources of information about its provenance, but Ōtomo no Yakamochi is thought to have played a major role in its final compilation. The final poem (MYS 20:4516), written by him on the 1st day of the 3rd year of the Heavenly Peace Treasured Writing Era (Tenpyō Hōji 3 [759]), is also the latest dated work in the anthology, which seems to have been completed between that year and the end of the eighth century, probably by the time of Yakamochi’s death in 785. 19 The poems collected in the Man’yōshū include works attributed to early, legendary rulers, but believable attributions begin with midseventh-century figures. The anthology contains over 4,500 poems (different manuscripts and treatments of variants yield differing counts) divided into twenty books whose inconsistent content and format attest to a complex compilation process involving several stages and multiple editors. It is likely that earlier books had been compiled as an independent poetry collection, perhaps as an official or quasi-official anthology, by the late seventh century, and thereafter successively augmented, in many cases with material drawn from pre-existing, now-lost anthologies. The result was something like the first fifteen books of the existing work, to which was eventually added a miscellaneous appendix (Book XVI) and then a long, chronologically organized collection of poetry by Yakamochi and people associated with him (Books XVII–XX). ——— 19. For more extensive introductions to the content and format of the Man’yōshū, see Cranston 1983; Cranston 1993a; and Keene 1993. For selective English-language renditions of poetry from the anthology, see Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai 1940; Levy 1981; and Cranston 1993b. Mack Horton is currently preparing a projected full translation. An exhaustive guide to translations into European languages can be found in Wixted 2006, 310–16.

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Table 6.1 Contents of the Man’yōshū ____________________________________________________________________ Book Contents and organizational principles # of poems ____________________________________________________________________ I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX (*) XX

legendary to early eighth century; reign and genre legendary to early eighth century; reign and genre late seventh to mid-eighth century; genre and chronology legendary to mid-eighth century; genre and chronology Dazaifu circle (728–33); chronology mid-eighth century; genre and chronology anonymous and undated; genre and topic mid-seventh to mid-eighth century; season, genre, and chronology legendary to mid-eighth century; genre and chronology anonymous and undated; season, genre, and topic anonymous and undated; source, genre, and topic anonymous and undated; source, genre, and topic anonymous and undated long poems; genre poems of the east (azuma-uta); genre and geography mid-eighth century; embassy to Silla, Yakamori/Otogami exchanges “poems with a story” and miscellaneous Yakamochi materials (730–48) Yakamochi materials (748–50) Yakamochi materials (750–53) Yakamochi materials (753–59)

84 150 252 309 114 160 250 246 148 539 497 383 127 238 208 104 142 107 154 224

TOTAL 4,526 ____________________________________________________________________ NOTE:

Titles in italics indicate primarily logographic books. Book XIX (marked with an asterisk) is a hard-to-categorize mixture of logographic and phonographic inscription. SOURCE: Statistics from Sasaki 1956, 18–19.

In addition to the differing principles of organization seen in different books, the Man’yōshū also includes a variety of forms: after the ubiquitous tanka, the most prominent is what later came to be called the chōka or “long poem” (most often accompanied by tanka envoys, or hanka), and here and there are examples of less common forms like the six-line sedōka (旋頭歌 “head-repeating poem”; 5/7/7/5/7/7). In addition to huge collections of unattributed poetry, there is a wide range of named authors, from legendary and historical sovereigns and their consorts to lowly military conscripts; genres span grand elegies for princes to rustic love poems to the equivalent of scurrilous limericks. Moreover, though it is properly termed a collection of vernacular poetry, its headings and

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notes are written in logographic prose generally consistent with literary Chinese usage, and it also contains a number of formally regular works of Chinese-style belletristic prose and poetry. The inscription of the anthology is also intensely varied: it incorporates all of the techniques discussed thus far in this book, as well as some baroque methods of writing without close parallels elsewhere. No single Japanese work, of any period, surpasses the diversity of the poetry and prose it collects. It also represents the apotheosis of seventh- and eighth-century writing, wherein the fullest potential of the existing techniques of inscription was exploited. It could be called a kind of antiKojiki, in that its compilers avoided any attempt at overarching orthographic standardization.20 Much of the fascination of this enormous anthology comes from the looseness with which it is stitched together. The poems that comprise it are separated from and linked to others, near and far, with a bewildering variety of paratexts (Genette 1997): headings, notes, sections and subsections, notations and counter-notations of authorship and provenance, quotations from other works, accompanying letters, and other bits of prose. By virtue of being only partially integrated into the whole, the component pieces of the Man’yōshū maintain their identities as fragments of absent works—indeed, of absent worlds. None of these external contexts have survived, which creates serious problems for scholars of the anthology. Attempts to reconstruct the absent sources and contexts (and to speculate about how their traces ended up in their present forms) have too often taken precedence over the more immediate question of what to make of the actually existing collection of fragments (which often seem to have been deliberately presented as such). In approaching the Man’yōshū from the perspective of the history of writing, it is important to keep in mind these basic points, because one of the most striking ways in which its poems are interconnected, and in which they lead outward towards larger problems beyond the anthology, is their inscription.

——— 20. On other aspects of variety in the Man’yōshū, see endnote 6.7.

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STYLES OF MAN’ YŌ WRITING: LOGOGRAPHY AT THE CENTER

Among the more misleading terms in the history of Japanese writing is that most often used to denote phonograph characters that have not been graphically simplified: man’yōgana 萬葉假名, literally “kana of the Man’yōshū.” As discussed extensively in previous chapters, such phonographs were already widely used outside of the anthology, in sources ranging from seventh-century mokkan to the eighth-century histories.21 More significantly for the present chapter, phonographs, while certainly an essential part of Man’yōshū inscription, do not dominate the writing of the anthology nearly as much as commonly thought. Only about a quarter of its poems are written in a predominantly phonographic mode, and these are concentrated in four books closely associated with the Ōtomo family (V, XVII, XVIII, XX), one book collecting poems in Eastern dialect (XIV), and another book assembling poems by an embassy to Silla and an exiled courtier and his wife (XV).22 The remaining threequarters of the anthology, in thirteen or fourteen of its twenty books, are written in a primarily logographic register, with varying amounts of phonographic adjuncts. (The primarily logographic books are indicated in Table 6.1 above; Book XIX is an atypical mixture of primarily logographic and primarily phonographic styles, and as such is hard to categorize.) A significant minority of the poems of the Man’yōshū are inscribed in a primarily phonographic mode similar to that employed in the ‘songs’ of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. But the majority of its poems are written in a primarily logographic mode without parallels in any of the forms of poetry inscription discussed up to this point. While the examples from mokkan and the eighth-century histories demonstrate that there is not just one type of phonography, turning to the Man’yōshū shows in turn that there is no necessary connection between poetry and any kind of phonographic writing. But if there is no such inner principle animating ——— 21. On phonograph characters and the term man’yōgana, see endnote 6.8. 22. Books V, XIV, XV, and XVII–XX contain 1,033 poems (23 percent of the total of 4,526), to which a smattering of all-phonograph poems in XIX should be added. But of the 264 long poems, only 45 (17 percent) are in phonograph-only books, which lowers the proportion of all-phonographic material a bit further.

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the selection of a method of inscription for verse, what factors do determine it? As with most of the stylistic points discussed in preceding chapters, the logographic and phonographic modes are visibly distinguishable but leave no trace on the vocalization of the poems they ‘record.’ This is dramatically exemplified by instances like that of the following rather nondescript love poem (characteristic in its concern for prying eyes of the surrounding community), which appears not once but twice in the Man’yōshū, in radically different written forms: As from a hidden marsh My unseen love overflows, Standing out like white waves— Others will know of it! こもり ぬ の

隠 沼乃

した ゆ こひ あまり

しらなみ の

いちしろくいでぬ

下従戀 餘

白浪之

灼然 出

こ も り ぬ の

し た ゆ こ ひ あ ま り

許母利奴能 之多由孤悲安麻里

ひと の しる べく

人之可知 (MYS

12:3023)

し ら な み の

い ち し ろ く い で ぬ

ひ と の し る べ く

志良奈美能

伊知之路久伊泥奴

比登乃師流倍久

(MYS 17:3935) ko2mo2rinu no2 / sita yu ko1pi2amari / siranami1 no2 / itisiro1ku idenu / pi1to2 no2 sirube2ku

Whether or not one sees the handful of such pairs scattered through the anthology as ‘the same poem’ is really a matter of definition.23 The important point here is that they are extreme examples of the inscriptive variety that is the primary concern of this chapter. It is striking to see two radically different written manifestations of an identical vocalization for an entire poem, but across the entire Man’yōshū there is even more variety in the units that make up the poem. There are six more written versions of the first and fifth lines of this poem, and fourteen more for the third. At the level of the constituent words, there are, for example, over a dozen methods of writing the various forms of the verb ko1pu (modern kou 戀う; “to yearn for”).

——— 23. As Itō Haku (1974) pointed out in a classic discussion of “formally identical poems” (dōkeika 同形歌), for the compilers of the Man’yōshū, at least, in most cases they seem to have been conceived of as different poems.

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Table 6.2 Fundamental modes of early Japanese inscription ____________________________________________________________________ Sino-Japanese Vernacular ____________________________________________________________________ logograph 表語

Sinitic logographs (seion 正音): loanwords for which the characters and (approximate) pronunciation have been adopted together. These seem to have been common in everyday contexts, but are very rare in the poetic vocabulary of the Man’yōshū; が き e.g., 餓鬼 gaki2 (“hungry ghost”; 4:608, 16:3840).

phonograph 表音

Sinitic phonographs (ongana 音假名): characters used to write syllables whose pronunciations approximate those of the original Chinese words associated with the characters, regardless of their meaning. The basic resource for phonography, with multiple complete syllabaries of varying provenance and valence; e.g., ひ と 比登 pi1to2 (“person”; 23 examples in the phonographic books and also IV).

Vernacular logographs (seikun 正訓): characters linked with Japanese words of equivalent meaning to the original Chinese words with which those characters are associated. The foundation of all logographic writing in Japan (in kundoku of Chinese-style texts, as well ひと as in vernacular writings); e.g., 人 pi1to2 (“person”; over 600 examples in the Man’yōshū, in every book except XIV). ____________________________________________________________________ Vernacular phonographs (kungana 訓假名): phonographs derived from vernacular logographs (seikun), that is, characters used for the sounds of the Japanese words with which they are logographically associated, regardless of meaning. Not a complete syllabary because of limits on the native phonetic inventory.† Very rare in the primarily phonographic registers of the Man’yōshū; these usually appear as phonographic adjuncts accompanying logographs, and often have strong logographic overtones; な づ さ ひ そ こ し e.g., 魚津左比曽来之 (6:1016, discussed above). ____________________________________________________________________ There were no vernacular phonographs for the ro syllables because they did not appear wordinitially. There were also no dedicated vernacular phonographs for most voiced syllables, though the unvoiced equivalents were often used.

†

At the root of this variety is the distinction between logographs and phonographs in general, which most saliently takes the specific form of a contrast between kundoku-based vernacular logographs (seikun 正訓)

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and Sinitic phonographs (ongana 音假名). The fundamental possibilities for vernacular inscription, not just in the Man’yōshū specifically but in early Japanese writing in general, are summed up in Table 6.2, which includes the most common terminology for the various categories. Phonographs are produced by selecting logographs and abstracting their phonetic values away from the meaning of the word with which they are associated: traditional terminology refers to this as “borrowing,” so that vernacular phonographs were called shakukun 借訓 (“borrowed glosses”). In principle, scribes and poets were free to reappropriate any logograph (or logographically functioning group of characters) as a phonograph to write Japanese syllables. The original kundoku-based vernacular logographs (seikun) show various degrees of systematicity, from nonce formations linked with particular literary contexts—especially one in which the graph in question had a particularly rare sense—to associations between graph and word so systematic that they must have been automatic in appropriate contexts. In much the same way, the vernacular phonographs (kungana) derived from those logographs range from a few that were so systematized that they could be mixed in with the more ubiquitous Sinitic phonographs (as in the mokkan examples cited earlier), to those whose use is limited to a single occasion in the surviving record.24 In an abstract sense, the only system that could be said to be ‘complete’ is that consisting of Sinitic phonographs—complete in the sense that there is at least one way of writing every possible syllable in Japanese, so that in principle any imaginable utterance would be available for phonographic inscription. 25 Vernacular logographs do not form a ‘complete’ system either, because there are Japanese words without Chinese equivalents, as well as grammatical elements and so on that can——— 24. In the Man’yōshū, many of the rarest vernacular phonographs are baroque ad hoc usages that seem to increase the variety and difficulty of its inscription beyond anything that could be seen as ‘practical’ necessity. This is where one finds most of the usages termed “playful writing” ( gisho 戲書) by subsequent scholars, for which the anthology is so well known. (These are briefly discussed at the end of this chapter.) 25. The inventory of Sinitic logographs could also be seen as complete, in the tautological sense that such inscription is available for every Chinese loanword, but the nature of that tautology confirms that in the Man’yōshū Sinitic logographs are a side issue, unrelated to the sort of inscriptive variety that is the concern of this chapter.

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not be represented simply or directly. On the one hand, the vast majority of the source graphs for the formally simplified Heian syllabaries that evolved into the modern hiragana and katakana were Sinitic phonographs; on the other hand, kundoku and the vernacular logographs it produced and depended on were to remain the principal driving force behind Japanese inscription. The dominance of this combination of Sinitic phonographs and vernacular logographs extends far beyond the early period. It is important to keep in mind that the two written styles of the Man’yōshū are principally logographic or phonographic rather than exclusively so. In the pair of examples above, 3023 is almost purely logoの graphic (the only exception is the genetive 乃 in the first line; other bound forms like particles and auxiliary verbs—e.g., 従 for the locative postposition yu and 可 for the auxiliary verb be2si—are written logographically) and 3935 is completely phonographic. Poems in the phonograph-centric mode do sometimes make limited use of logographs (often to write names of places and people, and sometimes for commonly used nouns). Most logograph-centric poems do include some phonographic adjuncts, sometimes even as substantial as an entire line.26 But logography is the core principle underlying the inscription of the majority of Man’yōshū poems, and many make no use of phonographs whatsoever. The centrality of logography in Man’yōshū poetry contrasts profoundly with other early Japanese sources. There are essentially no parallel instances of logographic inscription of poetry from the seventh or eighth centuries. 27 On a technical level, the primarily phonographic registers of the anthology are similar to the all-phonographic style used for the “Naniwa Port” and other poems on mokkan, but the apparently straight——— 26. For an example of the variety of phonographic adjuncts frequently employed in the logographic mode, see endnote 6.9. 27. The one exception is a fragmentary poem doodled onto an eighth-century Shōsōin document, written in a nearly all-logographic style that tantalizingly parallels that of the Hitomaro Collection (DNK X:233; SZ 89); on this little-discussed item, see Takeda 1921, 271–81, and Kinoshita 1975. There are some later instances of literary works with similar logographic inscription of poetry (the late ninth-/early tenth-century Shinsen Man’yōshū being the most prominent), but as discussed below these are atypical.

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forward association between phonography and the uta breaks down in the anthology. What was perhaps the most influential of the modern approaches to the patterns of inscription in the Man’yōshū postulated that it showed progress toward a phonograph-centric style. This fit the assumption that writing in general evolved in that direction, culminating in the graphically simplified phonograph syllabaries (kana) associated with high Heian culture and literary works like the Genji monogatari 源氏物語 (Tale of Genji). Such a diachronic perspective gained some support from the distribution of written styles within the anthology itself: the phonograph-centric mode is prevalent in books that collect ‘newer’ poems, especially XV and the Yakamochi materials of XVII, XVIII, and XX.28 But the recent discoveries of all-phonograph poetry mokkan establish that this method of writing was already possible at the very beginning of the Japanese poetic tradition. This means that it is no longer viable to see the logographcentric style of inscribing poetry as an early expedient employed because other choices (phonographic supplements or phonograph-centric inscription) were technically unavailable. But it also means, as stressed above, that the use of phonography to write poetry was not as necessary or natural a decision as it seems to be in hindsight. Because it was possible to write poetry phonographically from so early, we must ask what it means that this option was not chosen in so much of the Man’yōshū. We should also re-evaluate the significance of the cases in which exclusive or near-exclusive phonography was employed, both within and without the anthology. The Man’yōshū, considered as a whole, is dominated by the logographic principle. This means that it fits into the broader picture of early Japanese inscription, in which phonography generally functions in certain special contexts, or as an (optional) adjunct to logography. It is true that poetry—in general, and in about a quarter of the anthology itself— is the primary ‘special context’ for exclusive phonography, and the primarily logographic majority of the anthology’s poems do make extensive use of phonographic adjuncts. But the Man’yōshū itself contains materials suggesting that even these are optional. The most prominent of the ear——— 28. The earliest all-phonograph waka in the Man’yōshū is dated 728 (MYS 5:793; see Yamaguchi Yoshinori 1993, 44).

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lier anthologies that provided much of its material, and that survive only as incorporated within it, contains several hundred poems marked by both a near-total rejection of phonography and an extreme pursuit of what might be termed literary effects within logography. THE HITOMARO POETRY COLLECTION AND THE REJECTION OF PHONOGRAPHY

The Hitomaro Poetry Collection (Kakinomoto no ason Hitomaro [no] kashū 柿本朝臣人麻呂[之]歌集; commonly abbreviated as Hitomaro kashū 人麻呂歌集) is one of several lost poetry anthologies that are preserved solely by virtue of having been incorporated piecemeal (and presumably incomplete) into the Man’yōshū. In addition to its association with Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (fl. late seventh century), the most venerated poet of pre-Heian Japan, this lost anthology is notable for several reasons. A large number of its poems are included (364 according to the most influential count); they are prominently placed in the books in which they appear (mainly VII, IX, X, XI, and XII); and they are thought to demonstrate stylistic and structural innovations in the tanka and sedōka forms. The Hitomaro Collection also seems to have provided a model for the composition of individual poems and for structuring and arranging poetry collections themselves: including the Man’yōshū as a whole (or at least, those of its books that are not chronologically ordered). Considered in tandem with the 84 poems that are directly attributed to Hitomaro, the Works (Hitomaro sakka 人麻呂作歌), the Collection is therefore of great interest for literary history.29 But that is not my reason for considering it here. In addition to its literary significance, the Hitomaro Collection is also a central source for the history of writing and literacy in early Japan, in large part because of the unusual manner in which its poems are inscribed. Although they show continuities with the logographic mode of inscription that dominates most of the Man’yōshū, the poems of the Collection are striking for the enigmatic brevity with which they are written; they also involve expressive uses of writing itself that are more extreme than those found elsewhere in the anthology. ——— 29. For references on Hitomaro and the Collection, see endnote 6.10.

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To understand the characteristics of these materials, it is necessary to add one more technique of inscription to those catalogued in the previous section. This is, paradoxically, the option of not writing a word at all, but relying on the reader to judge from the context that it is necessary. As shown in Chapter 4, elements that are “additive reading” ( yomisoe) are integral to the kundoku process, but when an author/scribe recording a particular text can choose whether or not to specify an element, leaving it out can be seen as a method of inscription parallel to the various logographic and phonographic means of explicitly indicating it. For example, in the third line of the logographic version of the previously quoted “hidden marsh” poem (MYS 12:3023), the perfective auxilいちしろくいでぬ iary verb nu is not inscribed directly: 灼 然 出 (“is standing out” or “has emerged clearly”). The metrical structure of the tanka form (which calls for seven syllables in this line), the patterns of poetic diction, and the immediate context all lead to the yomisoe reading here, which in the case of this particular poem is confirmed by the fully phonographic alいちしろくいでぬ ternate rendering of the same line (伊知之路久伊泥奴; MYS 17:3935). Much as was stressed in the discussion of phonographic adjuncts in Chapter 4, this is more a matter of relying on the typical reading process of kundoku than of selecting a kind of zero-notation. Given the nature of kundoku, it would be a mistake to assume that writers started out with a default intention to explicitly record every syllable (or, better, every morpheme), and then deliberately chose not to indicate some of them. Even so, from the heuristic perspective of cataloguing the variety of Man’yōshū writing, yomisoe can be seen as a technique of inscription parallel to logography and Sinitic or vernacular phonography, though a more limited one, as it only pertains to bound forms—particles and auxiliary verbs. Examples of this kind of inscription by implication can be found throughout the logographic books (and the logographic portions of the mixed book XIX) of the Man’yōshū, but the technique is taken to striking extremes in a group of poems from the Hitomaro Collection, where it is one element of sophisticated manipulation of several aspects of kundoku reading. The following Collection poem exemplifies this extraordinarily truncated form of inscription; in the romanized transcription, elements that are added by yomisoe have been capitalized. Why did I do it— Go on clinging to my life?

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I wish I had died Before I started this longing For the love of a young girl (Cranston 1993b, 251 [poem 417]) なにせむに

何為

いのちつぎけむ

命 継

わぎもこに

吾妹

こひせぬさきに

不戀 前

しなましものを

死

物

(MYS 11:2377)

nani seMU NI / ino2ti tugi1KE1MU / wagi1moko1 NI / ko1pi2 senu saki1 NI / sinaMASI mono2WO

This simple string of eleven logographs omits almost all notation of particles and auxiliary verbs (the sole exception being the partial inscription by vernacular phonograph [物] of the final conjunctive particle mono2wo). It is astonishing that the characters 何為命継吾妹不戀前死物 can be read in this fashion, even though so much of the information necessary for recovering a 31-syllable tanka is missing. Only through parallels with the thousands of other, more expansively inscribed poems in the Man’yōshū itself—not to mention the centuries of philological inquiry embodied by annotated manuscripts, commentaries, and treatises dating back to the Heian period—are poems like this currently associated with stable readings.30 And that stability is by no means absolute: in recent editions the three characters of the penultimate line (不戀前 ko1pi2 senu saki1 NI) are also read ko1pi2zaru saki1 NI (Satake et al. 1998; Satake et al. 2002) and ko1pi2nu saki1 NI MO (Itō Haku 1997; Inaoka 2006). Much as Kamei Takashi (1957) said of the prose style of the Kojiki, poems written in this manner can be read but they cannot be read, in the sense of the straightforward production of a single possible vocalization. About three-fifths of the Hitomaro Collection poems are written like MYS 11:2377, with minimal indication of bound forms and a great deal of linguistic detail left to the reader to extrapolate. This extremely truncated style of inscription is marked by a rejection not just of phonography (present only in the rare use of vernacular phonographs for auxiliary verbs and particles) but also in general avoidance of the logographic indication of bound forms, or “empty words” in the traditional Chinese sense (C. xuci 虚辭 or xuzi 虚字).31 Contemporary scholars usually refer ——— 30. For a summary of some other Man’yōshū poems that provide support for establishing a reading of MYS 11:2377, see endnote 6.11. 31. This avoidance of inscribing grammatical elements is a reminder that the opposition between logography and phonography that is central to this study is to some ex-

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to the poems written this way as the Abbreviated Form poems (ryakutaika 略體歌), while the remainder of Collection poems, which are a bit more expansively written (though still less so than the Works of Hitomaro or the general styles of the logographic books) are called the Unabbreviated Form poems (hiryakutaika 非略體歌).32 The distribution of these two sets of Collection poems suggests that they were associated with distinct, and differently organized, bodies of poetry—two separate Hitomaro collections, or perhaps two sections of a single lost collection. Abbreviated Form poems also exhibit unusual character usages dependent on aspects of kundoku-based logographs. Where the typical logograph stems ultimately from a translation relationship between Japanese and Chinese words mediated by a character or characters with which both are associated, in these special usages that relationship is stretched, sometimes to the breaking point.33 A relatively moderate example is provided by combinations of characters that have a descriptive, circumlocutionary relationship to the Japanese words that they あられ inscribe, as in 丸 雪 [lit., “round snow”] for arare, “hail” (MYS 7:1293), はつはつ 小 端 [“small edge”] for patupatu, “barely” (MYS 7:1306; 11:2411), or をとめ 未通女 [“woman not yet visited”] for woto2me1, “maiden” (MYS 11:2360). Such usages, which latter-day taxonomies usually categorize as gikun 義訓, or “semantic logographs,” can be found elsewhere in the logo——— tent a heuristic one. The Kojiki preface does make it clear that there was an operating distinction between what we can call logography and phonography in the eighth century. But there is no reason to assume that this was the only or even the most important contrast governing taxonomies of writing (explicit or implicit) in early Japan. (See endnote 6.9 on the apparent significance of a contrast between monosyllabic and multisyllabic graphs.) 32. For an example of an Unabbreviated Form poem and further discussion of the distinction between these two groups, see endnote 6.12. 33. Such unusual usages, which abound in but are not limited to the poems of the Hitomaro Collection, receive a great deal of attention. They have been described by a variety of terms, including gisho 戲書 (“playful writings”), gikun 義訓 (“semantic logographs”), hitaiōkun 非對應訓 (“non-equivalent logographs”), kundoku kanji 訓讀漢字 (“logographic characters”), and koyū kunji 固有訓字 (“distinctive logographic characters”). While the intrinsic interest of such usages is undeniable, they cannot be understood through a scattershot approach that takes up only exotic examples. They must be situated in the overall context of the entirety of the Man’yōshū, and more broadly of the history of early Japanese writing in general.

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graphic registers of the Man’yōshū, but they are particularly striking in the Abbreviated Form poems of the Hitomaro Collection.34 This is not just an independent curiosity, a visual filigree limited to the level of the script. There are numerous points in the Collection where it appears that circumlocutionary usage in writing has thematic links with the poem itself, as in the following Abbreviated Form sedōka: Through the Guard Mountains, Where parents cloister young maidens, He who visited daily comes no more, alas! ひとのおやの

人 祖

を と め こ すゑて

未通女兒 居

もるやま へ から

あさなさな

かよひしきみが

こねば かなしも

守 山邊柄

朝々

通

不来哀

公

(MYS 11:2360)

In a poem that appears to lament an aborted courtship, the gikun representation of “maiden” as “woman not yet visited” has obvious resonance (Inaoka 1998, 43–44). (As discussed in the following section, judging the extent of that resonance is tied to the difficult problem of whether, and to what extent, this particular orthography was a standard means of writing the word “maiden.”) Another way in which characters can carry additional meanings that emphasize or enrich the poem itself is when vernacular phonographs derive overtones from their original logographic sense. Such an overtone is apparent in the graph employed to write ikari “anchor” in the third line of the following Abbreviated Form poem. Great ships On the Katori Sea Dropping anchor— What kind of person would not be Weighed down by thoughts of love? おほぶねの

かとりのうみに

いかりおろし

いかなるひとか

ものおもはざらむ

大船

香取 海

慍 下

何有 人

物不念有

(MYS 11:2436)

The first three lines of this poem form a preface ( joshi 序詞) linked to the final two by the repetition of the initial syllables of ikari “anchor” ——— 34. For more on the term gikun, see endnote 6.13.

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いかり

and ikanaru “what kind of.”35 The graph 慍 is used phonographically for the sound of the word with which it is associated (“fury” [ikari], a homonym of “anchor”). But the sense of that word adds another layer of meaning to the poem as a whole (and another kind of connection between the preface and the final lines), suggesting something of the nature of the submerged thoughts with which the speaker is preoccupied (Inaoka 1998, 233–34). The “anchor”-“fury” implication is an artifact of the shift from logograph to phonograph (and related phenomena are not uncommon in vernacular phonograph usages throughout the logographic books). But fully logographic usages can involve similar kinds of literary amplification. A much discussed example is found in the second line of the following Abbreviated Form poem, where two possible meanings of the graph employed to write ko1pi2 (“yearn”) interact with each other and the overall import of the poem. With your village distant, I have worn myself out in yearning. As in a clear mirror, Always beside the bed, Please appear in my dreams! さとどほみ

こひうらぶれぬ

まそかがみ

とこのへ さらず

いめにみえ

里 遠

眷浦 経

真 鏡

床 重 不去

夢 所 見与

こそ

(MYS 11:2501)

The sense of the literary Chinese word associated with the graph 眷 can be “long for” or “yearn” (hence its use as logograph for the Japanese ko1pi2). But depending on the context, it can also mean “look over one’s shoulder” or “look back,” an alternate reading that resonates with the distant village upon which the yearning speaker ‘looks back.’ Here an alternate logographic reading provides overtones not unlike those produced by the logographic/phonographic interaction in the “anchor” poem.36 In all of the preceding types of logographic resonance, the conduits of meaning remain consistent with the intellectual foundations of literary Chinese character usage. These ‘meanings’ do not exist in some abstract sense, but only as they are embodied in a complex environment ——— 35. The location of the “Katori Sea” is uncertain, but it is thought to be part of Lake Biwa in modern Shiga prefecture. 36. On this usage of 眷, see Uchida 1997, 18–19, and Inaoka 1998, 366.

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of interlocking literary and scholarly sources; this is true not only of the overtones of particular usages, but also of the basic matter of how these strings of graphs are to be read as poems in Japanese. Overtones derived from polysemy of logographs, or from their use as phonographs, are consistent with the standard literary Chinese meanings of those characters. But other usages in the Abbreviated Form poems of the Hitomaro Collection depart dramatically from those standard meanings. Perhaps the most famous of these can be found in the second line of the following love poem: Like sedge-grass roots, So sedulously did my lord tie them: No one else but him Shall undo the cords of my sash すがのねの

ねもころきみが

むすびて し

わがひものをを

とくひとはあ ら じ

菅 根

惻 隠君

結

我紐 緒

解 人 不有

為

(MYS 11:2473)

This poem is written in typical abbreviated style, relying on yomisoe for bound forms in every line, but its most noteworthy aspect is the inscription of the word nemo2ko2ro2, an adverb with a range of meaning including “deeply,” “carefully,” “thoroughly,” and “kindly” (to pick up the wordplay between this word and the epithet that introduces it, it is rendered as “sedulously”). The pair of graphs (惻隠) employed to write this word here and in four other Abbreviated Form poems—but nowhere else—are a compound with a different meaning in literary Chinese contexts: “pity” or “grieve.”37 It is significant that there is only a distant association between the sense of this compound and that of the kundoku reading that is forced upon it in this context. As was the case with the logographic overtones surveyed above, the ‘original’ meaning of the characters resonates with the overall sense of the poem in which they are found. In MYS 11:2473 a charged scene of leave-taking is deepened by the sense of emotional suffering in the graphs linked with the adverb nemo2ko2ro2 despite the lack of a firm semantic connection.38 This sort of Abbreviated Form ——— 37. On the most familiar literary Chinese precedent for the term 惻隠, see endnote 6.14. 38. For further discussion of the expressive dissonance between nemo2ko2ro2 and 惻隠, see Watase 1988 and Inaoka 1989.

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usage could be seen as ‘logographic dissonance,’ in which there is no direct connection between the ‘original’ sense of the graphs and that of the Japanese word with which they are associated. But actually it has much in common with other expressive uses of logographic overtones in the Hitomaro Collection (and, more broadly, in the Man’yōshū in general). In all of these cases, meanings derived from literary Chinese usage have been manipulated to echo or emphasize thematic elements of the poem as a whole. In other words, in the Abbreviated Form poems, the ambiguity and multiplicity inherent in the process of kundoku itself has been appropriated as a means of literary expression.39 Of course, not all character usage in these poems is so charged with significance. There are also numerous instances of logographs operating in a comparatively straightforward, ‘unresonant’ manner, with agreement between the meaning of the graph and the Japanese word associated with it. For example, the word ko1pi2 (“yearning”) is generally written with the character 戀, which remains the standard logograph for it today. It is only in this context of a standard logographic baseline (without which the Abbreviated Form poems would be even closer to illegibility than they already are) that the expressive use of characters (as in the inscription of ko1pi2 with 眷 in MYS 11:2501) has its effect: as a departure from the norm. These two types of character usage are symbiotic: the expressive usages of characters, which gain a great deal of their impact by being unusual, exist only as a departure from the more standard usages. This connection, which is akin to that between figure and ground in a drawing or painting, means that both types of usage take on ‘literary’ meaning. The standard usages, by virtue of being standard, are not automatically made more expressive; it is still necessary to acknowledge a difference between writing ko1pi2 as 戀 and nemo2ko2ro2 as 惻隠. But the presence of the latter ‘figure’-like usages imparts new significance to the former ones, as the ‘ground’ against which they stand out. Thus the ‘specialness’ of the connection between graphs and words in the Abbreviated Form poems goes beyond the unusual expressive uses. ——— 39. For an extensive catalog of expressive uses of writing in the Abbreviated Form poems, see Saijō 2000.

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Another important aspect of this ‘figure’-‘ground’ relationship is that it pertains to a group of poems organized as a collection—that is, as a set of texts that exist cohesively, depending on mutual interrelations for some of their significance. The ‘figure’-‘ground’ relationship that underlies the expressive uses of writing is possible only in a context of multiple poemtexts, so we can say that the full functioning of the inscription of the Collection depends on it being the inscription of a collection. Particular usages of writing resonate within a given poem-text, and are dependent on larger linguistic and literary contexts, but they take on their meanings and implications—whether as ‘figure’ or ‘ground’—in an implicit local context of other, adjacent poem-texts. Many scholars have assumed the Hitomaro Collection represents the oldest material in the Man’yōshū that preserves its original written format, which is plausible, though unprovable.40 What is certain, from the organization of Books VII, X, and XI in particular, is that the Hitomaro Collection was highly valued by the Man’yōshū compilers as a source of classic poems and a model for anthologizing. This, along with the distinctive nature of the Collection poems’ styles of inscription, their similarity to that of the Works of Hitomaro, and the overarching Man’yōshū tendency to preserve stylistic variety in writing, suggest that they do reflect the original written form of this lost anthology, which can reasonably be dated to the last quarter of the seventh century (though it would not significantly affect my arguments if the Collection materials were from a few decades later, or, for that matter, earlier). Mid-seventhcentury phonograph poem mokkan like that found in the Naniwa palace site establish that the unusual styles of the Collection were not the first halting attempts at writing poetry but choices made against a background of other possible methods of inscription. Ironically, knowing more about the actual circumstances of writing in the seventh century has made it harder to consider the Collection in that context, because the gulf between its literary inscription and the more prosaic styles seen in mokkan and other sources is more apparent. Once ——— 40. Some scholars have gone as far as treating the Abbreviated Form poems as works written before 680, and the Unabbreviated between 680 and 689, but such specific claims are supported by neither the evidence from within the Man’yōshū (which is quite thin) nor the current understanding of late seventh-century writing (Lurie 2004).

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the likelihood of choice has been confirmed, it makes more sense to turn back to the place of the Collection poems within the Man’yōshū as it stands—in a sense, to think of them in an eighth-century frame rather than trying to reconstruct a putative seventh-century anthology. It seems that the expressive uses of logography mobilized so prominently in the Abbreviated Form poems contributed to its selection as a method of inscription for literary texts, but it is also possible that their brevity itself could have had an expressive value, as Takagi Ichinosuke (1976 [1950], 7–21) suggested briefly in a pioneering article on the Collection. This notion also leads out of the confines of the Hitomaro Collection and back into the broader framework of the Man’yōshū as a whole, because there are similar examples of interplay between words, logographs, and the overall themes of poems in portions of the anthology with no connection to Hitomaro. The issue, again, is of choice among a variety of coexisting possibilities, and, more specifically, of the choice of logographic writing. The value of starting this discussion with the Hitomaro Collection was threefold. First, the Abbreviated Form poems contain materials that take the logographic inscription of poetry as far as possible; indeed, the style of these poems often seems a deliberate experiment in extreme logography. Moreover, considering the logographic ‘ground’ as well as the ‘figures’ is a reminder of the normativity and prestige of logographic writing in this period; once one abandons the assumption that poetry should necessarily be recorded phonographically, it is only natural that it could be written logographically. Second, the Collection poems contain a variety of different kinds of play with the texture of writing itself: uses of inscription that might in and of themselves be termed ‘literary,’ and that were at any rate produced by sophisticated awareness of the role of kundoku reading in the contemporary writing system. Third, the Collection is precisely that: a collection of poetry. It exists as such, right now, as scattered groups of poems in various books of the Man’yōshū that share a label that they were taken from the Kakinomoto no ason Hitomaro [no] kashū. Within limits, it is possible to extrapolate something of the original form of this collection from its contents and their distribution in the existing anthology. But even if one refrains from such speculation, in their current form these fragments prompt us to think carefully about the nature of groups of poems, and more broadly about the importance of context

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(on many levels) for the functioning of writing, in the Man’yōshū and in general. Context, Choice, and Stylistic Difference The linguist Dwight Bolinger (1977) famously argued that there is no such thing as true synonymy of words or grammatical constructions: formal differences are inevitably meaningful in some way. A central theme of this book is that on the transcriptive level—that is, in terms of their vocalization—different modes of inscription may be seen as equivalent. But it is equally important that on other levels—which might be called ‘nontranscriptive’—differences in inscription are inherently significant.41 As diverse as it is, the inscription of the Man’yōshū shows numerous regular patterns of usage. The variety in word-inscription strategies apparent in abstract categories like ‘logograph’ and ‘vernacular phonograph’ is far from absolute. 42 Furthermore, as emphasized above, the word-level freedom of choice is organized into larger patterns that can be loosely grouped together as logograph-centric styles and phonograph-centric styles. Such patterns limit the variety of inscription, which suggests there were corresponding limitations on the choices actually available to poets, scribes, and copyists. Even so, however, a great deal of freedom to choose remained. The strong patterns seen in the content and authorship of logograph-centric and phonograph-centric books suggest that particular written styles had specific values or associations, but nonetheless such values seem to have contributed to choices rather than mechanically determining them. What was implied in choosing one form of writing over another, and how did the existence of other possible choices affect the method of writing employed to record a particular poem? As we will see, the variety of inscription within the Man’yōshū means that unselected styles shadow and give meaning to the selected ones.43 ——— 41. For more on the aesthetic significance of nontranscriptive differences such as those seen in the Hitomaro Collection, see endnote 6.15. 42. For linguistic restrictions on variety of inscription, see endnote 6.16. 43. In a sense, the meaning given by an unselected to a selected style of inscription underlies the contrast described in the Kojiki preface between the purely logographic and

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THE MAN’ YŌSHŪ AND THE POETRY OF WRITING

The previous section showed how the presence of alternate possibilities determines the significance of the distinctive styles of the Hitomaro Collection, but this effect is by no means limited to that—or indeed any— local context. We might recall the “hidden marsh” poem (cited above) that exemplified the two major styles of Man’yō inscription. こもり ぬ の

隠 沼乃

した ゆ こひ あまり

しらなみ の

いちしろくいでぬ

下従戀 餘

白浪之

灼然 出

こ も り ぬ の

し た ゆ こ ひ あ ま り

許母利奴能 之多由孤悲安麻里

ひと の しる べく

人之可知 (MYS

12:3023)

し ら な み の

い ち し ろ く い で ぬ

ひ と の し る べ く

志良奈美能

伊知之路久伊泥奴

比登乃師流倍久

(MYS 17:3935) ko2mo2rinu no2 / sita yu ko1pi2amari / siranami1 no2 / itisiro1ku idenu / pi1to2 no2 sirube2ku

Among the points made above was that this contrast between logographic and phonographic styles cannot be approached in terms of a historical progression from one to the other. Neither is it possible to argue that one of these styles is inherently better suited to the inscription of verse. How, then, should we evaluate the dramatic differences between them? An as-yet undiscussed aspect of the inscription of the “hidden marsh” poem provides a new way of approaching this essential issue. As is immediately apparent from its length, the 33 syllables of the poem are spelled out one by one; they are entirely in Sinitic phonographs.44 However, viewed in light of the preceding discussion of logographic overtones, one element of the poem requires further comment: in the second こひ line, ko1pi2 (“yearning,” “love”) is written with the characters 孤悲. These two graphs are straightforward Sinitic phonographs, but they also have highly significant logographic overtones: the meanings of the Chinese words with which they are originally associated (孤 “alone” [mod. C. gu]; 悲 “sad,” “lament” [mod. C. bei]) serve as a semantic gloss ( gikun) on ——— purely phonographic prose styles. Much of the following section derives from Lurie 2007b, which cites more extensive Man’yōshū examples. 44. The Sinitic phonographs employ mostly go’on with a few kan’on mixed in. This is a regular tanka despite having 33 syllables because words with an initial vowel are elided with the final vowel of the preceding word (within a line): here, ko1pi2amari in the second line and itisiro1ku idenu in the fourth.

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the meaning of the word ko1pi2, and are often cited in discussions of its etymology. こひ The 孤悲 usage is a neat encapsulation of the complexity of Man’yō writing, as it is simultaneously phonographic and logographic. Along with similar associative writings (more commonly vernacular rather than Sinitic phonograph usages) it is made possible by the multiple functions of the individual characters. But it also depends on the other available ways of writing the same word. In the case of ko1pi2 the range of possibilities includes the aforementioned logograph 戀 and various phonographic usages such as 古比 and 故非. But all methods of writing are not equal: certain general principles, and also specific spellings of certain words, have greater or lesser degrees of standardization, like the ‘norms’ of character selection in the Hitomaro Collection. The existence of such standards is an essential component of the meaningfulness of a method of inscription selected from multiple possibilities. With 孤悲, neither character is a common phonograph for its syllable, so in addition to the logographic overtones of this usage, another contributing factor to its expressiveness is that the graphs themselves, as phonographs, are unusual (as with the logographic use of 眷 in MYS 11:2501).45 For highly standardized writings like 戀 for the word ko1pi2 or 古 for the syllable ko1, these graphs involve a sort of transparency: a quick, relatively direct link with a word or syllable unlikely to inspire the reader to dwell on the nature of the character or its associations. This means that one cannot assume the semantic presence of the original logographic meanings of characters that are used phonographically. In certain contexts, such effects—which can be called ‘overtones’ when they seem to have something to add to the poem or ‘noise’ when they seem to be a distraction—must have been discernable, but there are also numerous contexts in which they must not have been. When graphs have standardized phonograph usages, or appear in heavily phonographic contexts, ——— 45. The use of the graph 眷 to write forms of the verb ko1pu is quite rare in the Man’yōshū, occurring only in MYS 11:2501 and 11:2481 (both Abbreviated Form poems from the Hitomaro Collection) and in 2:213 (one of Hitomaro’s Works). In all three of these cases, the usage derives much of its significance from the overwhelming logographic standard of 戀 (explicitly so in 2:213, where in a characteristic Hitomaro device these two inscriptions of the same word are contrasted).

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there is little or no ambiguity about their functions. Similarly, although the ultimate source of logographic readings was literary Chinese usage, こひ with ubiquitous logographs like 戀 , there would under normal circumstances have been little or no awareness of that underpinning of what had become a transparent method of writing the Japanese word. (The た め more common types of vernacular phonographs, such as 田 or 目, also rely on the standardization of the logographs from which they are derived.) This standardization of certain methods of inscription is a general phenomenon, both within and without the Man’yōshū. It is at once a prerequisite for and a consequence of everyday logographic inscription as seen in mokkan.46 This connection between styles of writing and standardization requires further consideration of the problem of context, because it is only within a particular context that a given method of writing can be said to be normative. In the Man’yōshū, this means delineating particular groups of poems, whether those attributed to a particular author, collected in a particular book or subsection, or specifically described as a group by a heading or note. One of the principal values of the Man’yōshū for the study of writing is the clarity with which it demonstrates how in different contexts the ‘same’ method of writing can take on very different meanings, in large part because different contexts involve different standards. There are dangers here, though: one cannot simply talk of ‘selecting a context’ as if that were an uncomplicated, epistemologically clean process. Do latter-day scholars select groups of poems, and thereby create contexts, and corresponding standards, and hence meaningful effects of writing that depend on those standards? Or are we searching for what must have been meaningful effects in no-longer-extant contexts by ma——— 46. Vocabulary differences between mokkan and Man’yōshū poems make it difficult to directly compare the inscription of particular words across these bodies of heterogeneous materials. Even so, writing in the Man’yōshū has essentially different functions than it does in mokkan and other everyday sources, where logographs serve simply as straightforward signs of particular words (Kobayashi Yoshinori 1988). It is difficult to imagine a set of mokkan in which unusual usages resonate with expressive effects within and between individual texts, and against a background of more straightforward graphs. Such play with inscription would be a distraction and an active diminution of the usefulness of everyday writing.

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nipulating the groups that are available to us? There is no direct way to get a sense of the experiences of the earliest readers of the Man’yōshū, a group which necessarily included the compilers themselves. This is the core problem of literary history, refracted in this case through the specific (and quantifiable) problem of the patterning of multiple possibilities of writing particular words. In Japanese-language Man’yōshū scholarship, much of the implicit methodology for considering expressive uses of writing has developed through confrontation with this problem. The primary, though generally unarticulated, assumption is that the rarer or more unusual a given method of writing, the more likely it is to have an expressive function beyond straightforward indication of words or syllables. Repetition both fosters and reflects familiarity: the standardization or fixation of a particular method of inscription, which involves its repeated use in multiple poems in particular contexts, implicitly robs it of potential expressive significance, whereas a departure from the norm, by virtue of being so, is at least potentially charged with nontranscriptive meaning. Here the extraordinarily high quality of modern research tools comes into play, as classic references like the Man’yōshū sōsakuin 萬葉集總索引 (Masamune 1974 [1929–31]) and more recent works like Kinoshita Masatoshi’s 2001 electronic edition (MYS) and the magnificent concordance derived from it (Koten sakuin kankōkai 2003) allow detailed statistical analysis of patterns of inscription. The challenge, as always in such scholarship, is to avoid being seduced by the apparent concreteness of usage figures into assuming that they are in themselves meaningful. These ‘facts’ are at best a proxy for the significance that we assume particular inscriptive choices had for contemporary readers and writers, even though such significance would have been more a matter of unconscious intuition than of explicit awareness.47 One reason to be careful with usage figures is that context is inherently variable. Because modes of inscription take on new meanings in new contexts, they can have significance that was not ‘intended’ by the original writers of the texts. (Here as well, a fundamental problem ——— 47. As Ueno Makoto once wryly reminded me, there were no concordances or indices (in the modern sense) in early Japan, so detailed analyses of patterns of character usage need to be taken with a grain of salt (personal communication, 20 August 2005).

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of literary history assumes a newly vivid form in the history of writing.) The meaning of the Abbreviated Form style of the Hitomaro Collection, for example, had one significance in the original context provided by the Collection itself (which had its own now-inaccessible intratextual context, visible in a limited and fragmentary way through extant late seventh-century mokkan sources); another very different one in the contexts of Books XI and XII; and yet another one when those books are viewed within the wider context of the Man’yōshū itself. On the level of the anthology as a whole, as opposed to within the books that contain large groups of Collection poems, Hitomaro’s role as an exemplar is different, and the ‘abbreviated’ quality of the poems—as well as the meaning of the choice to write in that fashion—is shaped by the presence of phonograph-centric poems, and, indeed, books. This variability is demonstrated by following tanka, from a set of four love poems by Ōtomo no Sukune Momoyo 大伴宿祢百代 (fl. ca. 730– 47), a member of the Tsukushi circle that formed around Tabito. On こひ first glance, the first line would appear to present a parallel to the 孤悲 usage in the “hidden marsh” poem (MYS 17:3935). What good will it do After I have yearned to death? It is for the days When I still have life in me That I would meet my love (Cranston 1993b, 342 [poem 614]) こ ひ しなむ

ときはなに せ む

孤悲死牟

時者何為牟

いける ひ の

生 日之

ためこそいも を

為 社 妹乎

みまくほり す れ

欲 見 為礼

(MYS 4:560)

Although the spelling of ko1pi2 is the same, the contexts of these two poems are very different. The earlier example (MYS 17:3935) is from こひ a set of poems in a primarily phonographic book where the 孤悲 usage is popular: 18 out of 25 (72 percent) occurrences of ko1pi2 there are written this way, which means it is a standard spelling in that context. By contrast, the Momoyo poem (MYS 4:560) is from a primarily logographic book in which the same ko1pi2 form is overwhelmingly written こひ こひ with the standard character 戀 (out of 63 examples, this 孤悲 is the sole exception). Absent commentaries or other explicit traces of reception, it is impossible to know how such usages were interpreted by their earliest readers. But if it is legitimate to treat statistics as indications of the dis-

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tinctiveness of particular writings, then it is clear that the same usage can have very different significance depending on whether or not it こひ departs from the local standard. The 孤悲 spelling in the “yearned to death” poem (MYS 4:560), and, presumably, its logographic overtones, are more ‘alive’ than the same spelling in the “hidden marsh” poem (MYS 17:3935).48 The power of context and standardization to shape the meaningfulness of written stylistic difference is not merely a matter of larger contexts like groups of poems or books of anthology-level collections; it also functions within the smaller context of the individual poem. Certain poems can provide contexts that transform even highly standardized means of inscription, potentially making them less ‘transparent’ and reactivating logographic overtones that had been stripped by repetition. Among the most ubiquitous vernacular phonographs employed in the logograph-centric books is 鴨 “duck,” used as a bisyllabic phonograph for the homophonous exclamatory/interrogative final particle kamo. 49 This usage appears in all the logograph-centric books, and all told over half of the instances of the particle kamo are written with this character, おもほゆるかも as in the final line of MYS 4:751: 所 念 鴨 “Must I long for you?” Indeed, in the Man’yōshū, this ‘secondary’ usage far outnumbers the character’s ‘primary’ use as the logograph for the noun “duck.” When there is such a strong connection between a vernacular phonograph and a particular grammatical element, one could even say that a new logograph has been formed: a dedicated word-sign for the particle kamo. Given this prevalence, it is hard to imagine that much sense of the waterfowl remains in these hundreds of final particle usages. A closely related case is that of the graph 鶴 “crane,” which serves as a vernacular phonograph for turu, the attributive form of the perfective auxiliary verb tu. It is the ——— 48. Both inscriptions are standard—indeed, across the entire Man’yōshū they represent the two most popular choices for ko1pi2—but in more local contexts one dominates, making the other partake somewhat of the charged quality of the nonstandard inscription. 49. The word for duck, kamo1, and the particle, kamo2, were not originally homophonous, but the mo1/mo2 pair was the first set of syllables to merge as the Old Japanese vowel distinctions disappeared. Although these two syllables are distinguished in the Kojiki, in most of the Man’yōshū there is only a single mo.

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dominant method of writing that form in the logograph-centric books, also being employed in over half of its appearances.50 A common pattern in the concluding line of a poem is the exclamatory combination turu kamo, as in the following love poem (once again, expressing concern for the prying of third parties), wherein the two vernacular phonographs are combined in the final line. When they asked me “Who is that there?” I could not answer them, So I’ve had to send back Your messenger! たそかれと

とはばこたへむ

す べ を なみ

きみがつかひを

かへしつるかも

誰彼登

問者将答

為便乎無

君之使乎

還 鶴鴨

(MYS 11:2545)

It is true that the visual rhyme of the ‘bird radicals’ of the two final characters stands out, in a juxtaposition that could potentially be conducive to logographic overtones. However, not only are these two characters the most common ways to write each of the forms turu and kamo in the logograph-centric books, but their combination is the most common way of writing the concluding collocation turu kamo (28 out of 36 examples, or nearly 78 percent). The visual rhyme of this combination of characters in itself may contribute to its prominence, but given how ubiquitous these two graphs are as quasi-logographs for their particles, it is difficult to posit overtones of “duck” and “crane” in a poem like the one cited above. But once again, this is a matter of context, as is clear from the following love poem from the same book. These water birds, the ducks— The pond where they dwell, Having no outlet pipe, is pent up— Like my yearning for him I saw today!

——— 50. The situation with 鶴 “crane” as a vernacular phonograph is different from that of 鴨 “duck.” Based on phonographic evidence (e.g., MYS 6:919, 15:3595), it appears that the poetic term for the crane was tadu, which is the accepted reading when 鶴 appears as a logograph. But the word turu appears in Heian-period dictionaries (SJ 8:487, WMRS 18:754a), and it is clear from the contexts of many Man’yōshū poems that as a vernacular phonograph 鶴 is read turu.

The Poetry of Writing みづとり の

かも の すむいけ の

したびなみ

いぶせききみを

水 鳥乃

鴨之住 池之

下樋無

欝悒君

け ふ み つるかも

今日見 鶴 鴨

295 (MYS 11:2720)

Here, the “water bird” imagery in the preface of the first three lines, which includes the less common ‘primary’ use of the character 鴨 as a logograph for “duck,” creates within this particular poem a new context that is more conducive to bird-related logographic overtones in the same characters inscribing the final turu kamo. Interpreting cases like this is a matter of balancing multiple contexts. Those outside the poem establish a degree of fixedness and standardization for the characters as potentially transparent quasi-logographs for turu kamo, which would tend to blunt the potential logographic resonance of the birds. But the poem itself is another context that suggests perhaps the “water bird” overtones are relevant after all. The potential for expression inherent in multiple coexisting modes of inscription for the same words and syllables is even more extensive. Significance can come, not just from logographic overtones or resonances among characters, but more generally from the contrast between logographic and phonographic inscription themselves, in contexts where the choice of one or the other stands out. For example, in the following Unabbreviated Form poem from the Hitomaro Collection, the concluding collocation kanasimi1 (“because of sadness”) is written in Sinitic phonographs, despite the overwhelming tendency towards logography in this poem, in Book IX, and in the Hitomaro Collection. Despite the noisy plashing Of the Ado river waves in Takashima, I think deeply of home, Such is the sadness of my traveler’s lodging. たかしまの

あ ど かはなみ は

さわけども

われは いへおもふ

高嶋之

阿渡 川 波 者

驟 鞆

吾者 家 思

やどり か な し み

宿 加奈之弥

(MYS 9:1690)

Because logography was definitely possible for the adjective kanasi (written elsewhere in the Hitomaro Collection with the logographs 悲 [MYS 9:1796] and 哀 [MYS 7:1285; 11:2360]), this phonographic inscription was selected in place of logographic alternatives. It could be at least in part an attempt to avoid specific nuances of the candidate logographs (Inaoka 1991), but even so this unusual passage of Sinitic phonographs also has expressive potential, not unlike the use of italic type or capital

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letters for emphasis in alphabetic writing (or katakana in modern Japanese orthography).51 Anomalous use of logographs in a phonographic context stands out in much the same way. In the following envoy to a long poem by Yamanoue no Okura 山上憶良 (660–733?), three logographs appear in the first two lines of what is otherwise written entirely in Sinitic phonographs. What are they to me, Silver, or gold, or jewels? How could they ever Equal the greater treasure That is a child? (Cranston 1993b, 352 [poem 628]) しろかね も

銀 母

くがね も たま も

金 母玉母

な に せ む に

ま さ れ る た か ら

奈尓世武尓

麻佐礼留多可良

こ に し か め や も

古尓斯迦米夜母 (MYS

5:803)

Here the materiality of the precious objects—silver, gold, and jewels—is emphasized by the use of three logographs. Rather than interfering with the apprehension of these logographs as such, the repeated phonograph も mo 母 (among the most common spellings for that syllable across the entire anthology), actually serves to further emphasize their distinctiveness. As these examples suggest, the frequent ‘impurity’ of the two main styles of Man’yōshū inscription is itself a resource for the scribe or author, as shifts between logography and phonography stand out against the ground of the predominant mode in a given context. The process of establishing and evaluating different contexts is not just a methodological issue for the study of the Man’yōshū by latter-day scholars: it was also a major element in writing’s meaning for the scribes and compilers who created the anthology and its precursors. An important aspect of the literary sensibility of the Man’yōshū is the interaction of poems in groups, including such diverse and much-discussed phenomena as long poem–envoy combinations, poem sequences, exchanges of poetry (sōmon 相聞), and collective composition at banquets and other occasions. The power of context to make and remake the significance of particular poems, images, verse forms, and so on is also apparent from ——— 51. For more on the implications of this anomalous phonographic usage, see endnote 6.17.

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Fig. 6.1 The comparative length of primarily logographic (left; from Book XII) and phonographic (right; from Book XVII) styles; these two sets of five poems are contexts for 12:3023 and 17:3935, the two versions of the “hidden marsh” poem. The earliest Man’yōshū texts would have been handwritten, of course, with fewer characters in each line (according to Ogawa Yasuhiko [2003], fifteen per line is likely), but the visual impact of the greater length and graphic homogeneity of the phonographic style would have been much the same.

the different principles of organization used in the anthology’s various books and their subsections.52 Differences in inscriptive style gain mean——— 52. The significance of choice among alternative inscriptive styles is not limited to the active choices made by those originally responsible for inscribing the poem-texts, be they the ‘authors’ of the poems themselves, contemporary scribes, or latter-day copyists. It also involves the overall choices made by the compilers of the Man’yōshū as a whole, who did not systematically rewrite the materials that became the anthology, and thus at least implicitly endorsed variety and the meanings that it engenders.

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ing from, and also impart meaning to, such groups and subgroups of poems. One of the most obvious such differences is the highest-level one, between primarily logographic and phonographic styles. Books V, XIV, XV, XVII, and XVIII–XX are visually set off from the remainder of the Man’yōshū by the length of the inscribed poems (the number of graphs per fixed metrical unit—the tanka itself, or for the variable chōka, the five- and seven-syllable lines—being a rough indicator of how phonographic the style) and the greater homogeneity produced by repeated phonographs within and across poems (see Figure 6.1). Less stark versions of this visual distinctiveness are also apparent within individual books of the anthology. One of the most remarkable is the way the Abbreviated Form style of Hitomaro Collection poems sets them off from their surroundings, as in the following passage from Book X, which includes a subheading (“Composed on Frost”) from the “Autumn: Miscellaneous Poems” 秋雜歌 section and the heading for the following “Autumn Exchanges” section. The second poem is an Abbreviated Form poem from the Collection. COMPOSED ON FROST

From where among the Covering feathers of the wings Of the geese, soaring in the sky, Did it leak through, This fallen frost?

Autumn Exchanges If I could just hear your voice, Like the cry of a bird Beneath the red leaves Of the autumn hills, Then what would I have to lament? 詠霜 あまとぶや

かりのつばさの

おほひばの

いづく もりて か

しものふり け む

天飛也

鴈之翹乃

覆羽之

何處 漏 香

霜之零異牟

秋相聞 あきやまの

したひがしたに

金山

舌日 下

なくとりの

こゑだにきかば

なにかなげかむ

鳴 鳥

音谷 聞

何 嘆

(MYS 10:2238–39)

A glance at these two tanka, each with the standard 31 syllables, reveals the more extensive orthography of the first: the only instance of yomisoe いづく is the perfective auxiliary verb te in the fourth line (iduku moriTE ka 何 處

The Poetry of Writing もりて か

The contrast with the second poem (2239) could not be more striking, as there all but one bound form (the particle dani “at least” in the こゑだにきかば fourth line, ko2we dani ki1kaBA 音 谷 聞 ) is left unspecified. There are some stylistic parallels between the inscription of the Hitomaro Collection poems and that of the anonymous works (that is, those with no attribution to a source) in places like Books X and XI, but in many cases, especially with Abbreviated Form poems, there is an obvious visual distinction between them. Because the specification that a poem or group of poems is from the Collection comes as a note after the poem(s), this characteristic orthography itself is the first sign of difference encountered by someone reading through the anthology in order. (In the case of MYS 10:2239, its identity is established by a note several poems later, following 2243: “The [poems] to the right come from the poetry collection of Kakinomoto no Ason Hitomaro” 右柿本朝臣 人麻呂之歌集出.) The distinctiveness within the Man’yōshū of the Collection as a classic—as an inaugurating source for imagery, expression, and artful ordering of poems—is accentuated by this kind of dramatic transition between non-Collection and Collection poems.54 Just as alternation among different methods of writing can have extratranscriptive effects in particular contexts, similarly what might be termed a group identity function can be found when poems in dramatically different styles are juxtaposed. Particular poems and sets of poems naturally produce context-based effects, but the editors of the Man’yōshū itself—and presumably of the various earlier anthologies it incorporates—constantly created and manipulated contexts, by noting variant readings, by labeling certain poems as derived from the Hitomaro Col漏

香).

299

53

———

の

53. The bound forms of MYS 10:2238 are indicated with one logograph (之 in the の か け む second and fourth lines), four phonographs (乃 [line 2]; 香 [line 4]; 異 [line 5]; and 牟 [line 5]), and one usage that can be interpreted as both phonographic and logographic や (也 in the first line). 54. It is quite possible that this sort of orthographic contrast, and the cohesiveness of group identity it produces for the poems in question, was apparent in the Hitomaro Collection context(s) that preceded the Man’yōshū itself, but my aim here is to focus on the role of such stylistic differences within the Man’yōshū as it currently exists: more accurately, as it is currently reconstructed by modern textual scholarship. Speculation about the content and format of putative source texts for the anthology is valuable within limits, but it too easily gives rise to tenuous chains of conjecture.

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lection and other sources, by providing headnotes and footnotes, and so on. In these contexts graphic differences themselves serve as markers of belonging and collectivity for particular poems or sets of poems. Moreover, the distinctiveness of all forms of inscription in the Man’yōshū (logographic and phonographic), as compared to everyday inscription of both prose and verse, is indicative of the distinctiveness of the anthology itself as a context for writing. Having surveyed some of the more provocative aspects of the writing of poetry within the Man’yōshū, we may now return to the broader question with which this chapter began: what does the inscription of verse mean for the history of writing? WRITING AND POETRY IN EARLY JAPAN

In considering the wider world of writing beyond the Man’yōshū, once again the Abbreviated Form–style poems of the Hitomaro Collection provide an instructive point of departure. How is it possible that a cryptic string of characters like 金山舌日下鳴鳥音谷聞何嘆 can be read with confidence as “aki1yama no2 / sitapi1 ga sita ni / naku to2ri no2 / ko2we dani ki1kaba / nani ka nage2kamu” (MYS 10:2239; the “Autumn Exchanges” poem quoted above)? As explained above, contemporary readings of such poems are the product of a millennium of scholarly inquiry, supported by parallels from more phonographically written portions of the Man’yōshū itself, other early Japanese texts, and lexicographical works of ensuing centuries (and even so, portions remain provisional). But that leaves open the question of how this style could have been legible in the seventh and eighth centuries. It seems paradoxical that such a truncated form of inscription would be employed to write verse—that is, a type of utterance that is, above all else, expected to have a definite phonic form. Accordingly, scholars speculate about how this style could have functioned in its original contexts, proposing that these were memoranda to jog the poet’s memory, or playful notations of ‘songs’ that were common knowledge at the time.55 Although the patterns of usage examined earlier strongly suggest ——— 55. For more on the historiography of the Abbreviated Form style, see Lurie 2004, 11–13. In connection with speculation about this style as a kind of shorthand, it is interesting to note that there is “a genre of Mesopotamian cuneiform documents in which virtually all the phonographic characters have been eliminated” (Daniels 1996c, 807).

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that the Abbreviated Form style was selected at least in part for aesthetic or expressive effects, neither the Man’yōshū itself nor other early Japanese materials provides sufficient context to establish its significance. But it is not necessary to assume prior knowledge of the specific poems being inscribed to explain the viability of this strange style. The regular prosodic structure of verse, as well as the formulaic nature of its imagery and language and the determining role of certain sound-based devices (such as poetic epithets and prefaces linked by aural repetition), would have provided much of the necessary extratextual support for reading. In a sense, the mass of other poems in surviving sources (the Man’yōshū foremost among them) can be taken as a proxy for the more intangible knowledge of verse patterns that would have been shared by the readers of the day. But just as such patterns enabled ‘reconstruction’ of the entirely logographic poem-texts from the Hitomaro Collection, they also supported reading of entirely phonographic inscription, which would otherwise have been much more difficult to construe. In absence of spacing or punctuation, a purely phonographic tanka looks like this: 余能奈可波牟奈 之伎母乃等志流等伎子伊与余麻須万須加奈之可利家理. 56 Although the active involvement of readers may seem less extreme than with an Abbreviated Form–style poem, it is still the case here that legibility depends on their knowledge of verse form (the 5/7/5/7/7 structure being an essential support to segmenting this string of syllables) and usage. Without such support, all-phonograph inscription would have been surprisingly difficult to read, which accounts for the extraordinary rarity of such writing in non-poetic texts from this period.57 It is mixed writing, like that used in the “Composed on Frost” poem, that would have been clearest for contemporary readers of non-Chinese-style texts. Even without the spaces that are a convention of modern editions, word and line boundaries are clearly marked by transitions between logo——— 56. “When I realize / this world is an empty thing / then all the more I feel / a deeper よ の な か は む な し き も の と し る と き し い よ よ ま す ま す and deeper sorrow” (Levy 1981, 343); 余能奈可波 牟奈之伎母乃等 志流等伎子 伊与余麻須万須 か な し か り け り 加奈之可利家理 (MYS 5:793); yo2 no2 naka pa / munasiki1 mo2no2 to2 / siru to2ki1 si / iyo2yo2 masumasu / kanasikarike1ri. 57. The eventual rise of all-phonographic prose was more dependent on the engineering of a style that could overcome this graphic flattening (Komatsu 1988; Watanabe Minoru 1981) than on the development of sets of graphically distinct phonographs (kana), the one potential exception being the role of spacing in Heian all-phonograph writing.

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graphically written free forms and bound forms written with phonoの か けむ や の graphs (such as 乃, 香, and 異牟) or very common logographs (也 and 之): あまとぶ や かり の つばさ の おほひば の いづくもりて か しも の ふり け む 58 天 飛 也 鴈 之 翹 乃 覆 羽 之 何 處 漏 香 霜 之 零 異牟 (MYS 10:2238). Much like the mixture of logographs (kanji) and phonographs (kana) in modern Japanese orthography, such transitions add immensely to the clarity of this style of inscription. The materials surveyed in this chapter demonstrate the important contribution to legibility made by patterns in the mode of language being inscribed (verse in this case), and also show that there are inherent advantages to mixed inscription—that is, to a primarily logographic style with phonographic adjuncts. What this means is that both the purely logographic and the purely phonographic styles of inscribing poetry involved sacrifices of potential clarity, which suggests that in both cases there were benefits or advantages to offset that loss. Only after grasping this is it possible to evaluate the place of all-phonographic inscription in the history of early Japanese writing. Scholars have proposed a number of contrasting interpretations of the phonographic inscription of poetry in the Man’yōshū. Looking over the anthology, it is immediately apparent that different books provide different contexts for this style. In Book XIV, which collects “Songs of the East” (Azuma-uta 東歌), an obvious rationale is the use of phonographic writing to represent particular dialect forms. In Book V, and in stretches of the Yakamochi books (XVII, XVIII, XX), the contrast with Chinese-style belletristic writing seems to be an element of the style’s significance; this presents parallels, perhaps, to the role of allphonograph inscription of ‘songs’ in the logographic prose contexts of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. In Book XV, all-phonographic writing could be taken as a formal or official style, but with the Yakamochi books, which are often described as a “poetic diary,” (uta nisshi 歌日誌) there is room for the opposite interpretation. Just as the various registers of the phonographic style involve different repertories of phonographs and contrasting proportions of logographs, the connotations of stylistic difference itself seem to have been highly context-dependent. ——— 58. Once again, there is some ambiguity about whether the 也 in the first line should be classified as a logograph or a phonograph, but either way it provides a form of punctuation.

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A similar logic pertains to purely or principally logographic writing of poetry. Some possible reasons for the near-pure logography of the Abbreviated Form style have already been examined, as has the comparative clarity of logography with phonographic adjuncts. As I will discuss in the following chapter, both logographic and phonographic principles were essential to the ‘Chinese’ script from its inception, but discourses on the nature and significance of writing stressed the former, which meant that logography tended to be seen as the default or normal method of writing. To the extent that it was conceptualized as an independent principle of inscription, its association with the learning and cultural authority embodied in literary Chinese writings made it highly prestigious, and also provided a rich source of embedded imagery and allusion. Logographic writing itself was thus one of the chief conduits between the two major belletristic genres of early Japan: the vernacular poetry (waka 和歌) that has been the main focus of this chapter and the Chinese-style poetry (kanshi 漢詩) whose composition and appreciation are attested by a number of sources, most prominently the Kaifūsō, an anthology of over a hundred Chinese-style compositions from the latter seventh through mid-eighth centuries. 59 Despite initial appearances, these two genres cannot be distinguished as oral versus literate modes of expression, or even as principally aural versus principally visual. On the one hand, vocal rendition was one of the principal means of appreciating Chinese-style poetry (probably in ondoku to preserve the rhymes and syllable counts of the Chinese literary forms, but very likely accompanied by kundoku at times). On the other hand, the foregoing discussion has shown how visually expressive the inscription of vernacular poetry was. As others have argued for the Heian period, categories of voice and vision continually cut across poetic genre distinctions (LaMarre 2000; Heldt 2009). The nature of the early Japanese sources, and in particular the complex inscription of vernacular poetry in the Man’yōshū, suggests that waka and kanshi are best seen as distinct regimes of expression integrated internally by canonical verse forms and collections, but also linked in complex ways with each other and with other regimes. Kanshi and ——— 59. On the Kaifūsō, see Watson 1975–76; Denecke 2004; Webb 2005; and Rabinovitch and Bradstock 2005.

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waka were the two main literary modes in this period (and for long afterward), but there were multiple modes in place at any time (compare to the material genres discussed in Chapter 3). The crucial step in grappling with this situation is to abandon thinking in terms of difference or sameness on a linguistic level, and to look more at the interrelations among the various different elements of the regimes of expression. Associations between Chinese-style and vernacular poetry were not universally valued; another factor in the selection of phonographic styles may well have been avoidance of the chains of meaning and reference that could come with logographic usage, both in general terms and with respect to specific words. But such avoidance could only be a surface matter of eliminating obvious resonances or (for the globally phonographic styles) of creating a writing that looked independent of Sinitic literature. Due to the connections between characters and Japanese words established through kundoku, even phonographic writing is permeated by such influences. Or, at least, they are always ready to come to the fore given sufficient contextual support. Other possible reasons for the maintenance of logography in the Man’yōshū include simple brevity, which the Kojiki preface cites as a factor in that work’s prose style. Arguments have also been made for an expressive visual directness inherent in logographic writing (Takagi 1976 [1950]; Okimori 1992). But to the extent that essential features of techniques of inscription can be acknowledged, they only assume their full expressive significance as the consequences of choice; that is, the meaningfulness of certain styles of writing stems in part from the possibility that others could have been used, or at least that other parallel styles were in use contemporaneously. This is not just a matter of comparing books of the Man’yōshū, or of juxtaposing the Man’yōshū with the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. Beyond transmitted belletristic works, everyday materials like mokkan employ separate stylistic registers; this is true for the phonographically inscribed verse mokkan discussed at the outset of this chapter, but also of the predominantly logographic everyday style examined in Chapter 4. This gulf between ‘literary’ texts and quotidian writings is another reminder of the multiplicity of written styles in this period (and of the multiple factors influencing their employment), but it also provides yet another perspective on the significance of the variety of styles seen in transmitted works like the Man’yōshū.

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As was apparent in the example of the “Composed on Frost” and “Autumn Exchanges” poems (MYS 10:2238–39), an essential function of writing in the Man’yōshū is its implicit expression of belonging to collectivities. This is true on the level of individual poems, for which graphic stylistic difference is one of the ways that they participate in the larger groupings to which they belong, but it is also true of the people who produced these poem-texts in the first place, which means that standards of writing in the Man’yōshū were also socially significant.60 As is the case with language change itself, there are centripetal and centrifugal forces influencing the development of writing, pulling styles toward greater homogeneity, or pushing them toward greater diversity. Depending on the tenor of the overall community of writers and the configuration of influences at work, the same principle can have opposite effects. To return to a point that I have already emphasized repeatedly, we cannot posit an overarching standard of phonographic ‘simplicity’ or ‘efficiency’ ungoverned by such social considerations. This means that we cannot explain the prevalence of phonography in the inscription of poetry outside of and after the Man’yōshū simply as a natural, progressive development. As demonstrated by the mokkan surveyed at the beginning of this chapter, it now seems likely that the logographic poetry styles of the Man’yōshū developed at a time when the phonographic inscription of verse was already prevalent. There are parallels with eighth-century developments described by Kobayashi Yoshinori, who noted how terms written phonographically in earlier mokkan tags on tax shipments were replaced by logographic equivalents, which often coincided with the spellings employed in the administrative code (1983; 1988). There are ways in which logographic writing (with or without phonographic adjuncts) can be seen as more ‘clear’ or ‘efficient,’ but the more important point is that such functional considerations always operate as part of a complex of factors shaping the history of writing, and that there is nothing unnatural or artificial about the influence of a range of social forces unconnected to the technical workings of script. ——— 60. Stylistic standards can be discussed in this way as social phenomena regardless of whether the texts as we have them were produced by the authors to whom they are attributed in the Man’yōshū or by later scribes or editors.

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Standards are politically important because they facilitate more effective administrative communication, but also (and perhaps more so) because the ability to impose them symbolizes legitimacy, just as following them can express acquiescence to, or participation in, the political order. (As with other phenomena discussed thus far, such acquiescence is not necessarily communicated by writing that adheres to central standards—all I am arguing is that it can be, and often is.) There are a number of examples of deliberate governmental attention to this aspect of written standards, such as the section of the eighth-century administrative code dealing with the format and terminology of official government communications (the Kushikiryō 公式令; RG 7:227–66), or a famous 713 edict ordering the reform of place names (SN I:197 [Wadō 5/2]). Moreover, the state-run scriptoria that copied thousands of rolls of Buddhist writings were highly regimented, with elaborate formatting rules and proofreading systems. But in early Japan such explicit attempts to standardize writing were surprisingly rare. Although the shift towards logographic inscription in tax shipment mokkan was influenced by the usage of the legal codes, it seems to have been the product of collective scribal choices rather than deliberate action by central authority. In this it is similar to another wellknown development: the transformation of the dominant calligraphic style in mokkan at the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century, in which a shift from a Korean-inflected Six Dynasties to an early Tang standard began in the capitals and rapidly spread across the country (Tōno 1983, 283–89 and 1997, 160–68). Rather than top-down fiats, such changes are produced by collective behavior at lower levels. In the government chanceries where texts like mokkan were produced, scribes would have had an interest in writing ‘correctly,’ and any sign that those with more authority were writing in a certain way would lead to emulation by those beneath them in the hierarchy of social and governmental rank. As different as its content and circumstances were, the writing of verse (on ephemera like mokkan or in belletristic collections like the Man’yōshū and its predecessors) was influenced by similar sociolinguistic dynamics. The first section of this chapter showed how different the all-phonographic styles employed in verse mokkan are from those found in works like the Kojiki and the Man’yōshū. Numerous explanations have

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been proposed for the prevalence of the “Naniwa Port” poem in seventh- and eighth-century informal writings such as mokkan and graffiti, although it seems difficult to go beyond the Kokinshū preface’s description of it as a basic text for practicing phonograph writing.61 What is clear is that the wide distribution of this poem shows that the inscription of uta was pursued in social strata linked to very different types of literacy than those most highly valued by the central officials and courtiers whose names survive as Man’yōshū poets. The distinctive styles of literary works and of mokkan stem from differences in education and ability on the part of the authors or scribes, but they also served a social function in adding distinction to the writing practices of upper- and middle-ranked elite poets. The standardization apparent in the various written styles of the Man’yōshū—and also the literary effects and expressiveness made possible by artfully departing from those standards—would have differentiated the work of the poets and anthologists from texts produced by their social inferiors. Even the pared-down, nearly purely logographic Abbreviated Form style, independently of the expressive potential of such a method of writing, must have had a certain cachet precisely because it would have been difficult for the uninitiated to reconstruct a poem from such a limited set of textual cues. Given that the vocal form of vernacular verse was so suited to circulate orally by virtue of its memorizable form and association with song, methods of writing with limited access played an important role in creating a separate ‘literary’ space. The socially separate literary realm created by belletristic styles of inscription helps to explain the prevalence of logography, and logographic effects, in the Man’yōshū, but it is also significant in considering phonographic styles there and in other eighth-century works like the Kojiki and Nihon shoki. The standardization and simplification of the Kojiki phonograph register sets it apart from everyday mokkan writing just as much as the deliberately elaborate phonographs of the Nihon shoki. In the Man’yōshū, phonographic inscription of the Azuma-uta and border guard (saki——— 61. For debates about the purpose of the “Naniwa Port” poem, see Inukai 2005b, 209–40; Inukai 2008b; Inui 2009; and Ueno 2009. It is hard to imagine that the poem could have been used as a generic contribution to composition sessions at banquets, especially given its strong seasonality.

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mori) poems could be said to be the flip side of the logograph-centric expression of the Hitomaro Collection, in that the rusticity of the authors and poems is emphasized by the straightforward phonography of the transcription. But this in itself is a socially condescending effect, and it cannot be taken as a straightforward consequence of regular phonographic writing itself, because similar styles are employed by the elite and self-consciously literary poets of the Tsukushi circle (in Book V) and by Ōtomo no Yakamochi and his coterie. In discussing the complexities of early Japanese writing, especially as exemplified in the Man’yōshū, Roy Andrew Miller misinterprets their implications in instructive ways. For him, the most complex forms of writing are eloquent testimony to the enormous leisure enjoyed by the Japanese upper classes at the time. That tiny segment of the population that was at all concerned with reading and writing had in fact little if anything else to do with its time, and so quite naturally it delighted in any device that would make the process as time-consuming as possible. [. . .] The early Japanese [. . .] found this kind of writing intriguing and far more rewarding aesthetically than any simple oneto-one phonetic or semantic equivalency system. If we (and the modern Japanese) find it puzzling and annoyingly ambiguous—and it is both of these—we must remember that our present-day ideals of rationality and efficiency, and above all our aesthetic tastes, are not those of the ancient Japanese scribes. They and their culture were not interested in evolving an easy system, or one that could be written quickly or simply and unambiguously. Such values and goals were totally absent from ancient Japanese society, and to criticize in such terms the script from which it developed is to ignore fundamental differences between our world and seventh-century Japan (Miller 1967, 99–100).

Certainly there are profound differences between our contemporary conceptualization of writing and that of the early Japanese. But it is misleading to treat the most complex and involved methods of inscription as exemplary of the totality of writing in this period. Previous chapters have demonstrated the massive quantities of everyday written material, the style and format of which were largely (though not, of course, entirely) governed by a need for clarity and accessibility. Those who produced mokkan and other quotidian documents, or who labored as copyists and proofreaders in the scriptoria of great temples, certainly were a minority in absolute demographic terms, but even so they in no way led lives of “enormous leisure.” There will be more to say about “present-

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day ideals of rationality and efficiency” in the following chapter; here it will suffice to note that similar considerations will inevitably shape any use of writing to some extent. Upon reflection it is as difficult to imagine them not doing so as it is to imagine any human pursuit being wholly subject to them. But if Miller errs in taking the most complex and ‘exotic’ modes of early Japanese writing as emblematic of a whole, that does not mean that these modes should be interpreted in isolation. Many scholars have delighted in citing such oddities as 山上復有山 (“a mountain above another”) as a riddling graphic analysis of the character 出 (MYS 9: 1787), or the name 義之 ([Wang] Xizhi [303–79], a renowned calligrapher [tesi]) used for the continuative and past auxiliary verb forms te-si.62 Such usages, as well as the slightly less baroque ones surveyed in this chapter, are certainly worthy of astonished contemplation. But if they are not properly contextualized they serve only to distract us from the core issues of early Japanese writing. Playful writings in the Man’yōshū are meaningful only as departures from more usual methods of writing, and in themselves can be taken as evidence of the ubiquity and familiarity of such methods. Perhaps even more importantly, extratranscriptive significance (such as logographic overtones of phonographs, and more broadly the contrast between phonographs and logographs itself ) and yomisoe (including the Abbreviated Form style that results from taking unwritten additions to the limit) are phenomena involving more fundamental aspects of the history of writing than dismissive word-portraits of dabbling aristocrats would suggest. Above all else, it is clear that rather than robust inherent significance, particular styles of writing take on

——— 62. As the early modern commentator Keichū (1640–1701) noted, the use of 山上復 有山 as a ‘circumgraphic’ equivalent for 出 is a reference to the Yutai shinyong 玉臺新詠, a Six Dynasties poetry anthology. The use of 義之 (correctly, 羲之) for tesi seven times in five different books (MYS 3:394; 4:664; 7:1324; 10:2064; 10:2066; 11:2578; 12:3028) itself suggests a considerable degree of standardization. A related usage is 大王 (‘Great Wang’), also for tesi (MYS 7:1321; 10:2092; 11:2602; 11:2834). Curious usages of this sort are often grouped under the term gisho 戲書 (“playful writings”); see Seeley 1991, 51–52 (where these are termed “derived writings”); Hachiya 1974; and Omodaka 1928.

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most of their meaning from the particular contexts (normally, multiple overlapping contexts) in which they appear.63 Contrary to common belief, early Japanese poetry was not a flower of Naniwa, blooming in a springtime of phonography. In fact, close attention to the Man’yōshū suggests the opposite: a critical condition for the emergence of poetry was the deliberate rejection of pure phonography, accompanied by exploration of the resources for expression provided by all-logographic and mixed phonographic and logographic writing. Such exploration inevitably separated the resulting texts from more quotidian forms of writing. This chapter’s survey of the variety of inscription in the Man’yōshū shows that early Japanese writers rarely confronted a simple choice between phonography and logography: the issue was almost always the combination of the two and the opportunities presented by that combination. This is not just a matter for poetry (as is clear from the preceding chapter’s discussion of phonographic notes and adjuncts in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki), but a central aspect of the entire history of writing in Japan—and one of the principal lessons that history holds for the study of writing and literacy in general. Consideration of the Man’yōshū underlines the numerous resources for expression provided by the complex of techniques for inscription in early Japan: multiple words for characters, multiple characters for words, phonographs with logographic resonances, differing registers of phonographs and logographs, and the fundamental interplay between phonography and logography themselves. As Miller’s contemptuous evaluation suggests, this can seem like chaos—a distraction at best, a pernicious waste of time and resources at worst. But this situation does not necessarily mean anything at all; rather, what matters is what was made ——— 63. The more exotic usages in the Man’yōshū may be hothouse flowers, but as such they provide valuable perspectives on the variety of forms to be found in ‘the wild.’ Another failure of the ‘playful dilettante’ account of early scribes is its implicit stress on the role of inventive individuals. Certainly, individual creativity must have played a role in the development of gisho usages and other nonce formations, and perhaps even the unusual styles of the materials associated with Hitomaro. But the more fundamental developments, of belletristic styles of writing as much as of those used in everyday business, appear to have been widespread, systemic developments attributable to the collective efforts of groups of writers and readers.

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of it, as far as we can tell. Another pioneering study has described the initial encounter between the Japanese language and the Chinese writing system as a “fracture of meaning” that shaped succeeding centuries of intellectual, cultural, and literary history (Pollack 1986). As discussed in the following chapter, many centuries later there are signs that some Japanese intellectuals conceptualized the meeting of language and writing in such terms, but the existing sources for the seventh and eighth centuries, and for some time thereafter, suggest that a more apt formulation would be a ‘festival’ of meaning. This is not a naively optimistic reading of the materials treated here and in the preceding chapters, but rather a pragmatic one. It is an evaluation of early Japanese writing made possible by abandoning suprahistorical assumptions about the social role of literacy and the connections between inscription and language.

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In a manner which has become familiar, indeed almost expected, in expositions of the Japanese orthographic system [. . .] the author of the book under review ignores the basic question of why this outrageously otiose and cumbersome writing system persists into the present, in defiance of all rational reflection. —R. Alan Brown Veil (beekeeper’s? bridal?), Vale (tears), Vail (Colorado). Phonics? No avail. Better learn to spell, after all. —William Matthews The entire history of a “thing,” an organ, a custom can in this way be a continuous signchain of ever new interpretations and adaptations whose causes do not even have to be related to one another but, on the contrary, in some cases succeed and alternate with one another in a purely chance fashion. The “evolution” of a thing, a custom, an organ is thus by no means its progressus toward a goal, even less a logical progressus by the shortest route and with the smallest expenditure of force—but a succession of more or less profound, more or less mutually independent processes of subduing, plus the resistances they encounter, the attempts at transformation for the purpose of defense and reaction, and the results of successful counteractions. The form is fluid, but the “meaning” is even more so. —Friedrich Nietzsche

The first eight or so centuries of Japanese inscription provide vital perspectives on the subsequent transformation of Japanese scripts, on the broader development of writing in and around China, and ultimately on the world history of writing and literacy. I conclude this book by pointing out further implications of the arguments of the preceding chapters, making more explicit connections to theoretical and comparative

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problems, and indicating avenues for further inquiry. This final chapter begins by tracing the continuing development of writing in Japan after the eighth century. Writing and Language in Japanese Culture Already by the seventh and eighth centuries, the fundamental techniques for inscribing the Japanese language were in place. There was a range of logographic styles, from prose consistent with literary Chinese (as in the Nihon shoki) to prose illegible as Chinese (most mokkan; the Yakushi inscription of Hōryūji). For all-phonograph writing, a strong association with poetry is apparent (excepting the suggestive case of the Shōsōin phonograph documents), but so is considerable stylistic variety: from the ostentatious phonographs of the Nihon shoki poetry, to the streamlined Kojiki inventory, to the everyday expediencies of mokkan and graffiti. Finally, combinations of logography and phonography ranged from the everyday styles employed in mokkan; to the more considered, careful refinements of the Kojiki and senmyō proclamations; to the baroque possibilities toyed with in the Man’yōshū majority that eschews all-phonograph inscription. Despite their obvious richness, these written styles were all derived from the two principles of logography and phonography (alone or in combination), and kundoku could be said to have provided the connective tissue that knit them all together. To say that the fundamental techniques were already in place is not to claim that Japanese writing remained static after the eighth century. Several significant developments occurred over the centuries between the 794 establishment of the capital of Heian (modern Kyoto) and the mid-twentieth-century reforms that were the most recent significant transformation of Japanese orthography. The three broad stylistic classes (logographic, phonographic, and mixed) underwent periodic transformations. They cross-fertilized with one another; they received influences from new poetic genres, from new vernacular prose styles, and from new vocabulary imported from Chinese and other languages; and they responded to new media and contexts of writing, such as woodblock and moveable-type printing, lecture notes (shōmono 抄物), and popular fiction with unprecedented audiences. Profound though the resulting changes were, in many ways it makes sense to see them as modifications of the earliest Japanese system of writing rather than dramatic departures

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from it. The basic techniques of the seventh and eighth centuries continued as the foundations of all reading and writing in Japan, even after writing and its reception were further transformed in the late nineteenth century by the limited introduction of the roman alphabet, industrialized moveable-type printing, an influx of Western terms and ideas, and new ideologies of linguistic nationalism and mass literacy. The causes and consequences of subsequent developments are complex, but the broad outlines of writing’s path after the eighth century are clear. One of the many benefits of attention to the nature of early Japanese writing is that the formal continuity between seventh- and eighthcentury logographs and phonographs (which are visually indistinguishable regardless of whether they are used to write words or syllables) directs attention to the essential role played by function and context. But this continuity did not last long. Perhaps the most significant posteighth-century development was a gradual process of formal modification that resulted in visually distinctive phonographs (forerunners of modern hiragana and katakana).1 Phonographic use of graphically unmodified Chinese characters did continue after the eighth century in some formal contexts, in lexicography, and in antiquarian or archaizing writing. The use of such characters for phonographic transcription of proper nouns never ended, and they were also often used for common grammatical elements and honorifics, in conventionalized paronomastic spellings known in subsequent ages as ateji (宛字 or 當字). However, the trend from around the early ninth century onward was toward formal simplification, which eventually yielded loosely organized sets of phonographs that were visually distinct from their original Chinese characters.2 There were two pathways of graphic simplification: abbreviation and cursivization. Not only did logography, embodied in kundoku reading and writing, continue to play a central role after the emergence of ——— 1. For surveys of the development of the visually distinctive kana phonographs, see Seeley 1991, 59–89, Komatsu 1968, Tsukishima 1981, and Kobayashi Yoshinori 1998, 92–123. 2. On other changes that accompanied the processes of formal simplification, see endnote 7.1.

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these visually distinct phonographs, but that emergence itself only makes sense within the broader context of continued logographic inscription. Both lines of graphic simplification drew on Chinese precedents. The characters’ modular structure (Ledderose 2000, 9–23), at least in their non-cursivized manifestations, lent itself to abbreviation, since components could easily be alienated and made to stand in for absent wholes, as in the Buddhist abbreviation of bodhisattva, 菩薩 (C. pusa), as .3 In Japan, existing phonograph characters were similarly abbreviated, yielding simpler graphs: 加 > カ (ka) or 伊 > イ (i). These abbreviated phonographs (ancestors of modern katakana), developed from phonographic character annotations of kundoku glosses. As discussed in Chapter 4, such annotated texts survive from the turn of the ninth century on, although separate glosses of kundoku readings appear as early as the seventh century. From the ninth century, and increasingly thereafter, plentiful annotated manuscripts of Buddhist and secular works attest in detail to the emergence of this lineage of visually distinctive phonographs.4 Given the small amount of space available, and the limited time for writing (many of these annotations record readings expounded during lectures), it is natural that simplified forms would rapidly develop, and abbreviation had the advantage of speed and clarity. (Even so, cursivized phonographs did play a limited role in this context, and some abbreviated graphs were subsequently further simplified through cursivization.) In essence, the abbreviated line of visually distinctive phonographs evolved to record kundoku readings, and only subsequently came to be employed more independently, in mixed logograph/phonograph styles, and eventually in pure or nearly pure phonographic inscription.5 The cursivized line of phonographs also drew on Chinese precedents. Formally, Chinese characters had already evolved through several stylistic stages before the beginning of widespread writing in the Japanese ——— 3. This example is from Tsukishima 1981. 4. On the development of abbreviated phonographs, see endnote 7.2. 5. Amino Yoshihiko (1993) argues that these abbreviated phonographs (katakana) never lost their association with recording the spoken voice, even as they came to be used in post-Heian documents by surprisingly rural and plebeian writers. (For an introductory treatment of the same ideas in English, see Amino, forthcoming.) For a recent discussion of the ritual significance of vocalization of texts in the medieval period, see Conlan 2009.

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archipelago. The clerical script (mod. C. lishu 隷書) of the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) eventually gave rise to three broad stylistic categories that dominated artistic and everyday calligraphy from the Six Dynasties (317–589 CE) onward. Standard script (楷書 kaishu), later the basis of printed fonts, was the fundamental style in seventh- and eighth-century Japan. The remaining two styles, semi-cursive (mod. C. 行書 xingshu) and cursive (mod. C. 草書 caoshu), were produced by running together and simplifying the separate strokes of the clerical style, and varying degrees of cursivization were already apparent in Japanese writing before the ninth century. The line of graphic simplification that continued from these practices was an extension of cursivization processes already codified in Chinese calligraphy (and, more importantly, embodied in everyday writing in China, Korea, and elsewhere). The written form of phonograph characters was gradually cursivized to the point where they took on a visual identity distinct from Chinese graphs in the ‘cursive style’: 安 > あ (a) or 以 > い (i). Significantly, numerous intermediate forms coexisted, in some cases as stylistic registers explicitly distinguished by Japanese readers and writers. These two pathways loosely correspond to sets of graphically distinct phonographs (kana), used for different purposes and in different contexts, which emerged over the initial century or so of the Heian period. The modern term for the set stemming largely from cursivization, hiragana 平假名, emerged relatively late, but there are Heian references to the term for the set largely derived through abbreviation, katakana 片假名. (Because the terms hiragana and katakana summon anachronistic images of simple sets of 48 discrete syllabic signs, I will refer to their pre- and early modern manifestations as ‘cursive’ kana [phonographs] and ‘abbreviated’ kana [phonographs], respectively.)6 To some extent, the emergence of these sets of kana meant an increase in the variety of available phonographs, since the earlier, graphically undifferentiated variety persisted in some contexts, and there were now contrasts of degrees of cursivization or abbreviation. These influences were counterbalanced by a tendency toward reduction and stan——— 6. It is important to keep in mind, however, that there was some mixing of phonographs produced by the two principles—or indeed both, as abbreviation could be followed by cursivization, or vice versa.

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dardization of the number of base characters as well as their final simplified forms, but even so a great deal of variety persisted, between but also within the sets of cursive and abbreviated phonographs. There was nothing like the one graph per syllable correspondence that exists within the modern sets of kana, and this graphic diversity persisted long after the twelfth century. Early attempts at movable-type printing of cursive phonograph texts (the Saga-bon 嵯峨本 produced in late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century Kyoto) maintained that homophonous variety, as well as accommodating the calligraphic ligatures that were central to the aesthetics of this mode of writing.7 Subsequent woodblock printing, to say nothing of the thriving manuscript production of the same period, also continued to employ multiple homophonous phonographs. It was not until the late nineteenth-century adoption of Western moveabletype printing that Japan took the decisive step toward the modern onesyllable-one-graph sets of kana. Far from being a revolution that made it possible for the first time to write Japanese, or to write it comfortably, the development of visually distinctive phonographs was an extension of the pre-existing practices discussed in this book.8 It is important to distinguish between similarity of the principles on which a form of writing (a subsystem, as it were) is based and genealogical continuity between such homologous forms separated in time or space. For example, there are direct continuities between the everyday logographic register in mokkan and similar (paper) documents from the Heian period, and the all-phonographic registers used in much eighth-century vernacular poetry are direct forebears of the cursivized kana inscription of poetry in later works like the early tenth-century Kokin wakashū. On the other hand, mixtures of logographs and phonographs occur in genealogically distinct styles even during the eighth century (in mokkan, senmyō, and Man’yōshū poetry), and seem to have continued to emerge in multiple, parallel lines of development thereafter, most prominently in the two mixed styles (kanji-kana majiribun 漢字假名混じり文) associated with cursivized and abbreviated kana. ——— 7. On the Saga-bon, see Kornicki 1998, 131–35. 8. The kana phonographs are strongly associated with inherently Japanese writing, and their emergence (often oversimplified as an ‘invention’) has traditionally been seen as the development of the first writing system for the Japanese language.

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Social changes were a major factor in the development of Japanese writing from the Heian period onward.9 From the tenth century, growth of local autonomy in both governmental lands and increasingly autonomous estates (shōen 莊園) dramatically increased the number of documents and records produced both in the provinces and the capital. This trend was further accentuated by the rise of military authorities, which led by the twelfth century to a dual polity, in which the court governed alongside a separate but interdependent warrior power structure constructed by Minamoto no Yoritomo 源頼朝 (1147–99) and his successsors. Corresponding increases in the number of people eager—and eligible—to participate in overlapping chanceries on multiple levels both fostered and depended on greater participation in written communication, which was an important area in which phonograph-based inscription played a role.10 The same centuries saw the growth of a popular literature with roots in both vernacular and Chinese-style belles lettres: it circulated primarily through itinerant oral performers, but also in written versions, most of which were heavily dependent on phonographs (at least as glosses on logographs, and usually more prominently). This was a largely manuscript culture, despite printing projects as early as the eighth century (the Hyakumantō darani discussed in Chapter 3) and subsequent production of woodblock editions of both Buddhist and secular works by the great temples of Nara and Kyoto. Endemic warfare caused loss of large numbers of early manuscripts and records, but also spurred the spread of metropolitan culture and literary practices into the provinces, especially during the catastrophic Ōnin war (1467–77) and the century of conflict that followed its outbreak. Hand-copied manuscripts persisted in various contexts, but from the end of the sixteenth century, a dramatic increase in printing remade the culture of writing. This development was stimulated in part by presses and metal movable typefaces plundered from Korea during bloody invasions ordered in the 1590s by Toyotomi Hideyoshi 豊臣秀吉 (1537– ——— 9. For an English-language summary of developments of these centuries focused on education and literary canonization, see Shirane 2000. 10. On various aspects of literacy in medieval Japan, see Kawane 1997, Frölich 2007, Conlan 2009, and Amino, forthcoming.

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98), one of the great warlords who pacified Japan in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries through military force and political maneuvering. Among the consequences of the ensuing period of peace and relative stability was a media revolution, in which a feedback loop developed between rapidly increasing quantities of written material and growing numbers of people with direct access to it. This burgeoning of print accompanied the development of, and in earliest stages was spurred in part by sponsorship from, a new regime founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu 徳川家康 (1542–1616), successor to Hideyoshi, who assumed the office of shogun in 1603. But as the new medium took off, it rapidly changed in character from movable-type printing with official patronage to woodblock printing by private entrepreneurs. Hand in hand with the growth of printing was an expansion of education; indeed, huge portions of the material printed by the new publishers were textbooks, instructional manuals, and introductory commentaries. Government-sponsored schools arose on various levels, from those funded by the quasi-autonomous regional domain lords (daimyo) to an official Tokugawa academy dedicated to neo-Confucian learning (the Shōheikō 昌平黌, established in 1691). But a variety of private academies also appeared during this era, from elementary schools for the children of merchants, to more advanced Confucian curricula, to schools of vernacular and Chinese-style poetry. In addition, further growth of multilayered governmental bureaucracies; complex merchant organizations overseeing manufacture, trade, and networks of credit; and a postal system all encouraged further increase in the production of documents and records all across the archipelago.11 The existing variety of scripts, genres, and styles in place in the medieval period developed further into the new niches created over these three centuries of the Edo period. With the rise of commercial printing in particular, there were changes in the content, layout, and quantity of circulating texts, but woodblock printing allowed for remarkable continuity between handwritten and printed books, and there was no fundamental change in the technical bases of Japanese inscription. Some ——— 11. Kornicki (1998) provides an excellent survey of the publishing culture of the Edo period. For recent discussions of the information networks that arose with new forms of printing and distribution, see Ikegami 2005 and Berry 2006.

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standardization came with the increased integration of the country and circulation of both people and printed materials, but considerable variety remained, among different geographic localities, but even more importantly among coexisting written registers and the genres (or better, printed product categories) that employed them. Much of this early modern culture of publishing and education continued unchanged for decades after 1868, when the Tokugawa shogunate was replaced by a government of oligarchs ruling in the name of the emperor, but two developments of the late nineteenth century were to have a transformative effect on Japanese writing. Movable-type printing brought about a considerable degree of formal standardization of logograph characters (kanji) and—more importantly—kana phonographs. And the new government, eager to centralize its authority, foster and harness nationalism, and nurture skilled soldiers, instructible factory workers, and hygienically and ideologically correct mothers, began directing how schools—many of them new public institutions—imparted literacy to still-increasing proportions of the population. A third development whose influence was more gradual, not becoming decisive until the mid-twentieth century, was the engineering of new prose styles closer to the standard spoken language (which was itself a product of the newly emergent nation-state). Finally, mid-century script reforms were responsible for the specific form taken by written Japanese as it is currently used in the vast majority of contemporary publications, from newspapers to novels to websites. The complex of logographic characters and the kundoku practices used to read and write with them had a lasting fecundity, generating new forms of Japanese throughout its recorded history. This is true for the mixture of logographs (kanji) and phonographs (kana) that has long been the graphic basis of most forms of Japanese script, but it is also true of various styles of written language (involving usage, lexical registers, syntactical patterns, and so on). For example, much attention has been devoted to the late nineteenth-century emergence of a written style more consistent with vernacular speech than the various forms of classical Japanese that had theretofore been almost universal.12 This new style, ——— 12. The main exceptions to the dominance of classical language in writing before the late nineteenth century were quoted conversation in popular fiction (the surrounding

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genbun itchi 言文一致, eventually became the sole modern prose style in almost all contexts, but at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, the term “regular written [style]” ( futsūbun 普通 文) referred to a variety of what would now be termed ‘classical Japanese’ derived, not from the language of Heian vernacular prose classics, but from kundoku as it was practiced in the mid-nineteenth century.13 This persistence of earlier styles, and continuing generative role of kundoku-based logography, is typical. The restructuring of the Japanese language in the nineteenth century was not as thoroughgoing, or as complete in rejecting earlier influences, as is often supposed. Most importantly, Chinese-style prose and poetry, which were the most prestigious written registers from the seventh century until the twentieth, did not suddenly disappear after the ‘opening to the West.’ Quite the opposite: the last decades of the nineteenth century, the much-vaunted era of “Civilization and Enlightenment” (bunmei kaika 文明開化), were among the most intensively Sinicizing in Japanese history (Kurozumi 2000). It is true that, for example, the Meiji government elected to use a mix of logographs (kanji) and phonographs (katakana) as the medium for official proclamations, but the style of such texts was completely derived from kundoku of Chinese-style logographic writings. The same is true for the massive influx of new vocabulary that accompanied political, social, cultural, and technological transformation. As is often pointed out, the vast majority of the new terms for Western concepts and technologies coined by scholars, bureaucrats, and modernizers were two-character compounds created through the matrix of classical Chinese vocabulary and character usage. Such terms used the more compact Sino-Japanese character readings (on’yomi), but kundoku reading played an essential role in pre-naturalizing them. (One of the distinctive stylistic features of late Edo- and early Meiji-period kundoku was an in-

——— narrative retained classical forms) and a few moralizing tracts aimed at the widest possible audiences. 13. For more on the “regular style” and the role of kundoku in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century vernacular writing, see endnote 7.3.

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creasing emphasis on the use of Sino-Japanese readings, especially of two-character compounds.)14 From the emergence of written Japanese through to the twentieth century, purely logographic texts remained common, especially in elite contexts, but as had been the case since the seventh century, logographs were also often accompanied by phonographic adjuncts in one form or another. Although logography was never supplanted by phonography—even the simplified orthography used at present is a mixture of the two—it was supplemented by it in complex and varied ways, with important consequences for the social extent of acts of reading and writing. This is clearest for the various modes of purely or mostly phonographic writing, which can be termed supplemental because they always coexisted with logographic writing. The most familiar cases of phonographic writing are vernacular poetry (written in phonographic characters in many cases in the eighth century, and in most—eventually nearly all—cases thereafter) and high Heian belletristic prose (in cursivized phonographs). But from the late Heian period onward, reports, letters, petitions, and other documents also relied to varying degrees on cursivized or abbreviated phonographs, and after the rise of extensive woodblock printing some of the most popular illustrated genres were written almost entirely in cursivized phonographs.15 Even more important is direct supplementation of logographs with phonographs, which ranges from indication of grammatical elements (modern okurigana 送 假名) to character glosses: as interpolated notes, as interlinear annotations added by readers, or eventually as smaller graphs written alongside by the author or scribe ( furigana 振假名 or tsukegana 付假名), which ——— 14. The ease with which the new terms were coined, and the readiness with which they were adopted, cannot be understood if this process is seen as a matter of using ‘the Chinese language’ as an intermediary. Yamaguchi Nakami 2006, 167–208, provides an interesting discussion of why non-Sinitic wabun vernacular vocabulary was not used for translated words. For innovative and wide-ranging accounts of the role of Chinese-style writings and their kundoku readings in nineteenth-century Japan, see Saitō Mareshi 2005 and 2007. 15. On documents in phonographs from the Heian period on, see Amino 1993 and Fröhlich 2007; for popular literacy after the emergence of widespread printing, see Rubinger 2007.

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were standard in most printed texts from the seventeenth until the midtwentieth century (Ariga 1989). From the seventh century until the twentieth, kundoku-mediated logography, with or without phonographic adjuncts, remained the privileged—and, in many cases, the only—mode for legal, historical, religious, scientific, lexicographic, and administrative writing. In literature, vernacular prose and poetry have been strongly—and to a large degree misleadingly—associated with visually distinct phonography. But here as well kundoku-logography both enabled an enormous tradition of Chinese-style writing and also mediated a striking degree of exchange between that tradition and the intimately related development of ‘vernacular’ writings. 16 Kundoku-logography was central to the education, aspirations and ideals, and daily lives of elites well into the twentieth century, and represented an expressive model and source of quotations, allusions, and catchphrases even for those who were unable to read and write the texts themselves. Overcoming the Bilingual Fallacy Considerations of premodern Japanese cultural and literary history have long been dominated by a central opposition between ‘foreign’ Chinese elements and ‘native’ Japanese elements. In its particular application to writing—literary and otherwise—this opposition takes the form of what can be termed the bilingual fallacy: the notion that Japanese culture was divided into spheres of Chinese and Japanese texts, marked by clear linguistic and graphic contrasts.17 As I have already stressed repeatedly, the prevalance of kundoku from the inception of widespread writing in the archipelago makes such a conceptualization untenable. But as stipulated in Chapter 4, dispensing with this fallacy does not mean replacing it with an equally fictitious homogenous space of inherently ‘Japanese’ written language. Rather, the true diversity of writing in Japan can only be understood once we appreciate the continuities and interrelations among different graphic styles. This raises the question of how the stylistic diver——— 16. For overviews of the centrality of Chinese-style writings in Japanese literary and intellectual history, see Wixted 1998 and Kurozumi 2000. 17. For more on the notion that Japanese culture is divided in this manner, see endnote 7.4.

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sity of writing was conceptualized in early Japan. Although systematic consideration of this topic will have to wait for another project, here I will consider a few telling examples, mostly from the Heian period. Nearly no metalinguistic discussion survives from seventh- and eighth-century Japan. A prominent exception is the famous preface to the Kojiki, but the oft-quoted portion of this is a tendentious passage that cannot be taken at face value as a reflection of contemporary attitudes to writing and language. (Even so, as stressed in Chapter 6, it makes no distinction between ‘Chinese’ and ‘Japanese’: linguistic difference does not figure in the preface’s project to justify and explain the style of the main text of the work.) It is not until the Heian period that we find discussions of stylistic differences in modes of writing. The best known and most readily accessible of these are found in literary works that employ the newly emerged medium of cursivized phonographs, in part because such works are concerned with the daily lives and material culture of the metropolitan elite. In these texts there are no signs that anyone thought of the new modes of inscription as enabling them to write ‘in Japanese’; rather, we find a variety of finely calibrated terms for calligraphic style that are independent of concepts of linguistic difference. Close examination of passages that discuss writing and reading shows that during the Heian period there was not a firm connection between Chinese-style logographic writing (kanbun) and the (spoken) Chinese language.18 This is apparent from the terms that were used to refer to different forms of writing. In place of the notion of something being ‘written in’ Chinese or Japanese, which is so natural to us, they refer to graphic form, like kana 假名 (literally, “borrowed graphs”) or mana 真名 (“true graphs”). In other words, terms equivalent to ‘Japanese’ and ‘Chinese’ are not applied to texts, even when contrasting written styles are clearly differentiated.19 ——— 18. These literary works cannot be taken as straightforward indicators of Heian realities. However, my concern here is the attitudes to writing and texts that they display, which are not as subject to authorial manipulation as are elements like the behavior of individuals and its consequences. 19. Although I disagree with his rejection of kundoku’s role in the linguistic terrain of the Heian court (mentioned in Chapter 4), I am very much in accord with LaMarre’s

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This is particularly clear in two passages from the famous rainy night discussion of the “Hahakigi” 帚木 (“Broom Tree”) chapter of the Genji monogatari in which a group of young men trade stories about women they have known. These passages involve intense critical scrutiny of female behavior by male characters, a scrutiny that gains further complexity for readers aware that the author, Murasaki Shikibu 紫式部 (fl. late tenth–early eleventh centuries), was a woman.20 The following is one young man’s description of a scholar’s daughter: Even while we lay awake at night, she would pursue my edification or instruct me in matters beneficial to a man in government service, and no note from her was ever marred by a single one of those kana letters, being couched in language of exemplary formality. What with all this I could not have left her, because it was she who taught me how to piece together broken-backed poems and such, and for that I remain eternally grateful (Tyler 2001, 33 [modified]). ね ざ

かた

つか

みち

寝覚めの 語 らひにも身のざへつき、おほやけに 仕 うまつるべき 道 々しきことをおし せうそこぶみ

かんな

い

か

い

へて、いときよげに、 消 息 文 にも仮名と言ふもの書きませず、むべむべしく言ひま た

こし

はし侍るに、をのづからえまかり絶えで、そのものを師としてなんわづかなる 腰 おれ ぶみ

なら

おん

わす

文 作る事など 習 ひ侍しかば、いまにその 恩 は 忘 れ侍らねど (GM I:57).

This passage juxtaposes the letters of the scholar’s daughter, which are described negatively as not containing phonographs (kanna to ifu mono kakimasezu), with her ability to teach the young man (Shikibu no jō) how to compose Chinese-style belles lettres (self-deprecatingly described as “broken backed” [kosiore]). The term designating that mode of writing is the typical one: the generic fumi 文, “writings.” As the transregional standard, Chinese-style logographic writing needs no modifier. The young man makes no reference to linguistic difference between her writing and that of the implicit feminine ideal, because there is none. Rather, he emphasizes her unexpected avoidance of a particular script, and ——— (2000) insistence on the non-linguistic, calligraphic meaning of terms like kana and mana. For a survey of such terminology in Heian sources, see Seeley 1991, 76–80; on the origins and significance of the term kana, see Unger 1980 and Shinkawa 2002. 20. I have used Royall Tyler’s superb translation (2001) as the source of the following passages, but I have taken the liberty of removing the modifier ‘Chinese’ when applied to writing, because my argument rests on the absence of any such term in the original.

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stresses also the accomplished stiffness of her style: “couched in language of exemplary formality” (mubemubesiku ifimafasifaberu ni). The discussion continues with more anecdotes about this scholar’s daughter, and amid the hilarity with which they are received, another young man makes the following pronouncement: I cannot stand the way mediocrities, men or women, so long to show off the tiny knowledge they may possess. There is nothing at all attractive about having absorbed weighty stuff like the Three Histories and the Five Classics,21 and besides, why should anyone, just because she is a woman, be completely ignorant of what matters in this world, public or private? A woman with any mind at all is bound to retain many things, even if she does not actually study. So she writes cursive mana after all and crams her letters more than half full of them, even ones to other women, where they are hopelessly out of place, and you think, Oh no! If only she could be more feminine! She may not have meant it that way, but the letter still ends up being read to her correspondent in a stiff, formal tone, and it sounds as though that was what she had meant all along. A lot of senior gentlewomen do that sort of thing, you know (Tyler 2001, 34–35 [modified]). し

かた

のこ

み

つ

おも

すべて男も女も、わろものはわづかに知れる 方 の事を 残 りなく見せ尽くさむと 思 え みち

かた

あき

さと

あ

あいぎゃう

るこそいとおしけれ。三史五経、 道 々しき 方 を、 明 らかに 悟 り明かさんこそ 愛 嬌 い

おほやけわたくし

なからめ、などかは女と言はんからに、世にある事の 公

し

私 につけて、むげに知

なら

みみ

らずいたらずしもあらむ。わざと 習 ひまねばねど、すこしもかどあらむ人の、 耳 に め

じねん

おほ

まむな

はし

か

も目にもとまる事自然に 多 かるべし。さるまゝには真名を 走 り書きて、さるまじき ぶみ

す

か

どちの女 文 になかば過ぎて書きすくめたる、あなうたて、この人のたおやかならまし み

ここ

こゑ

よ

かば、と見えたり。 心 ちにさしも思はざらめど、をのづからこはゞゝしき 声 に読み おほ

なされなどしつゝ、ことさらびたり。上らうのなかにも 多 かることぞかし。(GM I:59)

This implies a connection between Chinese canonical works and the use of non-kana characters (mana can refer to either logographs or phonographs). However, as in the previous passage, the focus is on the tone ——— 21. The Three Histories are the Records of the Historian (Shiji ), History of the Han (Hanshu), and History of the Later Han (Hou Hanshu); the Five Classics are the Changes (Yijing), the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Rites, the Odes (Shijing), and the Documents (Shu). But these two terms are not so much citations of specific sets of texts as they are general references to the core of the Confucian canon and fundamental curriculum of East Asian elites.

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of the woman’s letters, in this case as they are read out loud “in a stiff, formal tone” (kofagofasiki kowe).22 Both of these passages combine references to ‘Chinese’ learning with descriptions of the production of texts dependent on that learning, and yet they show no linkage between the Chinese language and those texts. Graphic terms like kana or mana refer to styles of writing independent of any conceptualization of linguistic difference. An even clearer example is provided by a well-known passage from the Tosa nikki 土佐日記 (ca. 935) that retells an anecdote involving the eighth-century diplomat Abe no Nakamaro 阿倍仲麻呂 (698–770) and his attempt to return to Japan after a long stay in Tang China. The entry for the 20th day of the 1st month describes a seaside farewell party where Nakamaro composes a Japanese poem on the moonrise, and then tries to share it with his Chinese companions: He thought that the people of that country would not be able to comprehend this poem, but he wrote out the gist in men’s characters, and when he explained it to someone who understood our language, it seems they could apprehend the meaning, and, you know, very unexpectedly they praised it. China and this land have different languages, but because the light of the moon is, it seems, the same, then are not peoples’ hearts also the same? くにびと

き

し

おも

こと

こゝろ

をとこもじ

さま

か

い

かの 国 人 、聞き知るまじく 思 ほへたれども、 言 の 心 を、男文字に 様 を書き出だし こくりかえしの ことば つた

ひと

い

し

こゝろ

き

え

て、 こ ゝ の 言葉 伝 へたる 人 に言ひ知らせければ、 心 をや聞き得たりけむ、いと おも

ほか

め

もろこし

くに

ことこと

つき

かげ

思 ひの 外 になむ賞 でける。 唐 土 とこの 国 とは、 言 異 なるものなれど、 月 の 影 は おな

ひと

こゝろ

おな

同 じことなるべければ、 人 の 心 も 同 じことにやあらむ。(TN 17)

These lines are from a rich passage that has received much attention (recent discussions in English include Yoda 2004, 92–95; Heldt 2005, 21–23; and Sakaki 2006, 22–25), but my reason for citing it here is to point out the terms used to describe Nakamaro’s complex act of translation. The episode is shaped by a series of oppositions between Chinese-style poetry (kara-uta) and vernacular “song” (uta), and between that country (kano kuni)/China (Morokosi) and this country (kono kuni)/ ——— 22. That the letter is “crammed more than half-full” (nakaba sugite kakisukumetaru) of mana means that kana are also being used. Such a juxtaposition of cursivized phonographs with uncursivized characters (linked here with the Confucian canon) is another example of the combinations enabled by the overarching presence of kundoku.

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our country (wagakuni). But when Nakamaro summarizes his poem in characters—in other words, in Chinese-style logography—this act is not associated with one or the other of the terms of the dominant opposition between China and “our country.” It simply says that he “wrote out the gist in men’s characters” (wotokomozi), a calligraphic term equivalent in meaning to mana. The absence of any reference to linguistic difference here is especially striking because the written summary is accompanied by an oral explanation, through an interpreter, that is explicitly marked as requiring understanding of our language (koko no kotoba). Mediated by kundoku, the “gist” of the Japanese poem written in Chinese-style logography is not a translation of the original, but a paraphrase. It is precisely because it can be read ‘in Japanese’ that the narrator does not mark it as being written in a foreign language, despite the fact that the linguistic difference between the Chinese and Japanese languages is one of the themes of this episode. And yet, because this written medium can also be read as Chinese, the same paraphrase of the original poem simultaneously serves as a translation for Nakamaro’s Chinese audience. These three examples show how Heian discussions of written styles conceptualize them in graphic terms (mana versus kana, and so on) rather than linguistic ones. One reason for this is that kundoku prevents a firm association between Chinese-style logographic writing and the Chinese language. The meaningful category of difference among texts in this period—and for a long time afterward—is not linguistic but rather graphic or stylistic. The Genji and Tosa examples are vivid ones from classics of a kana-based literature that has been erroneously associated with a ‘new’ capability to write in Japanese, but similar usages can be found from other genres and much later periods. The two most important extant early Japanese bibliographies, for example, also show no signs of a language-based division of types of writing. The earlier of the two, the 891 Nihonkoku genzaisho mokuroku 日本國見在書目録 (NGM), by Fujiwara no Sukeyo 藤原佐世 (847–97), is a catalog of 1,579 Chinese works (and a few Japanese ones included accidentally) present in late ninth-century Japan. As the title reference to “extant books” ( genzaisho) suggests, it also takes Chinese-style writings as a standard needing no modifier. Although there are important differences in their format and conception, and several centuries separate them, the Genzaisho mokuroku is often compared to the late thirteenth-century Honchō shojaku mokuroku

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本朝書籍目録 (HSM), which does mark its object as “books of this realm” (honchō shojaku). The nearly 500 works of Japanese origin included in this latter bibliography are written in both Chinese-style logographic and phonograph-based modes, but significantly they are not divided into linguistic categories: the non-logographic works are listed under the headings waka ( Japanese songs) and kana.23 I could continue listing such examples at great length. Premodern sources show tremendous stylistic variety, and sophisticated awareness of that variety on the part of readers and writers, but little to no sign that Chinese-style logographic writing was taken to be linguistically separate from phonographically written vernacular styles. As briefly discussed below, in the Edo period there were attempts to inject clear notions of linguistic difference into discussions of types of writing, but these were always controversial polemics, and the momentum of the culture of writing continued as before in many, if not most, venues. We might say of this culture that it involved both more and less than two languages. Less than two, because as I have argued, there were not linguistically differentiated ‘Chinese’ and ‘Japanese’ spheres of writing. More than two, because kundoku allowed for a wide range of mutual interactions between many different graphic and stylistic registers.24 In the face of this diversity, the bilingual fallacy holds that Japanese culture was divided into Chinese and Japanese spheres marked by clear linguistic and graphic contrasts. This results in a warped understanding of the uses and meanings of texts and their interrelations, because a complex of interrelated binary oppositions has been collapsed onto the spheres that are delineated by the bilingual fallacy. The fundamental opposition between Japanese-language writing and Chinese-language writing is seen as corresponding to other oppositions between native and foreign, phonographic and logographic, flowing cursive and stiff ‘block’ graphs, informal and formal, private and public, and female and male. ——— 23. The Honchō shojaku mokuroku also has a wakan heading under which are listed the Wakan rōeishū 和漢朗詠集 and four derivative collections. 24. Again, this is not an attempt to recuperate some kind of unified native linguistic space. Quite the contrary; it is the bilingual fallacy itself that has been one of the principal guarantors of such a space, by separating ‘Japanese’ texts from logographic writings and treating them as inhabiting a hermetic linguistic realm.

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In terms of gender, the bilingual fallacy has encouraged a sequestering of women within an oral, purely native linguistic space and made it more difficult to follow up the many signs of female involvement with Chinese-style writings. But taking kundoku into account fosters a much greater sense of the continuity between ‘Chinese’ works and the forms of writing more commonly associated with female writers and readers, such as waka poetry or diary and tale prose works. It also reveals the extent of partial access to Chinese-style logographic writings: even those with very limited reading or writing skills would have been able to participate in such canonical literacy by listening to oral kundoku recitations. Of course, this is true of men of the lower classes as well.25 In contrast to the fluidity and multivalence that were hallmarks of the adoption and adaptation of ‘Chinese’ writings, the bilingual fallacy sees the situation in early Japan as akin to that found in more modern societies coming into contact with North Atlantic literacies, as in the following account of how higher education in the Middle East in the early twentieth century was carried out largely in English and French: The fact that so many of the higher institutions were foreign had several implications. For an Arab boy or girl to study in one of them was itself an act of social and psychological displacement; it involved studying in accordance with a method and a curriculum alien to the traditions of the society from which he came, and doing so through the medium of a foreign language, which became the first and perhaps the only language in which he could think of certain subjects and practice certain vocations (Hourani 1991, 327).

Assumptions that the Chinese-style logographic medium and its derivatives were similarly “alien” and “foreign” have long shadowed the study of Japanese culture. Forms of literary production that were actually central to the tradition have been dismissed as peripheral and even unnatural. Characteristic of this attitude is a review of a pioneering Englishlanguage work on Sino-Japanese literature (Watson 1975–76) that lists the following as a contributing factor to the scholarly neglect of such writings: ——— 25. On the social and gender dimensions of the stylistic variety of writing in Heian Japan, see Mostow 2001; Borgen 2005; Smits 2007; and Kamens 2007.

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Then, too, some of us have no doubt been put off by the idea of the Japanese writing poetry in a language foreign to them and which only a few of them had mastered, even though they were driven to it by historical circumstances, just as our forebears were led to write poetry and prose in Latin. But there is something grotesque in doggedly adhering to all of the complicated rules of Chinese form, rhyme, and meter, and then reading off one’s compositions in a Japanese that completely obscures the original prosody (Brower 1981, 397).

Viewed in a sufficiently expansive comparative framework, the endeavor of composing Chinese-style poetry in a different linguistic environment is not as grotesque as modern notions of phonography and nationallinguistic propriety make it seem. Just as was the case with the Latin writings of “our forebears,” Chinese-style logography was the transregional norm for formal expression, and its use in its time was as natural, and as automatic, as my employment of standard written English to write this book. It is true that oppositions between ‘Japan’ and ‘China,’ or more broadly between ‘native’ and ‘foreign,’ were part of Japanese culture from its early stages. The country name Nihon itself is animated by a geographical contrast between the archipelago and the continent to its west (Kōnoshi 2005); as discussed in Chapter 5, the compilers of both the Kojiki and Nihon shoki were acutely aware of the powerful presence of China and Chinese modes of thought and expression; and Man’yōshū poets like Yamanoue no Okura and Ōtomo no Tabito self-consciously experimented with pairings of Sinitic and vernacular literary forms. 26 Such combinations and juxtapositions would continue to be central to literature and art through to the modern period (Pollack 1986; Chino 2003). But attention to language and writing reminds us that there is nothing simple or obvious about these formations: ‘native’ and ‘foreign’ are not a priori categories, embedded in the essence of the raw materials of expression, but rather entities that must be actively created and maintained. Just as it is impossible to sort through early Japanese language, script, and written style to definitively isolate indigenous and foreign elements, broader components of the culture resist attempts to ——— 26. For discussion in English of the poetic experiments of Okura and Tabito, see Robinson 2004. A survey of the history of conceptions of Japanese ethnicity is provided by Batten 2003, 87–122.

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establish clear pedigrees. Our attention is better devoted to historicizing the notions of the inherently ‘foreign’ or ‘native’ themselves. The pivotal stage in the application of such concepts to written language and script was the Edo period.27 In the eighteenth century, scholars such as Ōgyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 (1666–1728) and his disciple Dazai Shundai 太宰春臺 (1680–1747), influenced by exposure to vernacular Chinese writings, spoken Chinese, and mid-Ming philology, polemicized against kundoku and for understanding Chinese-style writings through the Chinese language. Sorai’s famous treatise Yakubun sentei 譯文筌蹄 (published 1714–15) explained nuances of character usage that were obscured by kundoku, and Shundai’s Wadoku yōryō 倭讀要領 (1728) argued that kundoku should be resorted to only by beginners and done with as much Sino-Japanese reading (on’yomi) and as little syntactic transposition as possible. This was to have a strong effect on the subsequent development of kundoku, although the modern style is less radical than that advocated in Wadoku yōryō.28 It is important to remember that the Sorai position was not a matter of stating the obvious: arguing that Chinese-style texts were linguistically Chinese required a strong polemic, which did not go unchallenged. Perhaps the best-known criticism of Shundai’s position is Kunten fukko 訓點復古, an 1835 treatise by Hio Keizan 日尾 荆山 (1789–1859), a Sinological scholar ( jusha 儒者) who argued for the legitimacy of traditional kundoku reading methods. At roughly the same time, nativist scholars influenced by Sorai’s ideas about language and writing embarked on a parallel polemic arguing that Japanese culture should be purified of foreign, Chinese elements. As mentioned in Chapter 5, foremost among these was the great philologist Motoori Norinaga, whose valorization of the Kojiki over the Nihon shoki was intimately related to this language ideology.29 Notions that Chinese——— 27. On earlier attempts to establish links between stylistic and linguistic difference, see endnote 7.5. 28. On Edo-period debates about kanbun and kundoku, see Bedell 1979 and McMullen 2001. On Yakubun sentei, see Pastreich 2001. 29. As demonstrated by a glance at the catalog of his personal library, or a reading of his magnum opus, the Kojikiden 古事記傳 (a commentary that remains the foremost resource for understanding the work over two centuries after its completion), Norinaga himself had a deep knowledge of classical Chinese studies. Not unlike the New Critics and their rejection of biographical or historical information, his polemic was founded

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style inscription is an unnatural imposition on the Japanese language, or that the development of phonography freed the native language for inscription, or that one can recreate a purely native language from a period before the influence of Chinese writing, can all be traced back to Norinaga’s forceful and immensely influential writings. We should, however, avoid the intellectual historical pitfall of assuming that ideas in academic treatises immediately had a widespread cultural impact. As has already been emphasized repeatedly, Chinesestyle logography, and various derivative and related styles of writing, remained perfectly natural and accepted methods of writing in Japanese during and after the foregoing polemics. Through the beginning of the twentieth century, the cultural role of Chinese studies remained immense—again, most of the Meiji period, from 1868 until the period following the first Sino-Japanese War in 1895, was intensely Sinicizing, as Confucian concepts were employed to bind citizens to the new nation-state and belletristic genres like Chinese-style poetry gained wider audiences through the expansion of education. It was not until the early twentieth century that modern notions of national language and literature, phonographic ideals for writing, and new nationalist attitudes toward contemporary China came together to firm up the notion that Chinese-style writing was written Chinese.30 The foregoing merely sketches complex developments outside the immediate ambit of this study. Even so, it should suffice to make the point that no aspect of the writing system used in Japan was a priori foreign to the language or the culture, no matter what its origins or formal similarity to graphs used to write other languages. In certain circumstances, elements of the system or patterns of its use could be stigmatized as foreign or valorized as native—or vice versa—but such ——— to some degree on the assumption that it came after its audience had internalized that which it rejected. 30. See the discussions of nineteenth-century readers and students and their experiences of kanbun literature in Sakaki 2000; Mehl 2003; Maeda Ai 2004; and Fraleigh 2009. On the rise of nationalism and the transformation of the cultural position of ‘Chinese’ writings around the turn of the twentieth century, see Brownstein 1987, Kurozumi 2000, and Tomi Suzuki 2000.

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ideological formulations existed on a different plane from the everyday functioning of the scripts involved. The Extended Nature of the ‘Chinese’ Script The history of writing outlined in this book calls into question the inherent ‘Chineseness’ of Chinese characters and texts written with them. Both logographic and phonographic uses of characters to write Japanese were based on Chinese precedents. Adaptation of Chinese characters to inscribe non-Sinitic languages ( Japanese, Korean, and others as well) emerged from within the writing system rather than being imposed on it from the outside. The range of logographic and phonographic techniques already embedded in the system are apparent from a brief look at the liushu (六書), the traditional six classes of character formation described in the Shuowen jiezi by Xu Shen 許慎 (ca. 55 CE–ca. 149 CE).31 As discussed in Chapter 4, the actual early development of the writing system, as it can be understood from oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, should be separated from its historiography, which is to say the ways in which the characters have been analyzed and conceptualized over time. Although it is still valuable for the former problem, here the Shuowen is considered in terms of the latter, which means seeing its six classes as “a set of explicitly descriptive, and perhaps implicitly prescriptive, rules accounting for the graphic structure and usage of characters in the writing system of the first century CE” (Boltz 1996, 197). The six classes can be divided into three groups: (1) explaining irreducible unit characters, or wen 文; (2) analyzing compound characters (zi 字) made from two or more unit characters; and (3) providing principles of derivation used to connect existing characters with new words (see Table 7.1).

——— 31. On the Shuowen jiezi, I have consulted Atsuji 1985; Boltz 1993; Boltz 1994, 143– 55; and Ōshima 1998, 75–94.

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Table 7.1 Six Classes (liushu) of the Shuowen jiezi ____________________________________________________________________ Class Gloss Explanation Examples ____________________________________________________________________ UNIT CHARACTERS

zhishi 指事 xiangxing 象形

indicating the matter representing the form

simple ideographic pictographic

上 “up”; 下 “down” 目 “eye”; 耳 “ear”

COMPOUND CHARACTERS

xingsheng 形聲 huiyi 會意

formulating the sound conjoining the sense

semantic-phonetic 江, 河 a compound ideographic 信, 武 b

DERIVATION PRINCIPLES

[controversial ]c 令 ling “command” for roughly homophonous liang “fine” (usually 良) ____________________________________________________________________ zhuanzhu 轉注 jiajie 假借

redirected graphs borrowed graphs

semantic extension phonetic loan

a The intended derivations are: 江 jiang “the Yangzi”/“large river” = a phonetic element (工) +

a semantic determinative (氵[水] “water”) and 河 he “river” = a phonetic element (可) + a semantic determinative (氵). b The intended derivations are 信 xin “trustworthy” = 亻[人] “person” + 言 “speech” and 武 wu “martial” = 止 “stop” + 戈 “spear.” On the huiyi class, see endnote 7.6. c On the zhuanzhu class, see endnote 7.7. SOURCES: Boltz 1996, 197 (glosses); Coulmas 1991, 98–99 (explanations).

These classes can be seen as a blend of phonography and logography.32 The two classes of unit characters, zhishi and xiangxing, both show how a graph relates semantically to the word/morpheme with which it is connected, as do the huiyi analysis of compound characters and, possibly, the zhuanzhu principle for derivation. The jiajie principle of derivation, on the other hand, is fully phonographic (it is akin to the ‘rebus principle’ much discussed by historians of writing), and the xingsheng analysis of compound characters incorporates a phonographic determinative (derived through jiajie from a unit character). In one of the ——— 32. As Coulmas’s glosses suggest, we could see some of the Six Classes as ideographic as much as logographic, but to do so is to emphasize the principle by which the graph is connected to a word while losing track of the fact that it is, after all, a word (or morpheme) to which it is connected. On the deep problems involved in both the use and the avoidance of the concept of ‘ideograph,’ see Roy Harris 2000, 138–60.

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earliest, and certainly one of the most influential, accounts of the structure and functioning of Chinese characters, phonography and logography are thoroughly and intricately intertwined. The broader Chinese lexicographical tradition, including works that predated the Shuowen and that developed under its influence, is also marked by interaction between the dual principles of phonography and logography. 33 Premodern Chinese lexicographic works can be categorized by the traditional three aspects of characters on which they focus: graphic form 形, sound 音, and meaning 義. Excluding commentaries on the Shuowen itself, most works focusing on graphic form were concerned with sorting out variant graphs (the Tang-period Ganlu zishu 干禄 字書 being among the best known of these). The most influential works were those devoted to specifying the sounds—primarily for the composition of poetry with rhymes and regular tone patterns—and meanings of the words associated with characters. As is already clear from the Six Classes of the Shuowen, these functions are often conjoined. It is common for rhyming dictionaries to provide explanations of the meanings of entries as well as glossing their pronunciations, and one finds dictionaries primarily devoted to the meaning of words organized in accordance with the graphic form of their characters (which ultimately leads to the still-common system of 214 ‘radicals’ finalized by the 1716 Kangxi zidian 康熙字典).34 The pronunciation of characters was explained by specifying homophonous graphs, or, from around the end of the Han dynasty, by indicating with two separate characters the onset and the rhyme ( fanqie 反切).35 Both of these methods can be seen as extensions of the jiajie technique, as can the use of strings of characters employed only for their sounds to transcribe non-Sinitic words and longer utterances, which was particularly common in Buddhist renditions of Indic terms and tran——— 33. For surveys of Chinese lexicography, see Rai 1996; Ōshima 1997 and 1998; and Mair 1998. The citation practices of Yong and Peng 2008 make it difficult to use, but it provides the most extensive discussion of the topic in English. 34. Rhymes eventually came to be used as an organizational device for works concerned with meaning rather than pronunciation. Another important example of the interpenetration of these categories was the use of paranomastic glosses like those in the late Han Shiming 釋名. 35. On the fanqie system, see Ramsey 1987, 116–21, and Mair 1992b.

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scriptions of magical mantras (dhāran.ī). It is clear that the phonographic usage of characters to write Japanese was an offshoot of this tradition; scholars have even pointed out that there are close correspondences between the phonograph characters of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki and those used to transcribe dhāran.ī in sutras (Tsukishima 1981, 37–41). But the Japanese use of characters logographically, through kundoku, is also an offshoot of traditional Chinese notions of what writing is and how graphs can be defined. Logographic glosses of terms, often based on expressions of synonymy, dominate the commentarial and lexicographical tradition; indeed, that tradition largely consists of glosses constantly circulating among commentaries and lexicons. The work that is often cited as the earliest extant dictionary or glossary, the Erya 爾雅, is at least in part a collection of glosses that were applied by commentators to classical loci; once incorporated into that work, they were then available to be taken up directly by, or to exert influence on, later commentators on classics, whose glosses were in turn incorporated into subsequent references. The glosses typically take the form “as for X, Y” (X, Y 也), in which Y can indicate a category to which X belongs or something associated with or suggested by it. As this information was recompiled and recirculated, though, there was an increasing tendency to treat the connections between X and Y as a matter of synonymy.36 Even though the original glosses often indicated a specific usage in a particular context, once they were absorbed into the lexicographical process they began to circulate more independently. One can see this ramifying circulation as an exegetical network, in which interlocking chains of glosses were expressed in works like the Guangya 廣雅 (an influential successor to the Erya dating from ca. 230 CE) as long strings of potentially equivalent characters: U, V, W, X, Y, Z 也.37 These chains shaped not only the compilation of commentaries and subcommentaries on the classics, but also the composition of new works. ——— 36. In his introduction to the Erya and related texts, Rosthorn (1975 [1942]) refers to them as “synonymicons.” 37. Glosses never completely separated from their original contexts, not least because one of the major scholarly endeavors of commentators on works like the Guangya was to trace the glosses they collected back to the particular classical usages to which they applied.

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The most important entry point into this network for writers and readers in early Japan was the Yupian 玉篇 (543 CE), which collected classical loci and glosses for nearly 17,000 characters, arranged by ‘radicals.’ The exegetical network amounted to an engine for expanding the semantic range of terms in the written language, as particular interpretations of classical loci not only transformed the readings of the passages in question but also rendered them intertextually available for new acts of writing. This engine has its roots in the earliest stages of commentary and scholarship (as reflected in the Erya), but it comes into its own during the Han dynasty, and matures during the Six Dynasties, along with the rise of rhyming dictionaries and the coalescence of the block-script style (kaishu) as the formal standard. This is the canonical shape of the writing system as it spread to neighboring societies, and as such it must be separated from the origins of the system (by the thirteenth century BCE), from its vicissitudes over the centuries between then and the Qin/Han restructuring reflected in the Shuowen, and from its fate in the modern period. This putatively unitary writing system, the so-called Chinese script, comprised many systems, both synchronically and diachronically. Even at the point(s) it appeared in Japan, it was already a system with multiple temporal layers, based on multiple principles, with multiple uses and linguistic connections. The ‘same’ set of characters, perhaps, in a system of relations among visual forms, but in terms of function there were (and are) multiple sets of differing components in quasi-systematic relation with one another. The traditional term for the production and recirculation of glosses in the exegetical network is xungu 訓詁, literally the explication of old terms (“exegesis—similar to philology”; “exegesis of graphs and terms in the context of specific quoted passages” [Mair 1998, 165 and 171]). The notion of ‘glossing’—originally, teaching or explaining—is of course the source of the term kundoku itself. Among the contributing factors to the development of logographic reading practices in non-Sinitic environments were the discreteness and separability of the characters (despite the fact that they can be analyzed into component parts). Regardless of the linguistic units they denoted in their original Chinese contexts, they were, mediated by translation, always available for appropriation as logographs. But kundoku must also be seen as an extension of the existing (Six Dynasties) Chinese system, as the unfolding of a

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possibility already present within its metalinguistic (or metagraphic) tradition. To modern sensibilities, or to those convinced of the linguistic Chineseness of the writing system, kundoku may seem a grotesque excrescence.38 But it is less a warping of or addition to the Chinese writing system than an extension of one of that system’s core engines: the addition of Japanese translations to the exegetical network’s series of synonymical equivalents. A vivid illustration is the parallel treatment of synonymous character glosses and phonographic explanations of kun readings in early Japanese glossaries and dictionaries. This is already apparent in the seventh-century Kita-Ōtsu glossary mokkan (discussed in Chapter 4), and is continued in later works like the late eighth-century Shin’yaku Kegonkyō ongi shiki. The earliest extant complete glossary, this work explicates terms from the large and much-studied Avatam.saka (C. Huayan; J. Kegon) Sutra by providing pronunciations (with homophonic characters and fanjie spellings) and also by specifying meanings, which it does with synonymic (logographic) glosses from Chinese lexicons, but also with phonographic (“man’yōgana”) transcriptions of kun readings. For example, it explains the character 建 (C. jian) with the note 音斤 訓立也 “pronounced [homophonously] as 斤, glossed as 立 [‘stand’]” (SKOS 57) and the first character of the compound 霜雪 “frost and snow” with the note 上音相訓之毛 “the upper [graph] pronounced [homophonously] 相, glossed as simo [ J. ‘frost’]” (SKOS 52). This parallel treatment shows how the synonymous relationship between logographic characters linked in the exegetical network (建 and 立) was conceptualized analogously with links between logographic characters and their Japanese readings (霜 and 之毛 simo). An essential element of the ‘Chinese writing system’ is its openendedness. Stephen Houston (2004a) suggests that closed and open systems of writing can be distinguished in terms of how firmly linked they are to particular languages, but there is another sense in which the Sinitic script can be said to be open. Linguists contrast ‘closed’ sets of ——— 38. Kurozumi Makoto (1999, 253n17) notes that “in the Early Modern period, Chinese people who looked at Japanese woodblock editions of Chinese works with kun glosses are said to have responded with surprise and contempt to the little beards and bits of rubbish that had appeared on the text.”

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items, like pronouns, with those that are open to new additions, like nouns and verbs. Historically, letters have been added and subtracted, but the alphabet is a relatively closed system, maintaining its current set of 26 letters over many generations and in many different linguistic contexts.39 In the case of relatively open systems, such as ‘Chinese’ characters, the system itself includes procedures for its own expansion (this is the point of the compounding and derivational categories in the Six Classes). To cite some familiar figures, there are about 9,000 graphs in the second century CE Shuowen and over 47,000 in the eighteenth-century Kangxi zidian. Large dictionaries include numerous variant, rare, and archaic graphs, but even so it is clear that the repertory tended to expand over time. Classically conceptualized in terms of the productiveness or fecundity of the graphs (Mark Lewis 1999), this inherent expansion is one key to understanding the readingless characters painstakingly created by the contemporary artist Xu Bing for his “Book from the Sky” (“Tianshu” 天書) project (Nakatani 2004). The capability of the system to expand is not limited to the visually apparent and easily quantifiable arena of new graph creation. Purging characters of logographic associations and using them as phonographs ( jiajie in the Six Classes) is also a means of expanding the system, as is the exegetical network, which expands the range of meaning of individual graphs through ramifying associations. The Japanese ‘localization’ of the system did include the creation of new characters (kokuji), but this was a relatively minor phenomenon, largely limited to creating logographs for names of indigenous plants and animals. A far more consequential sense in which the system was open is that all characters were inherently available to be taken over as phonographs or logographs for the inscription of Japanese. If writing systems are systems of systems (Hyman 2006; Roy Harris 1995), then the ‘Japanese’ writing system up to the twentieth century could be seen as incorporating whole (at least potentially) the already open-ended ‘Chinese writing system.’ This incor——— 39. In the children’s classic On Beyond Zebra (Seuss 1955), the closed nature of the alphabet is challenged, but only superficially, since the necessity of the newly invented letters is subverted by the ease with which the existing 26 signs are used to gloss the new graphs and explain the illustrations of the creatures whose names have ostensibly necessitated them.

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poration involves the obvious logographic and phonographic use of Sino-Japanese readings (seion and ongana), but also kundoku protocols that meld the writing system with the non-Sinitic vernacular. None of these elements is exclusive of the others: they are interlocking and interdependent. Kundoku is not a pure, unprecedented act of vernacular translation/ reading: the exegetical network means in effect that texts have been prepared for the addition of Japanese or Korean equivalents to existing synonymical chains. In addition to casting doubt on the necessary ‘Chineseness’ of the ‘original’ system and the ‘Japaneseness’ of its adaptation, this perspective further underlines the extended nature of writing systems. The reflexive elements of the exegetical network, whether manifested as superficially independent glossaries or dictionaries, or as integrated glosses in notes and commentaries, are not optional adjuncts or belated scholastic indulgences, extraneous to the writing system, but essential components of it. The extended nature of the ‘Chinese’ system refers to its role in non-Sinitic contexts, but also to this sense in which self-referential/self-reflexive elements are central to it, and, ultimately, to the functioning of all writing systems. During their debate with Geoffrey Sampson about the concept of logography, DeFrancis and Unger (1994) dismiss the possibility of a writing system relying on reference books as an unrealistic one, in a move that seems to envision writing purged of metagraphic/metalinguistic elements, but it is no more possible for writing than it would be for language itself to be purged of reflexivity (Taylor 2003). Phonography was always an important component of the canonical Chinese writing system (extended and otherwise), but the core remained logographic, in part because of the exegetical network and the normative attitudes toward writing that animated it. To a significant extent, exclusive use of phonographs and (perhaps even more so) mixed use of logographs and phonographs in Japanese and other non-Sinitic contexts should be seen as departures from those norms. This legitimacy—even hegemony—of logography is one of the many reasons for the lack of a clear-cut ‘development’ towards phonography in the Japanese case. (Although, as I argue below, it is the expectation of such a development, rather than its absence, that more urgently requires historical analysis.) The strength of logographic propriety is apparent in any number of

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phenomena, from the use of notes to indicate phonographic use of characters (以音) as an exception to the rule in the Kojiki, to the smaller size of the characters employed for phonographs in the senmyō style, to the etymology of the term kana as ‘temporary’ or ‘borrowed’ names. Boltz (1994) argues that in early documents (predating the Shuowen), there are signs of an evolution towards desemanticized use of characters, which could have led to a fully phonographic system. Following Miller (1975b), he proposes that this process was arrested by a distinctive ‘Chinese worldview’ that prioritized an ideal relationship between graphs and words. There are problems with this formulation, in addition to the difficulty of postulating a coherent worldview across enormous temporal, geographic, and cultural differences. There is no reason to assume that the proposed trend toward phonography would not have been equally related to values and ideals on the part of those using the system; that is, ‘culture’ is not an explanation to be brought in only when assumptions about internally driven script evolution break down (Steinke 2007). But this does not mean that Boltz’s suggestion should be dismissed out of hand. Mark Lewis (1999) provides a convincing account of how philosophical ideas about signs and their place in the universe affected early Chinese thought about writing in ways that are connected to the unfolding of the exegetical network. The history of writing involves complex interactions between formal stylistic changes (affected by taste, design, and perhaps also by a kind of random drift), practical demands of reading and writing, and metalinguistic/metagraphic norms and expectations. To the degree that postulating an abstract ‘culture’ is valuable, it is clear that it shapes all of these factors, not just the last. But it is also true that ideas of what script has been or should be have a profound effect on what it becomes. To this point, I have pursued these questions in terms of how ‘culture’ might be said to affect writing, but a parallel discourse exists on the putative effects of writing on culture. Addressing this discourse means looking more broadly at the geographical and historical extension of ‘Chinese’ writing. The Latin of East Asia? This book has emphasized how the histories of Korean and Japanese writing in the early period are intertwined, but developments in the peninsula and the archipelago have many parallels elsewhere on the

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Chinese periphery. Actually, the notion of ‘periphery’ is problematic here, as the Chinese writing system seems to have accommodated different varieties of spoken language from very early in its development. But even if one discusses only non-Sinitic languages, there is still ample evidence of transformation and adaptation of the writing system. As many as 30 scripts have been used to write the languages of the nonHan peoples who are currently referred to as ‘Chinese ethnic minorities’ (National Library of China 2000, 10). Many of these descend from Aramaic, through Sogdian or Indic writing (Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu, Dai, ‘Phags-pa, and so on), and at least one appears to be sui generis (the pictographs of the Naxi, although these do not appear to be glottographic, and thus would not be called ‘writing’ by many scholars). Others, however, are wholly or largely derived from Chinese characters: along with the Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese cases, and several lesser-known scripts that arose along the northern and western borders of China, they attest to the widespread peripheral adoption and adaptation of the Chinese writing system.40 This process includes a range of responses, from diglossic use of the Chinese language (not just the script); to invisible modification of script function, associating existing characters with nonChinese words (logography) and syllables (phonography); to more visually comprehensible modification of character form, resulting in new sets of graphs like the Japanese kana. There is evidence of the spread of Chinese writing to non-Han peoples, especially in the south, from the late Warring States period onward. Fragmentary materials suggest the use of writing in what is now Vietnam even before the Chinese conquest of 111 BCE; use of literary Chinese in the region certainly began no later than that date. Although arguments have been made for significantly earlier development (Thompson 2000, 13–27), the first direct evidence for adaptation of characters to write Vietnamese is from the twelfth century. The chữ Nôm system used some characters for their sounds and others to write Vietnamese words; there ——— 40. For general treatments of the scripts of Chinese ‘ethnic minorities,’ see Hu 2000, 215–50; and Ramsey 1987, 157–291. On the broad history of writing on the Chinese periphery, Kōno (1969) provides a classic account, profitably read alongside Mair’s (1994) discussion of vernacular writing. More recent discussions include Tranter 2001b and Handel 2008, the latter of which is part of a larger ongoing project.

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was also formal innovation, in which characters were combined to create new graphs (Nguyen 1959; DeFrancis 1977). There are also several little-known writing systems used for nonSinitic languages in the southwest. Among them, the Yi scripts are known to have existed since the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it has been argued that they originated considerably earlier. Although they have elements that seem to have developed independently, they also employ graphs derived from the Chinese script (Shi 1996, 239; Ramsey 1987, 258–61). The Lisu script, which has intriguing similarities to the Cherokee script invented by Sequoyah, was created “around 1925 by a peasant named Wang Renbo” (Ramsey 1987, 262). In addition to their pictographs, which seem to have developed independently, the Naxi use a script derived from Chinese, with some Yi elements as well (ibid., 268). The Zhuang adapted characters to write their own language in much the same way as the Vietnamese (ibid., 242–43). The earliest clear signs of adaptation of the Chinese writing system to a non-Sinitic language are on the Korean peninsula. Several centuries after the initial Korean, and subsequent Japanese, adaptations of writing, new scripts emerged in the north and west of China.41 Unlike the situation on the other side of China, societies in this region had previously been exposed to non-Chinese writing systems, in particular the Uighur script and Turkish runes derived from Sogdian writing. In the early tenth century, the Liao 遼 dynasty (916–1125) saw the creation of two scripts, both based on Chinese and both officially ordered and promulgated by the king, for its Kitan language. Neither is fully understood, but the “lesser script” 小字 was phonographic and the “greater script” 大字 logographic (with about 3,000 graphs). There were cases of the two used in combination, not unlike the mixtures of phonographs and logographs in Korean and Japanese writing. About a century later, in 1036, the ruler of the northwestern Xi Xia state sponsored the development of the Tangut script, based on both Kitan and Chinese graphs; it is said to have contained over 6,000 characters. The twelfth century was a high point for Sinified Xi Xia culture, with translations of Chinese classics employing the new script and compilation of dictionaries. Finally the Jurchens ——— 41. On the Kitan, Tangut, and Jurchen scripts, I have consulted Nishida 1967, Grinstead 1972, Nishida 1984, Kara 1996, Kychanov 1996, and Kara 2005.

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of the Jin 金 dynasty (1115–1234) then adapted the Kitan scripts. Initially they used the Kitan lesser script, but then created a great Jurchen script from kaishu Chinese characters in 1119, followed by a Jurchen lesser script based on the Kitan lesser script in 1138 (this pair of scripts parallels the Kitan pair in terms of the logographic/phonographic division). The two Jurchen scripts were used together from 1145, but the Kitan script continued to be used alongside them until it was banned in 1192. The development of new scripts from Chinese writing has been discussed in terms of emerging ‘national’ consciousness arising from the increased independence of peripheral areas following the collapse of the Tang dynasty in the late ninth century (see, for example, Ōno 1980, 303–4). But in the Japanese case, to see the development of visually distinctive phonographs in the Heian period as the emergence of a ‘Japanese’ writing system is to overprivilege visual, formal developments at the expense of linguistically based, structural innovations that actually began several centuries before the Tang collapse. In fact, the initial development of logographic and phonographic techniques to represent the Japanese language took place at the height of Tang power and influence over the East Asian region. But there are other, more important differences between Japanese developments (and the Korean innovations on which they were based) and the northwestern scripts of the tenth through twelfth centuries. The historical record suggests that all of the northwestern scripts were developed at the behest of the states’ rulers and then officially promulgated. But I am aware of no such signs of direct state involvement in writing in Korea until the controversial invention and promulgation of han’gŭl in the fifteenth century, and in Japan it appears there was no official government attention to the promulgation of a specific type of writing until the Meiji period (1868–1912). There is little doubt that the initial development of written Japanese was connected with attempts to assert independence by constructing a state capable of resisting Tang hegemony in the mid-seventh century, but we cannot leap from that actuality to the assumption that a nascent national consciousness is necessarily expressed by the rise of vernacular reading and writing techniques. This is still true even after visually distinctive phonographs developed. Although they could in certain contexts be conceptualized as a local or Japanese method of writing, this

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did not mean that they were always or inherently that, nor that the default Chinese-style graphs were necessarily opposed to them as foreign or external. The Kitan, Tangut, and Jurchen scripts arose along what may be the world’s greatest borderline between families of writing systems, at a kind of collision between scripts ultimately descended from Aramaic and those stemming from Chinese characters (see Map 7.1). The role of the ‘Chinese’ writing system in the region is even more complex than is apparent from this map, because in addition to serving as a kind of seedbed or raw material for the development of new, localized scripts (of which the Japanese kana are perhaps the best known), it also continued as a common written medium for classic texts of religion, governance, medicine, technical knowledge, and belles lettres. So it was not only in Japan, but also in Korea, Vietnam, and other peripheral cultures that Chinese-style texts—that is, character-texts arranged according to literary Chinese usage—were supplemented rather than supplanted, continuing long after the emergence of localized systems of writing. This continued use of the Chinese style, which is so evident in premodern and early modern Japan, is significant for several reasons. One, to be taken up below, is that it means a persistence of logography, even after the development of partially or completely phonographic systems tailored to the local languages. Another is that it provided a regional written medium over an area stretching from Japan to Vietnam to central Asia, in which elites and the scribes who served them held in common methods of expression, modes of thought, and canonical works and topoi. As argued above, this commonly held medium did not necessarily conflict with local forms of expression or modes of communication (whether written or oral). Especially given the prominent role of kundoku in Japan and Korea, and the signs that similar reading methods were used elsewhere also, we should not overemphasize the ‘Chineseness’ of the Chinese writing system. Its historical origins are indisputable, but it is apparent that by the latter part of the first millennium CE it had a wider linguistic and geographic expanse than the state of ‘China’ at even the most extensive points in its history. The problem is how to conceptualize the spread of this system, as embodied not only in an abstract set of graphs and in the techniques for

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Map 7.1 Development of scripts in Asia (after Gernet 1982, 30)

relating them to spoken languages, but also more specifically in particular bodies of canonical works and the exegetical networks that bound them together. Although they are intimately related, these issues are distinct from the development of new scripts, such as idu, kana, or chữ Nôm. How were both differences and similarities of culture, language, and geography reflected in—or imposed by—the common written medium? Even without taking into account the complications produced by kundoku-based reading and writing, this is a vexingly difficult question. Some of the problems involved are apparent in a discussion of writing in The Myth of Continents (Lewis and Wigen 1997), a thoughtful critique of modern geographical notions that follows Steadman (1969), Hodgson (1993), and others in questioning the meaningfulness of the concept of ‘Asia.’ In proposing a set of more viable geographical divisions, Martin Lewis and Kären Wigen endorse a division between “East Asia” and “its non-Sinified neighbors,” emphasizing that this divergence [. . .] is perhaps most clearly evident in the field of written communications. Whereas most literate societies in the supercontinent came to employ alphabetic systems, all of which can ultimately be traced back to a single center of innovation in the Levant, East Asia developed a wholly independent system of ideographic writing. It was this distinctive writing system that became the crucial vehicle for spreading Chinese notions of philosophy, cosmology, and statecraft to the neighboring peoples of Korea, Japan, and Vietnam (144).

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I admire Lewis and Wigen’s critique and find the new ‘world regions’ they propose appealing, so I quote this passage not to take issue with their overarching arguments but because it exemplifies the conceptual challenges posed by the history of writing in this part of the world. If the ‘Chinese’ script was “the crucial vehicle” for East Asian culture as it spread, was it a necessary, irreplaceable vehicle? Was it alone sufficient? Could any other have substituted for it? Is this influence to be attributed to the characters qua characters, or to the Chinese language with which they are—incompletely, I have argued—associated? Or both? In this context can we conceive of a separation between the language and the characters? Are “notions of philosophy, cosmology, and statecraft” untranslatable? (If so, one assumes they would not remain long influential in a society that abandoned the writing system, but if there is any value to the notion of an East Asian cultural zone, it would have to include Vietnam and the Koreas, all of which have generally abandoned character-based writing.) 42 The underlying questions are even broader: what exactly is the connection between culture and writing? Do particular writing systems incorporate or encode cultural differences? Do they cause them? Or is writing more of a neutral vehicle that can be shaped one way or another (or, again, is that true of some writing but not all)? Such questions are raised, though usually not addressed directly, by the dominant metageographical concept in Japanese scholarly discussions of an East Asian cultural region: the notion of a “cultural sphere of Chinese characters” (kanji bunkaken 漢字文化圏). This formulation has roots in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Pan-Asian ideals and their cooptation in the wartime imperialist notion of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” (daitōa kyōeiken 大東亜共榮圏), and can be traced back beyond that to early modern ideas about common culture and common script among China, Korea, and Japan.43 But in its imme——— 42. One also might consider the various overseas communities of descendants of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese emigrants. Assertions about the traditional values of such communities are often ill-founded exaggerations, but to the extent that they have any validity, the persistence of such values would also represent a potential departure from the posited role of writing as a cultural vehicle. 43. On the early modern background to these ideas, see endnote 7.8.

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diate context, the notion of a kanji bunkaken was a direct reaction against the wartime imperialist vision of Japan’s place in the region, a new attempt to conceptualize the linkages among China and the societies on its eastern periphery. The earliest treatment of the specific term I have been able to find is that of the linguist Kōno Rokurō in a 1963 book, Moji to no meguriai, which was the second volume in a multi-authored history of the Japanese language (Nihongo no rekishi). 44 But the more influential formulation is that in an essay by the linguist Tōdō Akiyasu (1915–85) that appeared in a 1971 volume from a prominent world history series, the Iwanami kōza sekai rekishi. This essay, which was quickly expanded into a book (Tōdō 1974 [1971]) concerned the development of writing in China and its adoption and adaptation in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. Significantly, in the original context of the world history volume, Tōdō’s essay appeared alongside an essay in which the historian Nishijima Sadao outlined his influential macrohistorical concept of an “East Asian world” (Higashi ajia sekai) in which writing played a crucial structuring role.45 The primary conceptual difficulty of the notion of a Chinese character cultural sphere, and of any regional concept of East Asia supported by a cognate notion, is the nature of ‘character culture’ (kanji bunka). This could be taken to mean the technical culture of writing surrounding the character system: physical practices and artifacts, brushes, calligraphy, ink, paper, and so on—and, a bit more broadly, the exegetical network and other metalinguistic/metagraphic components. As argued in the preceding section, it is hard to establish where the ‘system’ ends and ‘independent’ cultural practices begin, but regardless the preceding could be taken as the more narrow sense of a culture of writing permeating and surrounding ‘Chinese’ characters. However, kanji bunka could also be taken to mean, much more expansively, the common culture of the ——— 44. Kōno’s name is not associated with the relevant section of Moji to no meguriai, but he later incorporated it into an important English article under his own name (Kōno 1969), and in a note there and in his collected works (Kōno 1980, 15), and in a collection of essays on writing (Kōno 1994, 191), he indicates that he was the author. 45. For an important overview and critique of Nishijima’s “East Asian world,” see Yi 2000. The most extensive Anglophone discussion of a cultural sphere of characters is that in Holcombe 2001, 60–77. On the fluidity of the regional expanse of the notion, see endnote 7.9.

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entire region, of all countries that have used the Chinese writing system or derived their systems from it. One might express the central question about the regional place of writing as: what is the relationship between these two potential meanings of character culture? Another difficulty with the concept is that the notion of a ‘sphere’ implies a region with clearly defined edges, and most definitely with a center. Of course, there are real and important ways in which China served as a center for early Koreans, Japanese, and so on. But overemphasizing its centripetal attraction makes it difficult to think through relations with other cultural complexes, such as Champa in Vietnam, Indic culture in Southeast and East Asia, Tibetan influence in Central Asia, and Silk Road cultures, as seen in, for example, the role played by Sogdian as the primary regional alternative to Chinese script before ‘Phags-pa. The implication that China sits at the center of a homogenous sphere makes it harder to conceptualize the differences among the various ‘participants,’ and it also overprivileges a hierarchical model of China transmitting culture outward to individual, mutually isolated recipients—a model that, not coincidentally, mimics the traditional Chinese diplomatic/administrative structuring of center and periphery that was discussed in Chapter 2. Such a model is not a good starting point for analyzing the historical role of writing and language in the region, as Yi (2000) shows in his discussion of how innovations from the Korean states influenced early Japanese writing. A more recent approach to the problem of the relationship between writing and culture in China and the societies that adopted its writing system is a linguistic analogy: the notion of literary Chinese (kanbun) as the “Latin of East Asia” (Higashi Ajia no Ratengo). One of the virtues of this formulation is that, although it does take the ‘Western’ situation as template for understanding, it encourages a sense of writing as a common medium, without such a strong implication of a discrete space with a center.46 The Latin alphabet was the basis of orthographies used for a range of other languages in Europe, and ultimately beyond it, and the language itself evolved into the Romance languages (which abut nonRomance languages, some of which have prominent strata of Romance vocabulary and syntax, as in the case of English). The comparative case ——— 46. For more on the concept of “Latin of East Asia,” see endnote 7.10.

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of Latin as a lingua franca and as a source of new orthographies allows for a more flexible sense of how different cultures/countries/states related to one another through the medium of Chinese writing and its offshoots. In a classic survey, Ernst Robert Curtius (1963, 30–35) discusses regional differences in medieval Latin. In regions with Romance vernaculars, the closeness of the spoken languages and written—sometimes spoken—Latin resulted in interpenetration and borrowing, as well as mistakes in Latin by Romance native speakers, but in regions with Germanic vernaculars, which had a more pronounced separation between the written standard and the spoken language, the paradoxical result of that distance was more conservative, ‘correct’ Latin. This distinction provides a way of approaching the consequences of kundoku in Japanese linguistic culture. On the one hand, the Japanese language is even more distinct from the Chinese than the Germanic languages are from Latin (given the common Indo-European roots of the latter two), but there are many parallels between the place of Sinitic loanwords in Japanese and of Latinate words in a Germanic language like English. They stand out phonologically and are used in educated, high-status contexts, though a fair number have been naturalized to the point where their origins are not readily apparent. But on the other hand, kundoku naturalizes constructions directly derived from Sinitic syntax and vocabulary, allowing for a seamless mixture of literary and vernacular much more like that Curtius points out in the Romance context. Because the same characters, associated with different linguistic forms through different modes of ‘reading,’ can take on radically different linguistic valences, the course of Chinese-style writing in Japan could be said to combine aspects of both the northern and southern European experiences of Latin. Once again, different technical modes of reading, and the plural literacies that employ them in differing configurations, provide a new perspective on fundamental questions about the history of writing. There are two main routes to support the idea that common use of the Chinese writing system causes or supports broader cultural similarities. One would conflate writing and language, and then assume that culture and thought are embedded in the Chinese language, in the manner of the familiar arguments of the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf (1956). The other would posit that characters are ideographic, representing ideas

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(and thus cultural values) directly, so that the writing system embodies culture independently of language. But the path taken by writing in Japan shows the error of both approaches. Kundoku means that the characters are not necessarily linked to the Chinese language, and the larger regional history of translation of which it is a part casts doubt on the assumption that medium and ideas/culture are so tightly tied together. Indeed, the great premodern endeavor of translating Indic sutras into Chinese poses one of the biggest challenges to positing a unified and consistent Sinocentric region: for much of the premodern period, Buddhism provided a conduit of ideas, images, ritual practices, prestige goods, literary topoi, and so on that flowed right across the purported linguistic and graphic boundary of ‘East Asia.’47 Another important phenomenon that undermines any simple, deterministic linkage of writing/language and culture/ thought is the influx of ‘Western’ ideas and technology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After 1720, when a ban on Western books was relaxed for non-Christian materials, Japanese scholars were astounded and stimulated by the new ideas and information they encountered in Chinese translations and references, just as the vocabulary of new terms that mediated the intellectual transformation of Meiji Japan was almost entirely in literary Chinese coinages, many of them based on classical precedents.48 But it is also clear that the reception of the Chinese script, in Japan and elsewhere, was never remotely ‘ideographic’ at a systemic level, excepting perhaps the ‘alegible’ uses that attend upon all types of writing in certain contexts. As used for detailed communication, record-keeping, and aesthetic performance, the characters were intimately linked in multiple ways to language, as is clear from the constant specification in glossaries and notes of particular readings/vocalizations, whether Chinese, Sino-Japanese, or vernacular Japanese. This writing system was neither a ——— 47. Some early Japanese sources suggest a worldview incorporating China, Korea, and Japan, but there were Indian Buddhist priests in Nara in the eighth century, and by the Heian period ‘the world’ increasingly consisted of India, China, and Japan (see Maeda Masayuki 2003). 48. The nature and influence of the new Chinese-style vocabulary can be surveyed in Howland 2002 and Liu 1995.

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phonographic transcription of speech nor inherently linked to a particular language, but it was thoroughly dependent on language per se. The whole idea of an ‘East Asia’ culturally unified through script is based to a large extent on unexamined assumptions about writing’s role in culture and society, and thus marked by vacillation between visions of writing as actively unifying and writing as a symptom of unity. Another problem is the implicit expectation of a unitary cultural response to writing systems. It may be true that certain outlooks or allegiances were inevitable for the elites who took on a script and the texts, both classics and metalinguistic references, that were part of it, but can that be said of clerks who employ different varieties of literacy? (Not to mention the wide range of other possible relations to writing covered in earlier portions of this book.) The posited linkage of writing and culture embedded in notions of the East Asian region as a “cultural sphere of Chinese characters” is not unique. A structurally similar determinism has shaped narratives of a triumphant alphabet that are inherent to many discussions of ‘Western’ or ‘modern’ literacy. Where the ‘Chinese writing system’ is thought of as culturally full, and perhaps ‘ideographically’ silent, the alphabet’s putatively positive impact on culture is paradoxically attributed to its emptiness, to a transparent efficiency that creates a space within which thought and technology can expand and evolve. To gain a clearer perspective on the East Asian developments discussed thus far, and to see how the ground has recently been cleared for a new world history of writing, it is time to confront the mythic power and efficiency of alphabetic writing. Myths of Efficiency and the Diversity of Literacies The Japanese writing system, both in its present form and as it existed in earlier historical periods, has been the target of much opprobrium. It has been called “a great nuisance and a bother” (Miller 1967, 90) and “one of the worst overall systems of writing ever created” (DeFrancis 1989, 138), but perhaps the classic statement is the following passage from a pioneering mid-twentieth-century cultural history of Japan: If there is one feature that time after time impresses a student of the cultural history of the Japanese, it is the malign influence of the linguistic handicap under

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which they have always suffered. We have already noticed that, in taking over the elements of Chinese learning, they were at once faced with difficulties arising from the inadequacy of their own language and the lack of a native script. These difficulties were overcome in part by various makeshift devices too complicated to describe here. They were ingenious, almost heroic devices; but it followed from their very complexity that, sooner or later, some easier method had to be worked out for representing Japanese sounds. Those sounds, simple and few in number, are very well suited to notation by an alphabet, and it is perhaps one of the tragedies of oriental history that the Japanese genius did not a thousand years ago rise to its invention. Certainly when one considers the truly appalling system which in the course of centuries did evolve, that immense and intricate apparatus of signs for recording a few dozen little syllables, one is inclined to think that the western alphabet is perhaps the greatest triumph of the human mind (Sansom 1952, 138).

Even after six decades, Sansom’s book remains vibrant and edifying, but this particular passage displays all the components of the typical dismissal of Japanese writing: excessive complexity; “malign influence”; contrast with a more desirable phonographic system; and finally the shadow cast by the “western alphabet.” As William Hannas (2003, 5) acknowledges in attempting to show “how Asian orthography curbs creativity” (his subtitle), criticism of East Asian writing is intimately linked to “the mirror argument—that alphabetic literacy promotes creativity.”49 Such discussions greatly overstate the efficiency and positive value of the alphabet. Arguments made by scholars such as Jack Goody and Eric Havelock for its technical superiority, and more importantly for the cultural and intellectual benefits of that superiority, have been extensively critiqued (Halverson 1992a, 1992b; William Harris 1989; Thomas 1992). Despite the continued popularity of this view in certain academic and journalistic circles, most historians of writing and literacy have moved away from the assumption that logographic writing is “inherently inferior to phonographic and especially alphabetic scripts” (Trigger 2003, 603). It is interesting to note the many parallels between critiques of Japanese writing, and more broadly of writing based on Chinese characters in general, and arguments about the perniciousness and inefficiency of modern English spelling. One of the important lessons to be drawn ——— 49. For a thoughtful, highly critical review of Hannas 2003, see Sproat 2005.

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from this parallel is that, even in the ‘West,’ the history of writing is more complicated than the image of inventing—or refining—‘26 simple signs’ would suggest. A writing system comprises not just a set of graphs, but also a complex of protocols for their use (Roy Harris 1995), and consideration of the complexity of English orthography shows that simply comparing the number of basic symbols in a script can be a red herring. Just as discussion of English orthography is shadowed by the idea that everyone would be better off if it were reformed into a more fully phonographic system, analysis of the Japanese—and other East Asian— writing systems has been shaped by a commitment to script reform on the part of the most critical scholars. I do not address contemporary public policy decisions or speculate about the future of the remaining non-alphabetic systems (or, to be more accurate, components of systems). One cannot rule out the possibility of positive social changes accompanying dramatic script reforms, such as the complete replacement of the simplified characters currently in use in the People’s Republic of China by the romanized pinyin system (or, for that matter, rationalizing reform of English orthography in the United States), but such possibilities are not germane to the aims and concerns of this book.50 Even if we were to grant the reformers’ claims about the value of alphabetic writing in twentieth- and twenty-first-century societies (and several such claims, like Hannas’s arguments about a creativity gap between West and East, are controversial), they still would not provide a methodologically sound foundation for inquiry into the nature and function of writing in earlier ages. Viewed historically—here, from the vantage point provided by the rich sources for the development of writing in early Japan—the need to step back from generalizing claims and teleological assumptions is apparent. There are no transcendental qualifications for the evaluation of writing systems: the question is not which is better, full stop, but rather which is better for what purposes. This is not a totally relativistic position. With suitably well-bounded criteria, it may be possible to comparatively evaluate systems, and if ——— 50. Historically speaking, sudden changes of such magnitude are unlikely. Rather than being simple, superficial alterations, they involve dramatic changes to written language and to the registers of the spoken language closest to it, as was the case with Atatürk’s “catastrophically successful” reform of Turkish writing (Geoffrey Lewis 1999).

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properly framed, complexity, ambiguity, and difficulty are all concepts of potential utility.51 But historical inquiry must determine the relevance of such concepts on a case-by-case basis, rather than assuming that they serve as an all-purpose yardstick for analyzing and comparing writing as used in different times and places. Properly historicized, the extended Japanese writing system as it developed over time can be seen as a marvel of adaptation and efficiency, in terms of its ability to accomplish the multiple purposes to which it was dedicated. DeFrancis laments the “Japanese inability, or refusal, to make a clean break with the characters that had been their inspiration in the first place” (1989, 138), but until the nineteenth century, texts using those characters were the vehicle for almost all valuable forms of written knowledge. Making a “clean break” was unimaginable precisely because it would have been so pointless and counterproductive. It was also unnecessary because the system, in its totality, accommodated differing levels of educational accomplishment and practical necessity, from clerks capable of manipulating simple written forms and a few dozen characters, to literary tyros relying on phonographic annotations and glossaries, to accomplished poets and scholars capable of reading and composing correct Chinese-style works unaided. Criticism and lamentation about Japanese writing is often based on an idealized notion of literacy as fully internalized control over an entire system of writing by a single individual.52 But the different niches within which writing functions in society all involve different literacies, with different standards for the necessity or efficiency of particular components of the extended system. A hybrid, highly context-dependent blend of logographs and phonographs, mixing Sinitic and vernacular readings and syntactical orders, may well appear “outrageously otiose and cumbersome” (R. A. Brown 1985, 532) to us, but it was not designed for us or for our ——— 51. On the comparative evaluation of writing systems, see endnote 7.11. 52. This ideal of literacy also influences comparisons, so that sometimes there is an apples-and-oranges quality to the critiques. It is true that in contemporary Japan, it takes twelve years of schooling for children to master the writing system. But if one considers different types of literacy rather than the simple matter of command over the 26 letters of the alphabet, does it take that much less time for children in the United States to learn how to read complex materials like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal?

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world. Moreover, as argued in Chapter 1, the ideal of unitary literacy itself is a relatively recent historical product that has little to do with the way writing functioned in premodern societies anywhere, including those that used the alphabet. Historically, it is difficult to find signs of Sansom’s Japanese “linguistic handicap.” Chapters 3 and 4 outlined how rapidly writing expanded in the seventh-century archipelago. There is no question that the result was a highly complex system, viewed in its totality. But the transition from limited symbolic use of writing to more extensive and varied employment, over a wide geographical area, seems not to have been hindered but rather encouraged by the system’s hybridity and contextdependency. It is difficult to establish an objective basis for comparison to other graphic or linguistic environments, but subsequent periods of Japanese history, right up to the present, are marked by a high degree of production and employment of written material of all kinds, including belletristic works that are among the most esteemed classics of the evolving canon of ‘world literature.’53 This is not the place to evaluate those works, or to dwell upon the great breadth and depth of documents and other written sources produced over some thirteen centuries of Japanese history, but nonetheless I submit that the pernicious historical consequences of this writing system are more often assumed than they are demonstrated. Envisioning a World History of Writing One reason for the disdain directed toward non-alphabetic writing is the influence of an implicit narrative of human history in which the alphabet plays a heroic role. This “alphabetic triumphalism” (Coulmas 2003) is intimately associated with the notion of civilization itself: when Boswell deems the Chinese civilized, Dr. Johnson objects, “Sir, they ——— 53. It has been traditional to attribute the literary quality of such works to the development of a phonographic system of writing, but as argued above, that is an unsupportable interpretation. It would be better to say that the full complexity of the writing system, including Chinese-style logography and kundoku as a conduit for adopting and adapting Sinitic precedents, was an important influence on the development of literary works, from the Man’yōshū to the Genji monogatari to the Heike monogatari 平家物語 (Tale of the Heike) to the poetry of Matsuo Bashō 松尾芭蕉 (1644–94).

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have not an alphabet” (Boswell 1979 [1791], 259). Another famous eighteenth-century remark shows how the alphabet fits into a specific historical framework of progress towards civilization: Three ways of writing correspond almost exactly to three different stages according to which one can consider men gathered into a nation. The depicting of objects is appropriate to a savage people; signs of words and of propositions, to a barbaric people, and the alphabet to civilized peoples [ peuples policés] (Rousseau 1966 [1749–55], 17).54

As discussed in Chapter 1, the study of writing is marked by two related arguments about origins: one about how many independent inventions of writing there were, and the other about the relationship between ‘proto’ and ‘full’ systems of writing.55 But it is also necessary to consider the other end of the temporal framework of the history of inscription. The notion of directionality—of progress towards the pinnacle of the alphabet—that is so apparent in Rousseau’s essay is ultimately more important when thinking about the historiography of writing than questions of its origins, in part because of the stubbornness with which narratives of increasing civilization cling to the idea that writing progresses through stages of improvement.56 Such a rigid teleological framework is a hallmark of I. J. Gelb’s pioneering history of writing (1963), which combined a typological framework of types of writing with a historical narrative of development. He held that all scripts followed a course of “unidirectional development” through necessary and strictly ordered evolutionary stages: pictures, protowriting, word-syllabic (largely equivalent to what others call logographic), syllabic, and then alphabetic (followed by, as one chapter title puts it, the “Alphabet’s Conquest of the World”). Although Gelb’s work ——— 54. Roy Harris (2000) starts off his most recent discussion of writing with these two quotations. 55. On the number of independently invented forms of writing, see endnote 7.12. 56. An example of the persistence and shaping effect of this narrative is a recent world history textbook, in which a list of “fundamental innovations” produced amid “militarypolitical upheavals around the Mesopotamian core between 2350 BCE and 331 BCE” includes “technological improvements in transport and communication extended the range of social interaction. Chief among these was alphabetic writing, which transformed older social relationships by democratizing literacy” (McNeill and McNeill 2003, 59).

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made major contributions to the systematic and comparative study of inscription, historians of writing have rejected both the teleological model of stages and the preconceptions about progress toward the alphabet that animated it.57 But there is one major area in which Gelbian teleology is not entirely gone from the history of writing: lingering assumptions about increasing phonography over time, especially in the adaptation of scripts across linguistic boundaries. Following Gelb, Trigger (2003, 602) asserts that “the major shifts towards more phonographic writing occurred when scripts were adopted by foreign peoples, who were not constrained by firmly established cultural traditions of literacy and by pedagogical and professional interests that were tied to an existing script.” In many cases that has undeniably been true, but in East Asia we could argue that adoption by foreign peoples actually led to an intensification of logography. (In Japan and elsewhere, this intensification was also accompanied by the development of phonographs, which goes to show that apparently contradictory changes can occur simultaneously.) The functioning of the Chinese script in Chinese linguistic contexts is controversial, but as stressed above it has extensive phonographic dimensions, which are clear both in actual usage and in metalinguistic/metagraphic discourse as well. But kundoku reading and writing are founded on the expansion and extension of the specifically logographic features of the system, which represents a form of adaptation counterintuitive to those who assume that phonographic borrowing is the only way to write an unrelated language with an existing script. These aspects of kundoku are less exotic than they may initially appear. It is likely that the quantity and graphical discreteness of the characters, as well as extended discourses that shaped their development, contributed to this phenomenon in East Asia, but there are numerous parallels in other traditions of writing. In medieval Europe Latin texts were glossed with diacritics and other markings supporting translation ——— 57. For recent discussions of the overall historical development of writing, all of them critical of Gelb’s model, see Coulmas 2003, 190–209; Trigger 2003; Trigger 2004; and Rogers 2005, 269–78. Writing is hardly alone in challenging notions of unidirectional progress towards efficiency, accuracy, and so on; much the same can be said of all human endeavors when they are examined from a non-Whig historical point of view.

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into local vernaculars, in striking parallels with the reading annotations in Japanese and Korean manuscripts (King 2007). These markings raise the possibility that a similar collapse of reading and translation occurred in Europe as well, which brings deeper resonance to the notion that logographic Chinese-style writing served as the “Latin of East Asia.” As the Imperial Aramaic script was adapted to write unrelated languages in Iran during the Parthian (ca. 210 BCE–ca. 224 CE) and Sassanian (224–651 CE) periods, entire Aramaic words were taken over as ‘heterograms’ (also known as ‘Semitic masks,’ ‘Aramaograms,’ and ‘ideograms’) for Parthian, Middle Persian, and Sogdian words (Skjærvø 1996). These heterograms are strings of letters that can be analyzed as straightforward phonographs for Aramaic words, but each string corresponds whole, logographically, to unrelated translation-words in the new Iranian contexts. The term ‘xenography’ refers to “the practice of adopting the original spelling of a loan word while pronouncing it in one’s own language,” and examples can also be found in English, such as “abbreviations of Latin origin [. . .] e.g. the pronunciation ‘pound’ for lb instead of ‘libra’; ‘and so on’ instead of ‘et cetera’ for etc” (Coulmas 1996, 564). In English, unlike the Iranian scripts, such examples of xenography are borderline cases, but English orthography in general (along with that of French) has a strongly non-phonographic tendency, to the point where some scholars even refer to it as ideographic.58 Perhaps the most frequently cited world parallel to the Japanese writing system as it developed is Akkadian cuneiform. This was also a complex, mixed system in which numerous graphs had multiple, contextually determined readings. Sumerian cuneiform characters were used as logographs associated with both loanwords and Akkadian equivalents (i.e., kun readings), and the existing Sumerian syllabary was augmented with new phonographs based on both Sumerian (equivalent to Sinitic phonographs) and Akkadian (vernacular phonographs) readings. The re——— 58. For references to English orthography as “ideographic,” see Anderson 1991, 43– 44, and Roy Harris 2000, 156. A survey of the subject notes that “English spelling has been called logographic: not simply alphabetic, but with some of the qualities of Chinese writing” (Upward and McArthur 1992, 972). In keeping with the points made above, it is important to emphasize that such labels describe how the letters of the alphabet are used, rather than their ‘inherent’ nature.

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sult was more phonographic than Sumerian cuneiform, but it was also more complex and polyvalent. Sumerian cuneiform also served as a written language both before and after the development of the Akkadian variety, and several scholars have discussed how Sumerian texts could have been read, kundoku style, in Akkadian.59 The possibility of Mesopotamian kundoku is raised, with explicit comparison to the history of Japanese writing, by Civil (1984, 76), and Rubio (2007) provides provocative consideration of both traditions as examples of a general phenomenon of “alloglottography.” These various parallels serve to underline the commonalities between Japanese writing and other forms of inscription, and also to emphasize the complexity of script adaptation, which does not necessarily lead to simplification or increased phonography. As is clear from Trigger’s summary of Gelb on adaptation, one reason the shift of writing from one language to another has been so strongly associated with phonography is that this shift is seen as freeing writing from cultural and institutional values that would otherwise discourage change. As was clear from the earlier discussion of the extended nature of the Chinese script, this is also not necessarily the case when scripts move to new linguistic contexts. But there are further problems with this line of thinking. A perennial theme in the study of writing is the concept of evolution, sometimes taken to mean progressive development toward an improved state, and other times understood along the lines of Darwinian natural selection. But this notion has been thoroughly criticized: Roy Harris (1986) devotes an entire chapter to “The Evolutionary Fallacy” (57–75); Bruce Trigger (2004) provides an extended critical consideration of the concept of “cultural evolution” as applied to writing; and Florian Coulmas (2009) examines reasons why scripts do not display an overarching trend toward ‘improvement.’ The central problem with thinking about changes in writing as akin to adaptation to selection pressures is the way that those pressures have been conceptualized. David Diringer, the other ——— 59. For an introductory survey of Mesopotamian cuneiform, see Cooper 1996. Comparisons between Mesopotamian writing and Japanese were discussed by the linguist Chino Eiichi, among others (see Kōno 1977, 15–18; and the various articles on Near Eastern writing in Kamei, Kōno, and Chino 2001).

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major mid-century Anglophone theorist of writing after Gelb, addresses the question of what he calls “the ‘progressive’ fallacy” by positing that The struggle for survival is the principal condition for the existence of a script, as for so many other things, and on the whole, barring severe interference of any kind, a script will ‘evolve’ in the direction of simplicity and utility (which in the case of writing not intended for mere physical impressiveness, is ipso facto an improvement), and the fittest scripts will survive: the scripts which are most useful and adaptable, and which best meet the needs of the men who use them (1962, 16–17).

This is followed by passages enumerating cases of interference, all prefatory to familiar assertions about the value and importance of the alphabet.60 But the important point here is the contrast Diringer makes between an internal principle of evolutionary improvement and external “interference” that obstructs this natural process of development. In other words, only certain influences are judged to be legitimate. Trigger, who is highly critical of the teleological nature of Diringer’s evolutionary framework, ultimately maintains a similar, though less judgmental, contrast between “considerations of efficiency, which have promoted increasing reliance on phonography at the expense of logography” and “religious, political, ethnic, and class loyalties, as well as cultural beliefs and preferences” (2004, 67). Trigger acknowledges that “technological efficiency can only be measured in relation to specific social needs” (ibid.). But as I have already insisted, if one takes into account the plurality of literacies, it becomes much harder to find a unitary “efficiency,” even in relation to other factors. Viewed globally, the Japanese system of writing was already immensely complex by the eighth century, and the subsequent development of graphically distinctive phonographs, which by and large were added into the mix rather than replacing it, further complicated matters. But those who learned and used the writing system (and thus contributed consciously and unconsciously to its adaptive change) rarely, if ever, had a global view of it. They were using particular subsystems ——— 60. Diringer goes on to catalogue cases of such “interference,” most of them related to religious uses of writing, and pauses to marvel at the retrogressive development of Chinese and Egyptian writing, apparently “without any external interference being visible” (1962, 18).

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for particular purposes, and the changes that accrued to those subsystems can be analyzed in terms of contributing ‘practical’ factors like ease of use, simplicity, and clarity, as against the value of tradition, aesthetic preferences, the cachet of specialized knowledge, and simple inertia (some of which seem to be more cultural than others). But the system, seen as a whole, cannot be so easily analyzed, because what is ‘practical’ in one venue may be ‘cultural’ elsewhere (as in, for example, the use of phonographs to write Man’yōshū poetry ascribed to rustics and conscripts, where their orality and rural simplicity is being emphasized). When we consider the wild claims that have been made about the nature of different writing systems—for the alphabet as a transparent recorder of sounds, or for Chinese and Egyptian writing as soundless symbols of ideas—it is clear that Unger and DeFrancis (1995) are correct to insist that all types of writing (that is, glottographic writing—the only category they recognize as such) are ultimately similar in their functioning. It is true that they make this argument while insisting on the inherently phonographic nature of all writing, a generalization that this book argues against. But the broader point remains: in terms of their functioning in society and development over time, it is difficult to find deep, qualitative differences across various systems of writing. As visually and structurally distinctive as many features of Japanese writing are, it seems that they neither produced, nor were determined by, sharp cultural or social differences. In a sense, this means that although writing in Japan (and to some extent, writing in general) does not work quite in the way that has often been assumed, that difference itself turns out to be less consequential than might be expected. Many scholars and theorists have taken an internal developmental logic of writing to be a key to the history of humanity; but such a logic may not even be a key to the history of writing itself. Writing has been taken to provide uniquely privileged insights into human history, for the obvious reason that it makes historical inquiry (as we know it) possible, but also because it seems to hold out a uniquely material, tangible explanation for more amorphous developments. But viewed from the perspective of its development in early Japan, it seems to me to be far from a privileged determiner of change. The story told in this book is rather one of the fluidity and adaptability of human practices within broad technical limits, where both change and continuity have

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multiple, overlapping, complex causes and consequences. Writing’s connection to natural language and its catalytic effect on so many other historical developments make it seem to be a special case. Perhaps it is. But in its multifariousness and malleability, it is as resistant as any other human practice to monocausal, deterministic explanation.

Reference Matter

Endnotes

Chapter One EPIGRAPHS:

Milne 1988 (1926), 82–83, and Wittgenstein 1958, 128 (I, §432) 1.1. The fragmentary artifacts examined in Chapter 1 are not the only possible starting points for this book. A more traditional one would have been early Japanese accounts of writing and its origins, as in Christopher Seeley’s overview (1991, 3–9). But extant material of this sort dates from the eighth century CE, many centuries after the earliest evidence of writing, and its historiographical difficulties make it preferable to wait until a context for its evaluation has been developed. The adoption of writing in the Japanese archipelago was preceded by its use in the Korean peninsula, and that in turn by the emergence of writing on the Chinese continent—and even starting there would still be in medias res, as the earliest solid evidence of Chinese writing, the Shang oracle bones of the thirteenth century BCE, represents a stage well into the development of the system (Tsien 2004, 19–39; Bagley 2004; Bottéro 2004). Later chapters will eventually address aspects of such alternate ‘beginnings,’ but this book does not set out to search for the ultimate origins of the phenomena it discusses. 1.2. The Paleolithic archaeology of Japan was thrown into disarray by the regrettable frauds perpetrated by Fujimura Shin’ichi, an archeologist caught planting artifacts in 2000 who subsequently confessed to faking finds at over forty sites (for overviews of the scandal, see Normile 2001 and Shoh Yamada 2002). Humans may well have reached the archipelago over land bridges or by boat significantly earlier than 35,000 years ago, but there is no undisputed evidence for their presence. On the other hand, ‘Late Stone age’ sites are numerous and reliably attested, showing many commonalities with finds elsewhere

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in Northeast Asia. A wealth of English-language information about the state of the field before, during, and after the scandal is available from Charles T. Keally’s “Japanese Archaeology” website; for post-Fujimura surveys of Paleolithic archaeology, see Sagawa 2002; Matsufuji 2004; and Matsugi 2007. Recent discoveries and the Fujimura scandal have dated them somewhat, but Imamura 1996 and Pearson 1992 remain richly informative surveys of the entire prehistory of the archipelago; Mizoguchi 2002 provides a more recent, theoretically oriented discussion of the same immense time period. 1.3. As with the Jōmon period, recent thinking moves back the advent of the Yayoi period (as indicated by widespread cultivation of rice and other plants and characteristic pottery styles). It was traditionally taken to begin around the third or fourth century BCE, but recent carbon dating has led many scholars to push it back by five or more centuries. This change is not universally accepted; for an introduction to the controversy, see Shōda 2007. On the Jōmon-Yayoi transition, Hudson 1999 provides an excellent—though already slightly dated— overview. The transition between the Yayoi and the subsequent Tomb period is marked primarily by the emergence of the characteristic large mounded tombs, which is now thought to have happened in the mid-third century CE; some archaeologists date it even earlier, to the beginning of the third century. Barnes (2007) and Kidder (2007) include considerable discussion of the late Yayoi and early Tomb periods, which are also covered in important earlier surveys by Farris (1998), Piggott (1997), and Edwards (1996; 1999). 1.4. The presumption that the Nambikwara chief was stranded outside a technology, rather than manipulating it for his own purposes, finds a parallel in the circulation of stories of ‘natives’ baffled by the powers of writing, such as a narrative of a boy caught stealing tobacco that Michalowski (1994) quotes from a quotation. (The circulation of such narratives has something in common with that of the Yukaghir ‘love letter’ debunked by DeFrancis 1989, 24–35.) Rather than simple parables of the power conferred on the ‘fully literate’ by writing, such episodes can be read as instances of “weapons of the weak” (Scott 1985), though this is not meant as a claim that one can see through these accounts to conclusively find acts of resistance, any more than my discussion of Lévi-Strauss’s assumptions about the nature of writing is meant as a straightforwardly moralizing critique. 1.5. I have struggled to find workable ways of labeling the phenomena gathered in this book under the label of ‘alegibility.’ This neologism has irritated several of my readers, and I myself have no great fondness for it, but I have been unable to find a better alternative. Etymologically the prefixes in- (il-) and aare synonymous, so one could argue that a distinction between ‘illegible’ and ‘alegible’ is an illusion, but in coining the latter term I had in mind the contrast

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between words like “immoral” (“The opposite of moral; not moral” [OED]) versus “amoral” (“Not within the sphere of moral sense; not to be characterized as either good or bad; non-moral” [OED]). As is argued in much of the remainder of this book, the familiar, ‘transparent’ variety of reading that I have labeled ‘legible’ is complex and varied. But leaving its internal complexity aside, I believe it is worthwhile to contrast it with a range of other relationships to writing that do not involve readers constructing (and ‘understanding’) linguistic utterances out of the component parts of inscriptions. Such relationships do not preclude ‘legible’ reading; in fact, I argue that they always accompany it. Moreover, for ancient inscriptions it is often impossible to judge the extent to which different modes of reception pertained, so the term “alegible” allows me to focus on ‘opaque’ uses of texts without denying the possibility that they coexisted with the ‘transparent,’ ‘legible’ kind. Such terms are used provisionally, and are intended not as strictly defined concepts but as shorthand references to the issues discussed in this note and at greater length throughout the first chapter. 1.6. In a famous essay, Clement Greenberg (1986 [1939], 9) wrote that “the nonrepresentational or ‘abstract,’ if it is to have aesthetic validity, cannot be arbitrary and accidental, but must stem from obedience to some worthy constraint or original.” In a sense, in calligraphy the status of marks as writing is no more than such a constraint, so that while legibility in principle may be constitutive of the art form, in practice it can become extraneous—although never completely so, as one of the major techniques of reception is to attempt to correlate emotional impact of the artistic form of the calligraphic inscription with its written ‘content.’ But this takes place on a different level from the initial response to the inscription as a piece of visual art. There are clear connections between the line of development that leads to ‘abstract calligraphy’ and the work of the contemporary artist Xu Bing, most prominently—but not only—his famous “Book from the Sky” project; see Erickson 2001 and the essays in Silbergeld and Ching 2006. Relations between image and text of the sort that are foregrounded by calligraphy are an important issue that I have not been able to address directly in this book. For fertile discussions from a variety of perspectives, see Goodman 1976; Mitchell 1986; and Schapiro 1996. 1.7. In a manner reminiscent of the good-luck horseshoe of the physicist Neils Bohr, which he expected to work even though he didn’t believe in it, the efficacy of talismanic writing is not dependent on legibility. Actually, as is the case with exoticized foreign writing (such as character tattoos), the impossibility of conventional reading is often an essential component of such inscriptions. The distinction between magical uses of symbols and systematic employment of similar marks as ‘writing’ is of value as a broad common-sense division,

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but any attempt to make it rigorous involves the same problems that have bedeviled anthropologists and historians of science attempting to distinguish between superstition or myth and more ‘rational’ approaches to the world (Goody 1961; Wax and Wax 1963; Tambiah 1990). On the one hand, there is a real discontinuity between magic and reading, and conflating the two makes it more difficult to understand the history of the latter; this is one of the reasons that the eventual emergence of more familiar (to us) uses of writing in Japan should be seen more as a break with earlier uses than as an extension of them. On the other hand, this discontinuity is not absolute, and magical or emblematic use of writing or writing-like marks, by those who can ‘read’ as well as those who cannot, continues long after it is no longer the sole use of inscription. 1.8. It is difficult, if not impossible, to specify a unitary ‘literacy’ that could be meaningfully described statistically; there is rather a range of different relationships to, and competencies with, the technology of writing. Even if assumptions are made and a unitary set of skills is postulated for heuristic purposes, it is difficult to come up with a meaningful specification of who is ‘literate’ without early modern and modern resources like school attendance statistics, publishing figures, military testing of draftees, and so on. William Harris (1989) discusses these problems, and argues that they do not prevent reasonably useful comparesons. But at least for the periods of Japanese history discussed in this book, I would argue that generating speculative literacy statistics risks masking more about premodern phenomena than it would reveal. 1.9. Although neither ‘semasiography’ nor ‘glottography’ appear in the online Oxford English Dictionary as of March 2010, both are familiar to students of writing, most prominently from Sampson 1985. Gelb (1963) uses semasiography, but his term for writing expressive of speech is phonography, a word better reserved for a more specific mode of writing expressing language through sounds independent of meaning (discussed elsewhere in Chapter 1). The term glottography can be traced at least as far back as Pulgram 1976, as pointed out by Hyman (2006), who also argues convincingly that semasiography is an ill-defined term for what is really non-glottography, that is, systems of communication that “do not notate spoken language” (233). 1.10. The cluster of Yayoi-period ‘inscriptions’ found in Mie prefecture during the mid-1990s could reflect something special about that area (one postulate is that the sites are near an ancient seaport, an assertion supported by the discovery of a type of bronze axe heretofore found only in the area of Kaya, on the southeastern coast of the Korean peninsula). But this cluster could also stem from an interpretive inclination on the part of the archaeologist involved in all of these finds (Wake Kiyoaki); of course, both explanations could apply,

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as eagerness to find writing could lead to discovery of marks that might otherwise be missed. 1.11. Early coins from the late Spring and Autumn period have been unearthed in the southern Ryukyu islands, which were outside the geographical limits of Yayoi- and Tomb-period culture (as well as of what subsequently became the Japanese state, for most of its existence). A type of money known as mingdaoqian 明刀錢 (‘bright knife coins’), after a cast pattern resembling the character 明 (‘bright’), were minted by the northeastern state of Yan (Fukuyama 1975, 17) and used there and in its neighbors Qi and Zhao. It is interesting that these coins also involve ambiguous marks that may or may not be identifiable as writing. 1.12. The name of the huoquan coin derives from its legend: 貨, ‘treasure’ or ‘money’; 泉 ‘spring’ is a phonographic loan for the word later written as 錢, ‘coin’. The Hanshu 漢書 dynastic history (ca. 78 CE) contradicts itself about the first minting: the treatise on financial administration dates it to 14 CE (HS 24b:1184; Swann 1950, 351) but the biography of Wang Mang has 20 CE (HS 99c:4163–64). Swann 1950 (351–52n729) suggests that the latter entry is intended to record “punishment of counterfeiters” rather than the first minting of the new coins. See also Yamada Katsuyoshi 2000, 143–86. On huoquan coin finds in Japan, see Takakura 1989. 1.13. Miki 1998, a comprehensive collection of inscriptions with information about where the mirrors were unearthed, shows dozens of variations of inscriptions containing the same auspicious phrases. Karlgren 1934, a pioneering and still edifying resource on mirror inscriptions, collects, translates, and comments on over 250 of these formulaic but still difficult texts. Umehara 1942 helpfully juxtaposes transcriptions of dated inscriptions with photographs of their mirrors; Higuchi 1979 and 1992 are useful collections of mirror photographs with some information on their inscriptions. An early and still essential treatment of the formulaic content of these texts and its relationship to the designs of the mirrors themselves is Higuchi 1953, and an excellent recent discussion is Morishita 2004. Nakamura Junko 1999 provides a useful introduction to broader issues of mirrors in early Japan. 1.14. It is worth noting that there are cases of highly skilled artisans involved in the production of written materials who are not capable of ‘reading’ their handiwork. A nineteenth-century British account of the process of printing in China refers to illiterate woodblock carvers (McDermott 2006, 23), and as suggested in Chapter 3 there is reason to question the extent to which scribes of the state-sponsored Buddhist scriptoria were capable of ‘comprehending’ the sutras, commentaries, and treatises they copied.

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EPIGRAPHS:

Hall 1966, 23; IYH 48 2.1 The Na seal, currently held by the Fukuoka City Museum, is roughly 23 millimeters to a side, corresponding to the standard size of one square Han inch (cun 寸). In the inscription (漢委奴國王), the relationship between the initial “Han” and the remaining four characters is unclear. As befits imperial dignity, it is twice the size of the others, and could be read as “under the Han” (Seeley 1991, 9). Although there have been debates about how to read the next two characters, the current consensus is that 倭 (abbreviated as 委) refers generally to the Wa people, while 奴 denotes a specific polity in Kyushu, mentioned in several of the Chinese histories and commonly read (in Japanese) as Na (mod. C. Nu). The lack of a concluding character designating the artifact itself is troubling: the normal official format for such inscriptions is ‘X’s seal (印 yin, 章 shang [a larger seal], or 璽 xi [an imperial seal]).’ This omission may stem from the need to cite three proper names while keeping the initial “Han” so large, but it is one of the reasons that the authenticity of the seal was questioned by many scholars, beginning shortly after its discovery. However, similar seals unearthed in China in the latter half of the twentieth century support its provenance. A snake-handled gold seal of nearly the same size (24 square millimeters) bearing the inscription “Seal of the King of Dian” 王之印, which probably corresponds to a seal given to the king of Dian by Emperor Wu of the Former Han in 109 BCE, was found in Yunnan in 1956 (Mori Kōichi 1985b, 226–29 and Nagasaki Kōshibyō 1993). A turtle-handled seal bearing the inscription “[Imperial] Seal of the King of Guangling” 廣陵王璽, the same size as, and with a very similar calligraphic style as that of the Na seal, was found in Jiangsu in 1981. The Guangling seal is thought to have been given to King Shanyang 山陽王 by his father, Emperor Ming (明帝, r. 57–75) in 58 CE (Mori Kōichi 1985b, 223). The Na seal, so famous that it is often referred to simply as “the gold seal” (kin’in 金印), has a long research history (see especially Ōtani 1974 and 1994); I have also relied on the introductory discussion in Naoki 1991. For a recent attempt to revive the forgery theory, written as a popular introduction, see Miura 2006. 2.2. The Na seal embodied a hierarchical relationship between the imperial bestower and the ‘barbarian’ recipient through its proximate content (the imperial entitlement of an inferior to a particular office; note also that the character ‘漢’ at the beginning of the inscription is twice the size of the other graphs) and its implicit—and perhaps merely ostensible—involvement in a system of written bureaucratic and diplomatic communication. But in the seal system much of this relationship was encoded in non-written—indeed, non-

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linguistic—symbolism like the ribbon color, the metal used, and the shape of the knob. 2.3. The Sanguozhi consists of three independent accounts of the Wei, Shu, and Wu kingdoms that were not collected into a single work of that title until the Song period. The account of the Wa is found in the article on peripheral barbarians in the Weishu 魏書 (often called Weizhi 魏志 to avoid confusion with the 554 Weishu 魏書, which is the history of the Northern Wei dynasty). Although as editor Chen Shou 陳寿 (233–97) was responsible for the current form of the work, this account, which Japanese scholars usually refer to as the Wajinden 倭人傳 (“Record of the Wa People”) or Gishi Wajinden 魏志倭人傳, is based on the now-lost Weilue 魏略, a history of the Wei edited by the thirdcentury scholar Yu Huan 魚豢 (this is clear from quoted passages from the Weilue in encyclopedias and similar sources, and also from the 429 commentary of Pei Songzhi 裴松之 [372–451]). For English-language discussions of the Weizhi record and the many controversies it has provoked, see Edwards 1996; Farris 1998, 9–54; Piggott 1997, 15–43; and Kidder 2007. Mizuno 1987 provides fundamental commentary on the text of the record itself. Sugimoto and Mori 1985 is also helpful, and Mishina 1970 remains valuable as a guide to earlier research history and a detailed commentary. For historical accounts of the reception of the record, see Young 1958 and Saeki 1971 and 1972. The lightly annotated English version of the text in Tsunoda 1951 has dated considerably and should be used with caution; a more recent translation is available in Kidder 2007, 12–18. I have also referred frequently to the annotated modern Japanese translations in Inoue Hideo et al. 1974 and Ishihara 1985. 2.4. In the twelfth-century Song printed editions of the Sanguozhi, the final character of the name of Himiko’s country is not 臺 but 壹; however, the articles on the Wa in the Hou Hanshu, Liangshu, Beishi, and Suishu, as well as a quotation from the Sanguozhi in the Taiping yulan encyclopedia, all have the 臺 reading, which leads most scholars to the conclusion that 壹 is an error for that character. 2.5. The received text of the Sanguozhi has the date of Himiko’s mission to the Wei as 238 (“the second year of the Jingchu era” 景初二年 [SGZ 30:857]), but this is usually emended to 239 on the basis of the date given in the seventh century Liangshu 梁書 account of the Wa (LS 54:806) and a quotation from the Sanguozhi in the 720 Nihon shoki (NS I:351 [ Jingū 39]). The key factor is the timing of the Wei reconquest of the Han outposts in northern Korea in 238, which most scholars see as a necessary precursor to Himiko’s mission (Sugimoto and Mori 1985, 165; see Mizuno Yū 1987, 498–505 for a dissenting view). 2.6. See Mori Kōichi 1985b, 263–65 for speculative reconstruction of Himiko’s seal. “Relative of Wei, King of X” was the highest title granted to foreign

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rulers, and gold and purple were the highest of the elaborate gradations in the metal and ribbon color (Inoue Hideo et al. 1974, 301n15; Sugimoto and Mori 1985, 167–68). Himiko’s envoys were also granted seals to accompany the lesser titles they received, but only silver ones with blue ribbons (SGZ 30:857). Nishijima Sadao is not alone in expecting that domestically composed manifests were part of Yayoi-period diplomacy. As exemplified by Ueda Masaaki’s straightforward comment to a newspaper reporter that “Yamatai employed writing for foreign relations in the first half of the third century” (Asahi shinbun 1997b), historians often assume that Himiko’s interaction with the Wei was the context in which writing was first used within the archipelago. 2.7. Another commonality between the Tōdaijiyama sword inscription and many mirror inscriptions is metrical: the sword inscription comprises three four-character couplets, the second and third of which rhyme ( gang [Middle Chinese kang] 剛 with xiang [MC zjang] 祥; Baxter 2000). The initial specification of the date of production as the “5th month and 43rd day” of the sexagesimal cycle (丙午) is common in inscriptions on mirrors and other metal objects (丙 is associated with fire and 午 with the south, while the fifth month is midsummer, hence an association with the hot processes of metal-working). It can simply be rendered as “an auspicious day of the 5th month” (Seeley 1991, 10). On the Tōdaijiyama tomb and sword inscription, I have relied primarily on Umehara 1962; Fukuyama 1975, 16–19; and Ōtani 1981, 101–16. For a more detailed discussion with further references, see Lurie 2001, 104–11. 2.8. From the Shang dynasty onward years were counted by reign, starting with one for the year of the ruler’s accession and continuing until the count was restarted with the initial year of his successor’s reign. Warring States rulers restarted the count because of political events, but the era name system is traditionally said to have begun in the Former Han, with the retroactive declaration of the Jianyuan 建元 period (140–35 BCE) by the Emperor Wu 武 (r. 141–87 BCE), on the occasion of the auspicious discovery of a tripod in 114 BCE (for an introductory account of the origins of the system, see Wilkinson 2000, 181–82). 2.9. The Five Kings of Wa, whom the Songshu records as having sent envoys to the Chinese court at least six times in the years between 412 and 478, are: Can 讃 ( J. San); Zhen 珍 ( J. Chin), brother of Can; Ji 濟 ( J. Sai); Xing 興 ( J. Kō), son of Ji; Wu 武 ( J. Bu), brother of Xing. Many scholars have attempted to establish correspondences between these Five Kings and the ‘sovereigns’ anachronistically portrayed in eighth-century Japanese histories, but these rely mainly on often-strained associations between the one-character names in the Songshu and the longer names recorded in Japanese sources (for a critique, see Yoshimura 1998b, 70–72). It is likely that the massive fifth-century tombs, the legendary sovereigns described in the Japanese histories, and the Five Kings of

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the Songshu are all connected to the same group of paramount rulers, but specific correspondences among individual names and particular tombs are still highly speculative. This is true even for the most famous correspondence, that between Wu and the ruler later known as Yūryaku (discussed later in this chapter). 2.10. The most widely adopted reading of the damaged initial characters of the Seven-Branched Sword inscription is 泰和, a variant of “Great Harmony” (Taihe 太和), an era name that was used by the Eastern Jin from 366 to 370 and the Northern Wei from 477 to 499. Since the state of Paekche had close ties to Eastern Jin but was unlikely to use a Northern Wei era name, the fourth year of Great Harmony probably corresponds to 369 CE (Fukuyama 1975, 25– 26). The inscription has often been linked to a Nihon shoki passage describing the donation of a “seven-branched sword” by Paekche envoys in a year that scholars take to correspond to 372 CE (NS I:359 [ Jingū 52/9/10]). I find convincing the historian Kawaguchi Katsuyasu’s speculation that the sword is a gift from Paekche inviting Wa to enter into tributary relations with the Chinese state of Eastern Jin, sent in 372 (the year Paekche established relations with the Chinese court) and backdated in the inscription to 369 to commemorate Paekche’s military victories of that year (Kawaguchi 1993, 337–38). But it has been variously interpreted as tribute offered to the Wa by Paekche, a favor bestowed on the Wa king by Paekche; a favor bestowed on the Wa by Eastern Jin, via Paekche; and a gift from Paekche to Wa signifying a relationship of parity. Watanabe Kimiko (1981) provides a dated but still invaluable overview of the research history, and Saeki 1977 and Miyazaki 1983 are also still rewarding. See Lurie 2001 for a fuller discussion and more references; more recent treatments include Kondō 1997 and Yoshida Akira 2001, as well as the very detailed discussion of Suga and his treatment of the sword in Fujii Minoru 2005. A summary of the debates about connections between the archipelago and the peninsula, with brief discussion of the specific place of the Seven-Branched Sword, can be found in Farris 1998, 56–68. 2.11. It is possible that the inscription of the Seven-Branched Sword was addressed to a king of the Wa, in northern Kyushu, for example, rather than the Wa king in Yamato. This is basically the Yamatai problem redux, except for the fact that archaeological evidence (most prominently the shape and distribution of tombs, but also patterns of mirror distribution) more solidly suggests a degree of political centralization in the Yamato region for the fourth than for the early third century. (Even so, there is room for debate; see Farris 1998, 113). Also, because of the dating of the Tōdaijiyama mound, it is relatively certain that the sword contained in it was in the Yamato area by the late fourth century—and, as noted earlier, the Isonokami Shrine is suggestively close to that tomb.

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2.12. Although the inscription on the King’s Bestowal Sword was discovered by X-ray photography in 1987, the sword itself was unearthed during the original excavation of the tomb between 1976 and 1977. My discussion relies primarily on Ichihara-shi kyōiku iinkai 1988, which contains photographs, information about the site, and an article on the inscription by Hirakawa Minami (reprinted in Hirakawa 2000b, 26–47). Hirakawa interprets 安 as an abbreviation for 按, “to bear,” and reads the second (severely damaged) and third (completely illegible) characters on the reverse as 廷刀 through analogy with the Eta-Funayama sword inscription, discussed later on in Chapter 2. This could mean ‘straight sword’ or ‘court sword,’ but the latter is more likely (Fukuyama 1975, 30). 2.13. The networks of tomb design and mirror distribution do not imply a centralized state, but they are a sign of hierarchical allegiance, with the Yamato king at the apex and rulers (chiefs, or lesser kings) of peripheral regions in subordinate positions (see Piggott 1997). The comparatively small size of the Inaridai No. 1 Mound seems inconsistent with the notion that a powerful regional ruler received the King’s Bestowal Sword from a distant Yamato ruler. But one need not assume that there was direct contact between the subject of the tomb and the king of the inscription (Okazaki 1988, 410). It could have been originally bestowed on a powerful local lord who then gave it in turn to one of his own followers; if so, this is another case of the circulation of a written artifact independent of its ‘legible’ content. 2.14. The Eta-Funayama mound is a 62-meter-long keyhole-shaped mound in a group of tombs on a plateau overlooking the Kikuchi river, northwest of Kumamoto. The round portion of the mound contained a house-shaped stone coffin with a side entrance, which held the burial goods. Including the sword, these goods are now held by the Tokyo National Museum. For a recent collection of articles on the tomb, its contents, and their historical context, see Shiraishi and Tamana rekishi kenkyūkai 2002. My transcription and translation are based on Tōkyō kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1993; I relied in particular on its article about the inscription by Tōno Haruyuki (reprinted in Tōno 2004), which proposes readings for several rust-damaged or cryptically abbreviated characters, and also tries to solve the apparent absence of a ‘creation clause’ by reading 并 as “alloyed.” As with the other inscriptions examined in this chapter, the loose transcriptions of proper names here are not intended as reconstructions of actual fifth-century pronunciations. 2.15. The 120-meter-long Sakitama-Inariyama mound is the second-largest keyhole-shaped tomb in the Sakitama group of 8 keyhole-shaped mounds, 1 very large round mound, and 35 smaller round mounds, dating from the late fifth to the seventh century, and located in Gyōda city, Saitama prefecture. The

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mound contained one clay-lined and one gravel-lined grave. The latter, considered to be the principal burial, held the inscribed sword, as well various items, including one other double-edged sword, four single-edged swords, armor, two spears, a mirror, a curved bead, and various horse trappings and iron tools. The tomb was excavated in 1968, but the inscription was not discovered, and revealed through X-ray photography, until 1978, at which point it caused a sensation. For an English-language discussion of the response to the discovery and some of the linguistic issues of the inscription, see Murayama and Miller 1979. For more recent scholarship, see the essays collected in Ueda, Ōtsuka, and Kanaizuka 2001 and Ogawa, Kanō, and Yoshimura 2003; Takahashi 2005 provides a helpful introduction to the archaeology of the Sakitama mound group. My transcription is based on that of Kanō Hisashi in Saitama-ken kyōiku iinkai 1979, although the character transcribed as 獲 appears in abbreviated form in the inscription, minus the “grass” radical (廾) on the upper right. The phonograph 披, bracketed in the transliterated names as [pa], is read by some scholars as “pi.” Note that the simplified transliterations employed here are in no way intended as a reconstruction of the original pronunciations represented by the phonograph characters of the inscription. I have omitted any distinctions between syllable pairs of the sort that are more fully attested for eighth-century Japanese. On the restoration of the inscription, which involved ‘reconstruction’ of some graphs as well as removal of surface rust, see Lurie 2001 132–36. The 43rd year of the cycle is generally taken to correspond to 471 CE, although a minority position argues for 531 instead. On the dating of the tomb and the inscription, see Anazawa and Manome 1986, 383–85. For a ‘tentative listing’ of variant character forms in support of the 531 theory, see Seeley 1991, 193. 2.16. The formats of the inscriptions and the weapons that bear them are also different: the Eta-Funayama sword is a single-edged sword with the inscription inlaid in silver along the back of the blade and inlaid horse, bird, and fish designs on the flats of the blade near the base, whereas the Sakitama-Inariyama sword is double-edged and inlaid in gold on both flat sides, with no decorative elements other than the inscription itself. The King’s Bestowal Sword, inlaid in gold on both sides of a double-edged blade, is closer to the Sakitama-Inariyama, although its inscription seems to be split between sides (like that on the SevenBranched Sword), and does not occupy the entire length of the blade. 2.17. The 21st sovereign of the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, later known as Yūryaku, is Ōhatsuse Wakatake[ru], spelled 大長谷若建 in the Kojiki and 大泊瀬 幼武 in the Nihon shoki, which dates his reign as 456 to 479. The name could be translated as “Young Brave of Great Hatsuse [the location of his palace]” (the reading Wakatake is more common, but -take and -takeru both appear as nameelements in eighth-century texts). The similarity between the legendary sover-

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eign’s name and that on the swords (獲[加多支]鹵) is striking, but not complete: the graph 支 is not associated with the syllable ke, although it has been argued that take developed from an earlier taki (Murayama and Miller 1979, 432). Yūryaku/Wakatakeru has long been associated with the Wa King Wu of the Songshu, because of agreement between the Nihon shoki’s dating of his reign and the Wu embassies (477 and 478), and also because the Chinese word associated with the character 武 has roughly the same meaning as take[ru]. (This led to the use of that character to write takeru in later Japanese texts, as in the Nihon shoki spelling of this sovereign’s name.) 2.18. Historians commonly argue that the title used by the Yamato kings evolved from “king” 王, as on the Na seal, to “great king” 大王, to “sovereign [tennō ]” 天皇 (see Tōno 1980). Temporal progression from the first to the second term would be consistent with the estimated dates of the inscriptions on the King’s Bestowal, Eta-Funayama, and Sakitama-Inariyama swords, but it is also possible that “king” and “great king” existed simultaneously, and that “great king” was not an early manifestation of a formal monarchical title like the term “sovereign” (Yoshimura 1998b, 73–78). See the excellent discussion of such titles in Duthie 2005, 119–31. (My continued use of “great king” to render 大王 reflects my sense of the likely value of the term in the fifth century, but I recognize the validity of Duthie’s arguments about the relationality of 王 titles, especially in seventh- and eighth-century sources.) 2.19. It has been argued that the titles “master of ceremonies” 典曹人 and “sword-bearer” 杖刀人 were part of a proto-bureaucratic system sometimes referred to as hito-sei 人制 (“person system”) (Yoshimura 1998b, 69), although this hypothesis is not universally accepted (Tōno 1993). The nature of Murite’s post as “master of ceremonies” is unclear, but the peninsular origins of many of the lavish burial goods that accompanied the Eta-Funayama sword suggest he may have served in a diplomatic or mercantile capacity, or perhaps in both. Wowake’s title of “sword-bearer” suggests a military role, in connection with which it is significant that northeastern Japan was, at least as early as the sixth century, a base of warrior power drawn on by Yamato rulers (Farris 1992, 29). 2.20. The Nihon shoki quotes from three Paekche histories 26 times. Transliterated according to traditional Japanese readings, these works are: Kudaraki 百済記 (Paekche chronicle), Kudara shinsen 百済新撰 (Paekche new selection), and Kudara hongi 百済本記 (Paekche fundamental chronicle). All of these texts have been lost, and in fact there are no references to them anywhere outside the Nihon shoki. Moreover, they seem to have been largely concerned with relations between Wa/Japan and the peninsula; one possible explanation of their origin is that they were compiled by immigrant scholars at the behest of the editors of the Nihon shoki or a predecessor history project. Their transcription of proper names

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is distinctive from that employed elsewhere in the Nihon shoki, and is thought to reflect peninsular orthographic practices (on the Paekche histories, see NS I:618–19 suppl. n. 37 and Inoue Hideo 1980; for connections between their orthography and that of the Inariyama inscription, see Kinoshita Reiji 1979). 2.21. The mirror is currently held in the Tokyo National Museum, but it is a treasure of Suda Hachimangū, a branch shrine of Iwashimizu Hachimangū in Kyoto that was established on one of its shōen estates (Suda no Shō) in modern Wakayama prefecture (near the border with Nara), most likely in the eleventh century (see Hashimoto shishi hensan iinkai 1974–75, I:108–11, I:135–37, and III:469–76; Okuda 1980, 180–88; and Miyazaki 1992, 450–51 [in English, and derived from Okuda]). The first reference to the mirror is in a nineteenthcentury gazetteer, the Kii no kuni meisho zue 紀伊國名所図会 (compiled by Takechi Shiyū 高市志友 [1751–1823] and Kanō Morohira 加納諸平 [1806– 57] in four installments published in Wakayama city between 1811 and 1851 [KKMZ III(IX):216–20]). As with the Seven-Branched Sword, it is unclear how or when this mirror came to be held by the shrine. It may have been excavated earlier in the Edo period (1600–1867) (Andō Seiichi 1970, 22), or perhaps it was transmitted by a local precursor to the Suda shrine (Okuda 1980, 181–82). It could have been unearthed from a burial mound at some point, but there are not many in the vicinity (Kobayashi Yukio 1965, 103), which in itself suggests the area was not a political center during the Tomb period. Lurie 2009a is an introductory overview of the Suda Hachiman mirror inscription that covers much the same ground as the discussion here, but a more detailed treatment can be found in Lurie 2001, 155–67. 2.22. Sakamoto Yoshitane (1980a and 1991) provides introductions to the many problems of the Suda Hachiman inscription. A roll-out enlargement of the characters of the inscription can be found in Nara kokuritsu hakubutsukan 1989, 42–43. Most scholars who have worked on the inscription support 503 as the likely equivalent for the sexagesimal date 癸未 (20th of the cycle), but some have argued for mid-fifth- or even fourth-century dates (Kobayashi Yukio 1965, 112–18; Tanaka Migaku 1981, 40). In many cases, these arguments have involved attempts to connect the names mentioned in the inscription with individuals mentioned in the Nihon shoki and the Samguk sagi. A less speculative approach based on the typology of decorative toothed bands in domestically produced mirrors suggests the mirror was made in the late fifth or early sixth century (Morishita 1993), which provides further support for the 503 theory. 2.23. Two fragmentary inscriptions provide some insight into the situation in the sixth century. One is on a sword unearthed from the Okadayama 岡田山 No. 1 Mound, a 24-meter-long keyhole-shaped tomb (dated to the latter half of the sixth century) in Matsue city, Shimane prefecture: an area that was the poli-

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tical center of early Izumo, a region long noted for its apparently late integration into the sphere of influence of the Yamato polity (see Piggott 1989). In 1915, a horizontal stone chamber was discovered in the square portion of the mound. Burial goods included mirrors, horse trappings, pottery, and swords, one of which was the rusted, 52-centimeter-long lower half of a round-pommelled single-edged sword. In 1983, X-ray photography revealed the following inscription, inlaid in silver: 各田卩臣□□□素□大利□. Readable as “Nukata-be no omi” (各=額 and 卩=部), the first four graphs combine a service group and a hereditary title, perhaps from the name of the recipient of the sword, who was presumably a local lord who oversaw a group of artisans and farmers with ties to the central Yamato court (Kishi 1988a). The other sword inscription is from the Miidani 箕谷 No. 2 Mound in Hyōgo prefecture. The largest of four tombs, this is a round mound of about 12 by 14 meters, dated to the end of the sixth century or the beginning of the seventh. A 68-centimeter-long straight sword found in the stone burial chamber of the mound in 1983 had a six-character inscription under a coating of rust: “The 5th month of the 5th year of the cycle [. . .]” 戊辰年五月□, which probably corresponds to 608. Both of these inscriptions suggest a degree of continuity between the fifth-century inscriptions and those that may have been produced in the following decades. For a few fragmentary graphs on potsherds that are thought to date to the sixth and early seventh centuries, see Hirakawa 2000b, 51–52. 2.24. We might wonder whether during the Tomb period scribes made use of media other than the cast or inlaid metal implements and the fragmentary potsherds and so on discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. If there were ancillary texts accompanying the production of something like the Wu manifest, they would have been brushed in ink on cloth, bamboo or wooden strips, or perhaps paper. Excepting cloth, and possibly brush and ink, there is no evidence of such materials from the Tomb period. But it is hard to discount them entirely, as it seems likely that those responsible for the fifth-century epigraphs would have had to have been equipped to produce more ephemeral forms of writing than the inscriptions themselves. The Sakitama-Inariyama inscription has 57 characters on the obverse and 58 on the reverse: along with the anomalous omission of the graph 名, “name,” from only one of the personal names (the second), this suggests the inscription was originally intended to have an equal number of characters on each side. If so, presumably some more perishable medium would have been used to draft it. 2.25. A fuller reading of the feather episode from the Ō Shinni narrative would need to situate it in the context of recurring narratives of diplomatic trickery and puzzling, including such famous stories as Kibi no Makibi’s embassy to China (in the Gōdanshō; but including also Yabataishi legends) and the

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Aritōshi story about stringing a bead with a curved hole by enlisting an ant (Makura no sōshi; Fukurozōshi; Ōgishō; Honchō jinjakō ). This latter narrative is conflated with the Ō Shinni episode in an obscure nō play, “Karasuba” 烏羽 (Yōkyoku hyōshaku). 2.26. If the chronology of the Nihon shoki is taken literally, the fifteenth year of Ōjin’s reign would correspond to 284 CE, but the consensus concerning the dates provided by this section of the work is that they fit the context provided by Chinese and Korean historical sources only if they are assumed to have been backdated by two full sexagenary cycles: adding 120 years to the raw date results in 404. According to the Nihon shoki, Ōjin’s reign lasted from 270 (which would be 390), when he took over from his redoubtable mother Jingū upon her death at the age of 100 years, to 310 (430), when he died at the ripe age of 110. The far-fetched longevity of these legendary characters is not the only reason for caution in approaching this portion of the work as a historical source. 2.27. The Nihon shoki contains a number of entries that explicitly describe the origin of a continuing practice, such as the use of water-powered mills (NS II:195; Suiko 18/3) or the popularity of Chinese-style belles lettres (NS II:487; Shuchō 1/10/3), so it is striking that the Achiki-Wani story is not presented as the origin of writing. It is clear from other sources, however, that concepts of ‘preliteracy’ did circulate in early Japan. The prefaces to the Kojiki (KJK 24) and the Kaifūsō (KFS 58–60) of 752 show that such a notion was current in the eighth century, as does a retelling of the Wani and Shinni stories in the Shoku Nihongi (SN V:468–70 [ Enryaku 9/7/17]) of 797, although the clearest and bestknown statement is the opening of the Kogo shūi (KS 119) of 807. It is interesting that the primary source for the Kaifūsō preface and Shoku Nihongi passage appears to be the Nihon shoki itself, even though those later texts are quite explicit in treating Wani’s arrival as the origin of writing. Chapter Three EPIGRAPHS:

O’Connor 1996, 90; Wodehouse 1988 [1918], 93 3.1. The mid-seventh-century Naniwa tablets were found near the foundations of a group of storehouses among administrative buildings to the west of the royal residence. There are two levels of structures and artifacts at the site of the Naniwa palace. The upper and more recent has long been identified as an eighth-century palace used by Shōmu Sovereign between 726 and 732. The lower, earlier layer, as confirmed by the discovery of these mokkan, is the Nagara Toyosaki palace, which according to the Nihon shoki was constructed and used in the 640s and 650s: Naniwa was designated as the capital in 645 (NS II:279 [Taika 1/12/9]), the sovereign visited a palace there in 648 (NS II:305 [Taika 4/1/1]), and the Toyosaki palace was completed in 651 (NS II:317 [Hakuchi 2/12/(30)]).

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On the Naniwa palace site, see Farris 1998, 136–41; Nakao 1992; Yagi 1987; and Ueki 2009. 3.2. Writing plays a fundamental role in the Nihon shoki portrayal of the socalled Taika Reforms. Although the policies in question are generally taken by historians to be directed by Tenji and Kamatari, they are presented as decisions made by the reigning sovereign, Kōtoku (r. 645–54). These include appointment of state scholars (NS II:271 [Kōtoku pre-enthronement annal]), promulgation of the (written) era name “Great Change” 大化 (Taika; NS II:271 [Kōgyoku 4/6/19]), orders that population registers be compiled (NS II:273 [Taika 1/8/5]; NS II:275 [Taika 1/8/5]; NS II:279 [Taika 1/9/19]; NS II:281 [Taika 2/1/1]), and creation of a formal bureaucracy by the state scholars (NS II:307 [Taika 5/2]). It is also important that the long and elaborate New Year’s Day edict announcing the ‘reform’ of the government is couched in the written style of Chinese statecraft (NS II:281–83 [Taika 2/1/1]). Historians generally agree that many of the details of this account do not represent actual contemporary policies, but rather are later elaborations based on the Taihō Administrative Code of 701. To choose just one example, there is no solid evidence of official era names before the promulgation of Taihō (“Great Treasure” 大寶, 701–4) itself, so “Taika” looks to be a retrospective creation (there is a fragmentary stele using that era name [KI 4], but the portion containing it is an Edo-period reconstruction based on a medieval work, and the stele inscription itself, if authentic, is very likely to postdate the Nihon shoki). That so much of the specific content of the so-called Taika Reforms is dubious does not mean that everything was made up from whole cloth: numerous archaeological discoveries of the past several decades, among them some of the mokkan discussed in this book, show that new administrative institutions really were put in place in the years after the coup, even if they bore little resemblance to the details of the Nihon shoki account. (On the historiography of the Taika Reforms, see Piggott 1997, 105–13, and Farris 1998, 203–9; the latter focuses on significance of mokkan discoveries.) 3.3. The Nihon shoki records three embassies to the Sui, in 607, 608, and 614; the Suishu also mentions one in 600. An early example of an expert returned from study abroad is Minabuchi Shōan, who is mentioned as the instructor of Kamatari and Tenji during their conspiracy. In the period following the 645 coup, the most prominent such individuals depicted in the Nihon shoki are the priest Min 旻 (d. 653), who studied in China from 608 to 632, and Takamuku no Genri 高向玄理 (d. 654), whose time abroad lasted from 608 to 640. Both are reported to have served as state advisors during the construction of a state bureaucracy, and Takamuku no Genri also went on embassies to Silla (in 646) and to Tang China (in 654), where he died after an audience with Emperor Gaozong.

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3.4. The first Chinese-style poems collected in the Kaifūsō anthology are by Tenji’s son Prince Ōtomo (648–72), who is described as a patron of the arts in the biography that precedes his two poems. The preface to the anthology also describes Tenji’s court as the site of extensive Chinese-style literary production, all lost in the destruction of the war of 672 (KFS 68–71; 60). The vernacular poetry collected in the Man’yōshū includes works attributed to legendary and quasi-legendary figures of earlier ages, and also a few compositions dated to the reign of the ruler later known as Jomei (r. 629–41), but it is with the courts of Saimei and Tenji that its poems and poets emerge into history (see Tsuchiya 1980 and Kōnoshi and Sakamoto 1999). 3.5. According to the Nihon shoki, legal codes were compiled in 681 (NS II:445 [Tenmu 10/2/25]) and promulgated in 689 (NS II:499 [ Jitō 3/1/29]). A 682 article suggests the scale of the undertaking, as (according to one interpretation) it mentions a special building devoted to legal code compilation in the palace (NS II:455 [Tenmu 11/8]). The references to the production of historical and lexicographical works are in 681 (NS II:445–47 [Tenmu 10/3/17]) and 682 (NS II:451 [Tenmu 11/3/13]), and of household registers in 689 (NS II:499 [ Jitō 3/*8/10]). Finally, the calendar reform was undertaken in 690 (NS II:507 [ Jitō 4/11/11]). 3.6. Some early written artifacts were likely to have been introduced by literate immigrants with direct allegiance to powerful regional figures, but it seems the primary context for the spread of writing in the seventh century was the ongoing interaction between such provincial elites and the central court. There are a number of ways in which local materials suggest the importance of such interactions for the development of writing, even in areas remote from the capital. Similar textual forms appear in mokkan found in both peripheral and palace sites: for example, the zenpaku 前白 (“I address X in his presence”) opening format for document mokkan (Tōno 1983, 255–82 and Hayakawa 1985, 149–56). Shifts in format also take place more or less simultaneously in both, the bestknown example being the characters used for district (ko2 pori ) and village (sato1), which change from 評 and 五十戸 to 評 and 里 in the mid-680s and then to 郡 and 里 after the promulgation of the Taihō Code in 701 (Farris 1998, 205–7; for similar, related shifts in the dating format of mokkan, see Kishi 1980). Another example of synchronization is the shift in the calligraphic styles used in mokkan from Korean-inflected Six Dynasties to early Tang, a shift that started in the (Fujiwara) capital and spread to the provinces around the beginning of the Nara period (Tōno 1983, 283–89, and Tōno 1997, 160–68). This is not to say that all documents were completely standardized. There is considerable variation in the formats of the extant eighth-century household and tax registers (Farris 1985, 22–34), and there is also a great deal of local variation in seventh-century

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mokkan. For example, the formats of the Naniwa palace mokkan have more in common with later mokkan from the Asukaike and Fujiwara palace sites than they do with roughly contemporary mokkan from Yashiro in Nagano or Kannonji, another important seventh-century site, in Shikoku (Hirakawa 1999b). 3.7. The identity of the commissioner of the (now lost) image that went with the Śākyamuni mandorla from the Hōryūji treasures (ZKI 3) remains a mystery. Given the probable origin of the object, the characters of his name (王延孫) are transliterated in modern Korean, but one might also use the Chinese equivalent (Wang Yansun) as a ‘neutral’ alternative. The three evil realms (三塗; more commonly 三途 or 三悪[道]) are hell, the realm of hungry spirits, and the realm of animals. Of the eight difficulties that prevent beings from encountering the Buddhist law, the first three are being born into these three evil realms, and the remaining five are: being reborn in heaven; being reborn in the happy land north of Mt. Sumeru; being deaf, blind, and mute; having worldly knowledge and eloquence; and living in an age before or after the Buddha’s appearance. A classic statement of this pairing of the three evil realms and eight difficulties is in the Vimalakīrti sutra: “Teaching others to avoid the eight difficulties is the pure land of the bodhisattva. When he attains Buddhahood, his country will be free of the three evils and the eight difficulties” 説除八難 是菩薩淨土。菩薩成佛時國土無有三惡八難。(Watson 1997, 28; T 475, 14:538b). 3.8. The common phrase “knotted rope” derives from the “Appended Statements” (Xici 辭) of the Yijing (the Classic of Changes): “In high antiquity they knotted ropes in order to govern” 上古結繩而治 (Shaughnessy 1996, 207; YJ 8:75b). The extent to which the phrase came to be associated with prewritten communication is attested to by its position at the head of the entries on writing in widely used classified encyclopedias like the Tang Chuxue ji 初學記 (CXJ 21:505) and the early Song Taiping yulan 太平御覽 (TPYL 747:3445a); other examples of its use in discussions of writing and its precursors include the postface to the Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 (an early dictionary), which describes “knotting rope and governing” 結繩爲治 (SWJZ 15a:753b) and the preface to the Wenxuan 文選 (a sixth-century literary anthology), which refers to the invention of writing to replace “governance by knotted rope” 結繩之政 (WX 1b). Use of the phrase “incised wood” was not as widespread, but it appears in the account of the Wuyuan 烏垣 people in the official history of the Eastern Han (Hou Hanshu 後漢書): When their leaders have reason to summon someone, they incise wood and make it a signal. Even though they have no writing, the people do not dare to commit crimes. 大人有所召呼、則刻木為信。雖無文字、而部衆不敢違犯。 (HHS 89:2979)

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The Liangshu 梁書, another official history compiled by the same group responsible for the Suishu, uses wording in its account of Silla that is probably derived from this Hou Hanshu passage: “They have no writing, but incise wood and make it a signal” 無文字、刻木為信 (LS 54:806). The Suishu claim that the Wa originally made use of “incised wood and knotted rope” clearly derives from such literary precedents. 3.9. Any inquiry into the early history of Buddhism in Japan depends on a clear understanding of the nature of the non–Nihon shoki sources. The Jōgū shōtoku hōō teisetsu is a haphazardly organized collection of material pertaining to the life of the shadowy figure known since the mid-eighth century as ‘Prince Shōtoku’: (1) a royal genealogy centered on him; (2) a summary of his birth and accomplishments; (3) a collection of epigraphs and poems connected to him and the temple of Ikarugadera/Hōryūji; (4) six cyclically dated notes about incidents from early Buddhist history, Shōtoku’s life, and its aftermath; and (5) a list of the five sovereigns with whom he is most closely connected, noting their reigns, death dates, and tomb locations (concluding with similar information for Shōtoku himself ). The first and last of these sections, containing basic biography and genealogy, are thought to be the oldest: their structure and style suggest they are based on material that predates the eighth century. The hagiographic material in the second and fourth sections probably dates from the mid-eighth century. Because it appears to respond to later Shōtoku biographies, the third is thought to have been written at some point between the early tenth century and the mid-eleventh century, when the sole surviving manuscript was copied. In the twelfth century, a priest named Jishun 慈俊 copied parts of a now-lost work entitled the Gangōji garan engi narabi ni ruki shizaichō 元興寺伽藍縁起并 流記資財帳 (“Temple history of Gangōji’s facilities with a catalogue of its holdings”; GE) into a collection of temple histories, the Shoji engishū 諸寺縁起 集 (18 volumes; sole manuscript currently held by Daigoji [in Kyoto prefecture]). As excerpted there the Gangōji engi comprises: (1) a history of Buddhism’s transmission and early development, focused on Asukadera/Gangōji; (2) the putative inscription on the base of the steeple of the temple pagoda (robanmei 露盤銘); (3) the putative inscription on the mandorla of the temple’s Śākyamuni image; (4) a dedicatory note from temple administrators, saying that the engi was prepared in response to a government order of 746 and submitted in 747; and (5) portions of a catalog of temple holdings, with partial lists of serfs, rice fields, and lands dedicated to the temple’s support, with headings for omitted categories. 3.10. The manifest from the King of Paekche extolling the merits of Buddhism, which is quoted in full in the Nihon shoki, is a pastiche of passages from two sutras. It draws from the Daihannya haramittakyō 大般若波羅蜜多 經 (a 600-volume translation of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā sutra by Xuanzang 玄奘 [600?–64]), but most of it derives from the Konkōmyō saishōōkyō 金光明

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最勝王經 (a 10-volume translation of the Suvarn.aprabhāsa sutra by Yijing 義浄 [635–713]). The latter translation dates to 703, so this manifest is obviously not a mid-sixth-century text, but rather an elaborate embellishment by the compilers of the Nihon shoki, or of one of its sources. (The Nihon shoki itself was completed in 720, so the fabrication of this manifest must have occurred shortly after the transmission of the sutra to Japan.) 3.11. The Gangōji engi actually contains three accounts of the transmission of Buddhism. The one quoted here is from the beginning of the initial, narrative section, and the second and third are placed at the beginnings of the purported inscriptions from the temple’s pagoda steeple and Śākyamuni image. The pagoda inscription does not mention any objects, but the image inscription, in wording similar to that of the Teisetsu, says the king “offered up a Buddhist image, scriptural teachings, and a priest” 奉仏像経教法師 (GE 332). 3.12. In the account from the Bidatsu annal of the Nihon shoki, Soga no Umako (son of Iname) sponsors three nuns, enshrines a statue of Maitreya, receives a relic of Śākyamuni from a follower, and constructs temple facilities on his estate, leading to the explanation that “the beginning of the Buddhist law was from this event” 佛法之初、自 而作 (NS II:149 [Bidatsu 13]). Because of the outbreak of an epidemic, Mononobe no Moriya (d. 587; son of Okoshi) gets permission to expel the new religion, burning temple buildings and the statue, throwing the remnants of the statue into the canal, and whipping and defrocking the nuns. The happy ending, however, is that further disease in the land and his own illness convince the Sovereign to permit Umako to resume his worship, whereupon the nuns are restored to their positions in a newly constructed temple. The Bidatsu annal also contains an enigmatic entry describing a returning envoy, one “Prince Ōwake” 大別王, who brings from the King of Paekche “several volumes of sutras and treatises along with a precepts master, a meditation master, a nun, a magician, an image-maker, and a temple-builder, altogether six people” 經論若干巻、并律師・禅師・比丘尼・呪禁師・ 造仏工・造寺工、六人 (NS II:141 [Bidatsu 6/11/1]). (The Fusō ryakki 扶桑 略記, a late Heian history, quotes a lost text called the Yakkō hokke genki 藥恒 法華験記 to the effect that these “sutras and treatises” comprised over two hundred volumes, and included the Lotus Sutra (FSR 33), but this seems to be a later elaboration, as does the Ryakki’s further attempt to work the episode into the story of Prince Shōtoku’s previous life as a Chinese priest.) According to the Nihon shoki the items and specialists were settled in Prince Ōwake’s temple in Naniwa, but nothing else is known about him, or this temple. 3.13. On Shōtoku as a figure used to resolve contradictions between earlier lineage group and later state Buddhism and establish native roots for the new faith, see Tamura 1994. For an extensive and edifying discussion of the variety

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of imported beliefs and practices embedded in the Shōtoku cult, see Como 2008. Yoshida 2006 provides a survey of recent critical scholarship casting doubt on the historical reality of the Prince himself. I have prepared a separate study on the portrayal of Shōtoku as an author figure in the Nara and Heian periods (Lurie n.d.). 3.14. It is fitting that the lineage group of the artisans who created early Buddhist images was the Kuratsukuri 鞍作, or “Saddlemakers,” because of the technical and stylistic similarities between the ornate horsetrappings found as lavish grave goods in fifth- and sixth-century tombs, on the one hand, and the images and ornaments that adorned early Buddhist temples, on the other. In this connection it is worth recalling an observation made long ago by John Whitney Hall that “the building or endowing of Buddhist centers in large measure took the place of the kind of conspicuous religious display that the kofun had exemplified” (1966, 95). On links between late Tomb-period burial mounds and lineage group temples, see Hayami 1986, 50–56. On the Kuratsukuri, see McCallum 2004. McCallum 2009 also stresses how important sacred relics were in the early stages of Japanese Buddhism. Wu 1986 provides a thorough discussion of early Chinese ‘Buddhist’ art in the second and third centuries, showing how iconography was appropriated piecemeal and incorporated into existing rituals, often unaccompanied by Buddhist thought or religious practice. 3.15. The figures for the numbers of Buddhist works listed by the Chusanzang jiji and Kaiyuan shijiaolu, taken from the counts given in the articles on those catalogs in Mochizuki 1954–63, do not include commentaries, treatises, and the like composed in the Korean states or in Japan. Among the many surprises produced by Ishida Mosaku’s exhaustive collation of sutra titles in the then-recently published Shōsōin documents was the discovery that the total number of sutras, commentaries, and treatises recorded as having been copied in eighth-century Japanese scriptoria actually exceeded the number of works included in the Kaiyuan shijiaolu. Visser 1935 is a classic English-language discussion of Buddhist texts in seventh- and eighth-century Japan, drawing largely on references in historical works like the Nihon shoki and Shoku Nihongi. 3.16. For an informative discussion of the function of the Kōrokan and the results of its excavation, see Batten 2006, 50–80. Miyako county was part of the province of Buzen, located on the island of Kyushu; it is south of the city of Kitakyushu in the eastern part of modern Fukuoka prefecture. On the “corvée exemption tax” ( yō 庸, also “labor levy”) and mokkan, see Farris 1998, 219–21. Given that this complex was maintained by the government, and that tax goods for the Kyushu provinces were collected at the nearby administrative center of Dazaifu (which served as a kind of sub-capital for this strategically and diplomatically important western region), it is unsurprising to find signs that local tax

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rice was consumed there. (One of the luggage tags found at the Kōrokan site, however, is from Sanuki province [on Shikoku island], an area whose tax goods were supposed to go directly to the capital; its presence in northern Kyushu is puzzling [Ōba 1998, 333].) 3.17. The Nihon shoki quotes, indirectly, a stele erected in memory of Fujiwara no Kamatari as evidence of his age at the time of death (NS II:373 [Tenji 8/10/16]); this is also mentioned in an eighth-century biography of Kamatari (TK 258). Buddhist inscriptions are incorporated complete into early works like the Jōgū shōtoku hōō teisetsu and Gangōji engi, and stele inscriptions are also transcribed in the eighth-century gazetteers ( fudoki). There is evidence of the practice of taking rubbings (C. beitie 碑帖; J. takuhon 拓本 or ishizuri 石摺) from inscriptions in China from as early as the fifth century CE (Shimizu Shigeru 1991, 22), and it came to play an essential role in the creation and reception of stelae inscriptions. For a survey of the development of the stele in China, see Wong 2004; on rubbings, see Wu 2003. 3.18. There are many mokkan with bits of bureaucratic formulae written repeatedly, presumably by clerks unsure of the proper structure of documents in preparation, and there are also paper drafts of documents in the Shōsōin. Among the mokkan found at a palace site in Asuka are several that are thought to be part of the editing process of the Nihon shoki or one of its predecessors (NKMS 94–95), and there are working versions of vernacular proclamations (senmyō ) in the Shōsōin documents as well (for example, for senmyō no. 23 [SN II:262; Tenpyō Hōji 2/8]; DNK IV:282; SZ 82). 3.19. Inscribed potsherds (bokusho doki 墨書土器) are found in large numbers not only in the capitals, but also in provinces ranging from Kyushu to northeastern Honshu. Mainly from the late seventh century onward, most of these consist of a few characters brushed in ink (or, less frequently, incised) on unglazed earthenware tableware and cooking vessels. They refer to government offices and the provisioning of their workers, to official banquets, and to ritual offerings and other supernatural practices. Many are found in village sites with no other written material, and they often bear characters that have been abbreviated, fused into unorthodox composites, or otherwise adapted into presumably ‘alegible’ marks. For surveys of bokusho doki, see the articles collected in the November (no. 362) and December (no. 363) 1993 issues of Gekkan bunkazai; Hara 1988; and Hirakawa 2000b. Chapter Four EPIGRAPHS:

Miller 1967, 131; Benjamin 1996 [1923], 263 4.1. Debate about whether to describe the genetically affiliated languages spoken in differing regions of China as ‘dialects’ of Chinese or as ‘related lan-

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guages’ is connected to the frequently—and misleadingly—cited unifying effect of written Chinese (DeFrancis 1984; Ramsey 1987, 16–18; and Norman 1988, 1–6 and 187–88). My expedient use of the broad term ‘Chinese language’ in this book is not necessarily an endorsement of the ‘dialect’ position. As for complex historical changes partially masked by the writing system, one example is that reconstructions of the language underlying the earliest Chinese written records, and also of the posited earlier stages of that language, suggest a more complex morphology than has traditionally been assumed (Boltz 1999, 91–95; Peyraube 2004, 995–97). 4.2. The standardization of Chinese writing was not just a matter of the internal structure of the characters. Calligraphic style was another dimension of both variety and standardization, one that overlapped in complex ways with the modularity and linguistic functioning of the graphs viewed in more abstract terms. Although the ‘internal’ systematization of the graphs was more or less complete by Han times, development of various calligraphic styles continued. These were increasingly codified and subjected to developing aesthetic standards, a process that culminated with the development of the formal square style (kaishu 楷書) during the Jin dynasty (265–420 CE); see Ledderose 1979 and Qiu 2000. 4.3. The primary meanings of the words associated with the graph 訓 ( J. kun/C. xun) are “to teach,” “to expound or explain,” or “to guide” (the Shuowen jiezi gloss is “to explain and teach” 説教也 [SWJZ 3a:91a]); extended senses include “to read”—sometimes in the sense of “to interpret”—and “meaning.” Definitions of kundoku in Anglophone scholarship are rare, but include: “interpretive reading” (Bedell 1979), “parsing” (Wixted 1998), and “reading [Chinese] using Japanese glosses” (Rabinovitch 1996, 108). Japanese-language treatments of the history of kundoku have tended to focus on the immense value of glossed and annotated readings for historical linguistics (see especially Nakada 1979 [1954]; Tsukishima 1965; and Kobayashi Yoshinori 1967; Yoshida Kanehiko et al. 2001 provides an excellent overview of this vibrant subfield). There are fewer discussions of the history of kundoku in its own right, although Suzuki Naoji 1975, and Tōdō and Kondō 1956, 328–53, are very helpful, as are encyclopedia articles by Tsukishima (1984) and Kobayashi Yoshinori (1984b). As discussed in Chapter 7, during the Edo period kundoku became the subject of lively debate among Japanese scholars, which has led to a corresponding modern secondary literature on the subject by intellectual historians concerned with that era: see, for example, Yamashiro 1993; Koyasu 2003, 69–100; and the recent essays collected in Nakamura Shunsaku et al. 2008. The best entry points into the burgeoning scholarship on kundoku in the seventh and eighth centuries are provided by Kōnoshi 1997 and by the related chapters in Kōnoshi 2007a and

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Tōkyō Daigaku kyōyō gakubu kokubun/kanbun gakubukai 2007. Relatively little attention has been paid to kundoku in English, but in addition to the items cited above there are discussions in Miller 1967; Seeley 1991; Horton 1993; LaMarre 2000; and Wang 2005; it is also addressed extensively in Kornicki 2008. As in the Japanese-language scholarship, Anglophone treatments of Edo-period intellectual history take up the significance of the practice: see, for example, Sakai 1991 and McMullen 2001. The practice has also been addressed from the perspective of translation studies in Wakabayashi 1998; Kondo and Wakabayashi 1998; Wakabayashi 2005; and Semizu 2006, the last of which provides a brief discussion of the early history of kundoku. 4.4. On’yomi are just one of several sets of non-Chinese approximations of the Chinese pronunciations of words associated with particular characters; others include the Korean and Vietnamese readings. Following Samuel Martin, these local approximations can be termed Sinoxenic readings. On’yomi readings play a larger role than serving simply as an option within the practice of kundoku, but it is important to emphasize this apparently paradoxical function. The term kundoku, of course, takes readings by means of non-on’yomi glosses as the sine qua non of the bundle of interrelated techniques that comprise the practice. But various mixtures of kun and on readings are possible. Within individual words this means the synecdochically named jūbako (重箱 “nested box”) and yutō (湯桶 “hot water pitcher”) readings, in which on ( jū and tō ) and kun (bako and yu) are combined. At the level of longer passages, doubled reading of terms in on and then kun, known as monzen-yomi 文選讀み (“Wenxuan reading”), was common in introductory educational contexts, but on’yomi readings were also frequently incorporated piecemeal into overall kundoku renderings. 4.5. As the generation of a text based on a temporally earlier equivalent, kundoku parallels oral interpretation in some respects, but with the essential difference that the ‘original’ is not a transient utterance but a durable inscription. Roman Jakobson (1987 [1959]: 429) distinguishes “interlingual translation or translation proper” from “intralingual translation or rewording” and “intrasemiotic translation or transmutation”; both of these other kinds, but in particular the latter, are relevant for this discussion of the nature of kundoku and its relationship to the more familiar interlingual variety. In an encyclopedia article on kundoku, Tsukishima Hiroshi (1984, 1049) compares it to conventional translation: “The connections between characters and their Japanese readings are not made at whim, but are stabilized by society and tradition. In this sense, kundoku is distinct from translation in being more fixed and formalized.” Western translation theory demonstrates parallels in many respects to the unfolding of arguments about kundoku: forms of equivalence, strangeness/naturalness in the target language, and questions about the functions that translation is to serve in that con-

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text. From the fifteenth century until the early twentieth, the opposing positions in a Japanese scholarly debate about how closely the language of kundoku should hew to the patterns of Chinese (briefly discussed in Chapter 7) resemble in many respects the contrasting German/foreignizing and French/domesticating approaches to translation in the European tradition. It is important to note, however, that one component of the early modern critique of kundoku most strongly associated with Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728) was the argument that kundoku should be replaced by looser paraphrasing of Chinese texts into more modern forms of Japanese, and that only the latter practice should be referred to as “translation” (訳). See Wakabayashi 2005, which also contains an extensive tabulation of the ways kundoku does and does not correspond to modern concepts of ‘translation.’ 4.6. There are two broad difficulties in the kundoku-mediated fit between language and writing: Japanese words that do not have an obvious semantic fit with any Chinese word represented by an existing Chinese logograph, and Japanese words that correspond with more than one possible Chinese logograph. In practice the former difficulty can be resolved by using characters phonographically, to spell out the Japanese word syllable by syllable, but doing so means abandoning the integrity of the logographic system—in other words, writing in a way that cannot be ‘read as Chinese.’ Another way of resolving the problem of no obvious graph for a Japanese word is to combine two or more Chinese logographs in such a way that the meanings of the Chinese words with which they are associated, taken together, establish a semantic equivalent for the Japanese word in question: the traditional term for such usages is “meaningbased glosses” (義訓 gikun). Chapter 6 addresses these and other techniques as they are showcased in the Man’yōshū. The second difficulty—Japanese words for which multiple possible characters exist—is only a problem if a one-to-one correspondence between words and graphs is desirable. In general the nature of kundoku militates against a rigorous determination of such correspondences, but in certain cases, such as that of the logographic prose of the Kojiki (discussed in the following chapter), there have been attempts to regularize the readings of kundoku-based logographs. 4.7. The earliest stages of Japanese kundoku seem to have been comparatively close to the everyday language of the time, though with extensive circumlocutions and some archaic elements. But in the tenth and eleventh centuries, changes in academic practice fostered a revolution in kundoku and annotation practices. Strengthening of lineages in Buddhist contexts, and professionalization/lineage group monopolization of secular scholarship led to a greater emphasis on preservation and transmission, in many cases under circumstances of secrecy, of specific readings of Buddhist and ‘Confucian’

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texts. Focus on preserving detailed records of readings led to linguistic freezing of reading practices, with the result that subsequent kundoku preserved in most respects the language of the mid-Heian period. There was a great deal of variety in lineages and traditions, in the timing of calcification, and in the degree of interaction of particular lineages with other reading/annotation traditions, but the general pattern is consistent (on kundoku and the Heian academy, see Steininger 2010). Before this stabilization, there was already an advanced degree of systematization of readings of nouns, verbs, and other so-called full words, but there was much more fluidity in the treatment of characters associated with Chinese grammatical elements, and in the addition of Japanese elements. After stabilization, there was a more thorough-going codification of readings of grammatical elements as well; roughly the same period saw the emergence of saidoku (e.g., imada . . . zu for 未) and other distinctive techniques. Thereafter, a major disruption accompanied the arrival of new Song commentaries in the late medieval period. Over the course of the Edo period, kundoku was subject to back-and-forth debates among intellectuals (briefly discussed in Chapter 7), but the general trend was toward more inclusion of on’yomi readings (i.e., Sinitic loanwords) and literal translations that disrupted or distorted Japanese syntax. Modern standardized kundoku readings, which were codified with influence from the Meiji government, derive from more moderate strains of the Edo style. Both the change and the continuity of these reading traditions are apparent in the following episodes in the history of the reading of the example clause from the Analects (學而時習之): (1) manabite toki ni narafu 學ビテ時ニ習フ (ancient reading [koten 古点] by Heian-period scholars [hakaseke], reflected in lectures by the Kiyohara and Nakahara [attested in medieval manuscripts]); (2) manande sikasite toki ni kore wo narafu 學ビ テ而シテ時ニ之ヲ習フ (reading by Keian 桂庵 [1427–1508], a scholarpriest who brought back Neo-Confucian commentaries from Ming China and made new arguments about kundoku style); and (3) manande toki ni kore wo narafu 學ンデ時ニ之ヲ習フ (influential reading by Hayashi Razan [1583–1657], an important early Edo-period scholar and propagandist). For a history of kundoku told through the vicissitudes of the Analects, see Suzuki Naoji 1975. 4.8. Other terms for ondoku include bōyomi 棒讀み (“reading in a straight line”) and chokudoku 直讀 (“direct reading”). The traditional terms for kundoku and ondoku reading were yomi and koe; these are employed in Heian-period sources like the Utsuho monogatari (see Nakada 1979), but they were still in use in the nineteenth century, as is clear from the report of the Perry expedition: Each of these Chinese characters is in Japan pronounced in two distinct manners. The one, as among the Chinese, with a slight variation in the Japanese pronunciation. This idiom is called Koye, which means simply “a Chinese sound or word;” the other mode of

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pronouncing is called Yomi, which signifies “interpretation;” the meaning of the Koye word. An example will illustrate: the words (according to Japanese pronunication) tin, chi, nin, all Chinese, are Koye, and mean respectively heaven, earth, man; the words ame, tsoutsi, fito, are all Yomi (pure Japanese) of those Koye words, and have, in the proper language of Japan, the same meaning as the three Chinese words above named. Hence, among the Japanese, there are three dialects; the first is pure Yomi, without any admixture of the Koye. This is the primitive language of the country, and is at this day used in poetry and works of light literature. The second is pure Koye, and is employed by the bonzes in their religious books. The third is a mixture of the two, and constitutes the common language of the Empire (Perry 1856, 9).

4.9. The Kannonji mokkan are a group found in several layers in the bed of a natural watercourse near the locations of the eighth-century state-sponsored temple and nunnery for the province of Awa, accompanied by artifacts includeing pottery, wooden implements, coins, mirrors, and tools. Earlier strata of the site included apparent ritual objects, whereas farm tools and building elements were found in more recent layers. For selected texts from these mokkan finds and general information about the Kannonji site, which was probably the location of the Awa provincial headquarters in the eighth century, see Fujikawa and Wada 1998 and 1999. In the glossary mokkan, the sets of smaller characters are primarily phonographic: the exception for both is their final 木, which does appear as a vernacular phonograph for the syllable ki2, but is presumably used here in its original vernacular logographic reading “tree” (ki2). I am not sure why this is used to write both pi1no2ki2 and tubaki1 given their different final vowels. What type of ‘cypress’ the right column refers to is unclear, but it may have a connection with a plant name appearing in the eleventh-century literary work Makura no sōshi: the asufahinoki あすはひの木 (MS 56), also known as asunaro (Hiba arborvitae). The graph ツ (tu in tubaki1), a cursive form of the graph 川, is the forerunner of the graph for tu in the later katakana syllabary. The Chinese word associated with the graph 椿, chun, refers to a plant related to the chinaberry or bead tree (Melia azedarach), not to the Japanese tsubaki (Camellia japonica) (Fujikawa and Wada 1999, 209). Owing to the similarity between the two types of plant, the character was selected to write the name of the domestic plant, or, conversely, the domestic word was called upon to read the character. The kundoku process of assocation involves many such cases of semantic drift. 4.10. Early transcriptions of the Kita-Ōtsu glossary mokkan (NKMS 410; JMSS 155) interpreted the character 之 in the gloss 久皮之 (kupasi; “fine”) as 反, taking the resulting 久皮反 as a spelling modeled on the Chinese fanqie system of notation (as in MYS 16:3817 and 3853), but it is clearly the common phonograph 之 (Hirakawa and Kōnoshi 1999, 17). Further evidence of the prevalence of kundoku is provided by the first character in the gloss 田須久

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(tasuku; “help”), which is a vernacular phonograph (kungana 訓仮名) derived from a pre-existing association between the graph 田 (C. tian; Middle C. den [Baxter 2000]) and the Japanese word ta (“field”). 4.11. The multisided Kannonji tablet may be an example of a type of Chinese wooden tablet called gu 觚 ( J. ko) (Fujikawa and Wada 1998, 211). (On this format see Harada 1973b; for a general introdution to the terminology for Chinese tablets [ jiandu 簡牘] see Ikeda 1996.) Based on its position in the layers of material washed down the stream and on the dating of accompanying pottery, this mokkan may date back as early as the second quarter of the seventh century; some of the archaeologists who discovered it even placed it at “around 640” (Fujikawa and Wada 1998, 206; Tokushima shinbun 1998). It may not be quite that early, but its calligraphic style is consistent with the mid- to late seventh century. 4.12. Asukaike was in a small valley southeast of Asukadera (Gangōji), near the most likely location of Tenmu and Jitō’s Kiyomihara palace. (On this palace, see Farris 1998, 147–48; on the Asukaike site, see Naoki and Suzuki 2000.) The southern portion of the site was a state-run manufacturing complex, including the first mint, from the mid-seventh century to the beginning of the eighth century; the northern portion borders on Asukadera and seems to have been part of the greater temple complex. Of the close to eight thousand tablets (most fragmentary) found at Asukaike, most were connected to the administration of the temple, but there were also unrelated luggage tags, items from the factory (such as labels from shipments of silver), and messages from the royal household, one of which has a date corresponding to 677 (Terasaki 1999b; Yoshikawa 2001). 4.13. Wayne Farris (personal communication) suggests that the Morinouchi letter mokkan may refer to an attempt to trade rice for horses. Tōno Haruyuki argues that the characters 博士 in the concluding “house of Tanba no Fubito” 旦波博士家, which also appear in a 694 Hōryūji inscription (ZKI 7), do not literally denote “scholar,” but rather a kabane title equivalent to, and probably read as, the later fubito 史 (Tōno 1996a, 287–95). This title was used primarily by scribal lineage groups (though not all of them) and other lineage groups claiming descent from immigrant scribes. As is often the case with mokkan— and in varying degrees for all logographic texts—there are a variety of possible kundoku readings for this mokkan. One of the hallmarks of everyday writing is that clear communication is the priority; variations in the details of the readings—and even, ultimately, in the language in which those readings take place— would have been acceptable as long as the basic import of the message was clear. This is not to deny that there are potentially significant ambiguities: for example, one kundoku reconstruction of the 我持往稲 passage treats the transport of the rice sheaves as unaccomplished (waga mo2tiyukamu ine [Okimori 2003, 134]),

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while another sees it as having occurred (waga mo2tiyuki1si ine [ JMSS 9]); such divergent readings involve different context-based decisions about what additions to make to the text. 4.14. The Prince Nagaya household site was a 60,000-square-meter compound occupied by a well-known eighth-century figure, Prince Nagaya (684– 729), a grandson of Tenmu who maintained de facto control of the court for most of the 720s, but was outmaneuvered by the Fujiwara family and forced to commit suicide in 729. For English accounts of Nagaya and his fate, see Naoki 1993, 247–48, and Piggott 1997, 245–47; for a biography, see Terasaki 1999a. The mokkan of this site have been extensively studied because they illuminate political and economic dimensions of the Nara-period elite, as well as filling in a temporal gap between large finds from the Fujiwara and Heijō palace sites. Piggott 1990, 452–61, and Farris 1998, 221–30, provide overviews of these sources in English; an introduction in Japanese can be found in Nara kokuritsu bunkazai kenkyūjo 1991. Mori Kimiyuki 2000 provides a nearly comprehensive bibliography of the first decade’s worth of scholarship on the Nagaya mokkan; on their significance for the history of writing, see Tōno 1996b. 4.15. In the Prince Nagaya household mokkan, the provisional reading of 大御飯, opomi1-ke2, can be literally translated as “great august rice” (Philippi 1968, 306n13). In the Man’yōshū (MYS 20:4360) and the Kojiki (KJK 290), it is used specifically for food offered up to the sovereign and thus might also be rendered “royal victuals.” Assuming it is an honorific not limited to the sovereign, I have translated it as “the lord’s great rice,” but there are other mokkan among those found in the Prince Nagaya site that employ honorifics and other terminology that were officially reserved for only the most exalted individuals (see Tōno 1996b and other essays collected in the same volume), so it may be that this term carries the same regal weight that it does in the literary sources. 4.16. The conflict among the Three Kingdoms that led to the late seventhcentury Silla unification, the thirteenth-century Mongol invasion, damage to and neglect of Buddhist temples during the Yi dynasty (1392–1910), and the devastation caused by late sixteenth-century Japanese invasions all took their toll on ancient Korean books and documents, meaning that far less material survives than in the case of early Japan. Even so, a number of valuable sources remain, including accounts in Chinese and Korean histories, epigraphic material, and a scarce but growing corpus of Korean mokkan. The most extensive survey of early Korean writing in English remains that of Ledyard 1966 (republished as Ledyard 1998), but see also Lee and Ramsey 2000, 45–55. For recent Japanese-language introductions, see Yi 2000 and 2005. I have also consulted the following articles: Kōno 1957; Inoue Hideo 1975; Fujimoto 1988; and Umeda 2000.

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4.17. For a transcription and photographs of rubbings of the Kyŏngju inscription, see Saitō 1983, 75 and 220–23. Ledyard 1966, 35, provides a translation and discussion of the first half of the text, from which I have borrowed some wording. I also relied on the complete Japanese translation and analysis of the style and implications of the inscription that can be found in Fujimoto 1988, 196–201. Among the numerous difficulties of dealing with this text are the awkwardness of reading 倫 as “the way of. . .” (Ledyard [personal communication, September 2002] proposes taking this as an alternate form of 論, and thus a reference to the Analects) and of treating the last two characters (三年) as “[and will do so] in three years.” Fujimoto reads these two characters as “carried out [the vow to study] for three years,” but given the closeness of the two dates (辛未 comes just before 壬申 in the sexagenary cycle), it seems the vow to study was made the year before the inscription. 4.18. There are fourteen hyangga in the Samguk yusa and another eleven in a 1075 biography of a priest named Kyunyŏ. There are also a few scattered examples of similar poems in later sources, but both the genre and the writing system associated with it seem to have died out after the Silla period. The earliest hyangga dates to 600, although most are from the eighth century; the texts themselves are thought to have been transcribed between the late seventh and late ninth centuries (they are apparently copied from a lost royal anthology called the Samdae mok 三代目 [888]). For introductions to hyangch’al with examples, see Kōno 1957, 196–202; Ledyard 1966, 36–40; and Fujimoto 1988, 207–10. A number of scholars have examined the parallels between this system and the mixtures of logographs and phonographs used in seventh- and eighthcentury Japan, most prominently in the poetry of the Man’yōshū; see, for example, Fujii Shigetoshi 1990 and Yi 1991. However, as there are significant differences in the phonographs used and in the way they are combined with logographs, it is difficult to postulate a direct relationship between hyangch’al and the mixed inscription in early Japanese sources. It is more appropriate to assume either that both are descended from earlier practices of Three Kingdoms Korea that are unattested in the historical record (which seems likely to me) or that they are independent inventions (which is certainly possible). 4.19. On the discovery of kunten-style annotations in Korean manuscripts, which began in the early 1970s, see Fujimoto 1988, 219–26; Kim Mun-kyŏng 1988; Fujimoto 1992; and Umeda 2000, 102–3. Among the best-publicized such finds was one announced in 2000—an early eleventh-century copy of a Buddhist treatise, the Yogācārabhūmi śāstra (瑜伽師地論 C. Yuqie shidi lun/J. Yuga shijiron), with t’o notations indicating kundoku readings—but a number of similar sources have been reported (see Kobayashi and Nishimura 2001 and Nam, Yi, and Yun 2001). Pioneering research on this topic by Kobayashi Yoshinori and

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Nam P’ung-hyŏn was the subject of a panel at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in 2007 (Kobayashi 2007; Nam 2007). An important element of this area of research is the role played by glosses made with a stylus ( J. kakuhitsu 角筆) to scratch marks into the surface of the paper. Since the 1960s scholars had been aware that there were numerous Japanese manuscripts with kunten notations made in this manner, but it is only in the past decade that it has become clear that the practice was also widespread in premodern Korea. Kakuhitsu materials are described in English by Seeley (1991, 73–74) and Kornicki (2008). A large number of works in Japanese on the topic are by Kobayashi Yoshinori, including introductory surveys (1989 and 1998, 187–94) and more recent articles discussing the parallels between Japanese glosses and those found in early Korean kakuhitsu materials, and their implications for the history of kunten glossing and of kundoku reading itself (2002 and 2006). Most of this material is later than the period examined in this book, but there are signs that kuntenstyle glosses were associated with Huayan ( J. Kegon 華嚴) Buddhism in eighthcentury Silla, which was very influential in Nara-period Japan. It is possible that future discoveries will push back the dates of these practices further, or provide more solid evidence of the extent of Korean influence on their development in Japan, but even so at this point it seems likely that the idea, at the very least, of using brushes and styli to add glosses to manuscripts was imported to the archipelago from the peninsula in the eighth century or earlier (Whitman 2008). 4.20. Political and diplomatic changes in the region after the eighth century contributed to a substantial divergence between the unified Korean peninsula and the new state of Japan, but even thereafter there are important communalities in the Korean and Japanese experiences of writing. The development of visually distinctive phonograph syllabaries (kana) in Heian Japan did not supersede kundoku-based logographic styles, but rather paralleled their continued dominance and development. There is a similar history in Korea after a complete all-phonograph system was developed in the fifteenth century, but did not become the dominant style of writing for over four hundred years. A number of reasons have been advanced for the comparative lateness of the emergence of fully phonographic writing in Korea, among them the phonological difficulty of engineering a complete syllabary for Korean (see Coulmas 2003, 66; Handel 2008 provides a valuable discussion of the implications of such phonological limitation for the general history of script development). But it is important to remember that in Japan the kana syllabaries in no way ‘replaced’ kundoku-based logographic writing, in the Chinese style and otherwise, so the late appearance of something corresponding to kana in Korea is not as dramatic a difference as it might otherwise appear to be. Eventually, after the creation of the Korean alphabet, there were striking similarities to the Japanese situation in the persis-

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tence of earlier methods of inscription and the stratification of writing in terms of class and gender. In both societies political and cultural factors were essential, but it is a mistake to see them as stifling or delaying inevitable progress in the development of writing—a point to which I will return in Chapter 7. 4.21. It is common to refer to the kana phonograph inventories as ‘syllabaries,’ but the basic unit of modern Japanese phonographic writing is not the syllable but the sub-syllabic mora (Backhouse 1993, 40–41). Syllables like kō こう, tsū つう, and man まん are all bimoraic, while ko こ, tsu つ, and ma ま are all monomoraic, as reflected in both sets by the number of hiragana required to write them. The mora versus syllable distinction in modern Japanese has been the subject of much discussion by phonologists (see Vance 1987, 56–76, and Tsujimura 1996, 64–72), and it is also important for understanding the prosody of early modern and modern poetry (see Collington 2000). However, before the influence of numerous Chinese loanwords and sets of sound changes that occurred in Middle Japanese, syllable structure was much simpler, and it is assumed that there were no sub-syllabic morae in Old Japanese (Martin 1987, 74). There is no need for a distinction between morae and syllables to explain the prosody of poetry in works like the late eighth-century Man’yōshū, the tenthcentury Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集, and so on, or to describe the function of early phonographic writing. In this book I have used the terms ‘syllabic’ and ‘syllabary’ throughout, despite the fact that they are technically oversimplifications when applied to modern Japanese phonographs. Chapter Five EPIGRAPHS:

Carr 1964, 23; Keene 1993, 33 5.1. Skepticism about the early date of the Shaka inscription is supported by several apparent anachronisms (see McCallum 2004 and the classic articles by Fukuyama [1935] and Yabuta [1950]). The title “dharma sovereign” 法皇 seems to be derived from the title tennō 天皇, which was not adopted until the late seventh century, and the term “Buddha [image] master” 佛師 appears to be absent from Chinese and Korean sources, and is unattested elsewhere in Japanese sources until the mid-eighth century. Moreover, the inscription begins “[In the] 31st year after the beginning of the Arising of the Law” 法興元 丗一年, followed by a cyclical date corresponding to 621 CE. (The graph 丗 can be interpreted as “reign” 世 rather than “thirty” 卅—hence, “the first year [a year?] of the first reign in which the law arose” 法興元世一年—but the form 世 is used three times elsewhere in the inscription [lines 7 and 9], so “thirty” makes more sense.) If the two-character “Arising of the Law” 法興 were an era name it would significantly predate the first such dating system portrayed in the Nihon shoki (Taika 大化, starting in 645), which itself is viewed

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skeptically by most scholars, largely because the archaeological record of Japanese era names begins over a half-century later, with Taihō 大寳 in 701 (see endnote 3.2). Whether or not it is an era name, hōkō must be related to Hōkōji 法興寺, “temple of the arising of the law,” an alternate name for Gangōji/ Asukadera, but such a connection may be a further sign of anachronism. A Nihon shoki entry for 676 is taken to be a record of the first creation of such Sinicized temple names (NS II:435 [Tenmu 8/4/5]), and it is uncertain that a name like “Hōkōji” could have existed in the early seventh century. On the other hand, alone or in combination, none of these points is decisive evidence that the inscription postdates 623, and there is some positive evidence that suggests it actually is that early. Art historians are in general agreement that the sculpture and aureole themselves were made in the first half of the seventh century (Nara rokudaiji taikan kankōkai 1999), and it appears that the inscription was cast rather than incised, which would mean it was created at the same time as the aureole (Tōno 2000a, 32–37). With the Yakushi inscription, however, the traditional dating has been fully undermined. Because the inscription itself describes the completion, in 607, of a vow to create a temple and the image itself, it was traditionally taken to have been written in that year. The text, however, does not explicitly date itself or the creation of the image whose aureole bears it, and there are numerous reasons to place it many decades later than 607. Several of the terms it uses to glorify royal figures and palaces are more appropriate to a past reign than an ongoing one, and the Nihon shoki and the dating of other sculptures suggest the cult of Yakushi did not arrive in Japan until late in the seventh century (Fukuyama 1935). Art historians generally agree that typological comparison of the sculpture and aureole with the Shaka image reveal that the Yakushi is the newer of the two. It is thought to be an archaizing work of the latter half of the seventh century. (Since the inscription could have been added after the aureole itself was made, the dating of the image would establish only an earliest limit, or terminus post quem, for the text.) For photographs, art historical commentary, and references pertaining to this comparison, see Nara rokudaiji taikan kankōkai 1999. Ishida Hisatoyo (1993) provides a detailed discussion of the two images focused on the dating problem. The style of the Yakushi inscription—including its arrangement of characters and inclusion of Japanese honorifics—is paralleled by other inscriptions of the latter half of the seventh century, and not reflected in the few items that can be dated earlier. Finally, the inscription’s use of the title “sovereign” (tennō 天皇) suggests it postdates the reign of Tenmu (r. 672–86), who is generally considered to have been the first ruler to use that title; it was not until the reign of his consort and successor Jitō (r. 687–697) that the title came to be used for rulers other than

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Tenmu himself (see Watanabe Shigeru 1967; Tōno 1977a; and Mori Kimiyuki 1998a; English-language discussion can be found in Piggott 1997, 91–92 and 144). Since Fukuyama’s pioneering 1935 article, the difficulty of dating the Yakushi image to the traditional 607 has been part of the argument for the late emergence of the tennō title, so there is some risk of circularity in citing use of that title as support for a later date, but in both cases there is ample corroborating evidence. 5.2. In conjunction with the apparent relationship between the styles of the sculptures themselves, the parallel plots of the two inscriptions can be interpreted as a sign that the Yakushi inscription was in part derived from the Shaka, but one of my aims is to avoid the specification of temporal priority that would be prerequisite to arguing for that kind of ‘influence.’ Similarly, it is possible— standard, actually, in most discussions of the history of writing in Japan—to arrange the styles of the two on a timeline, arguing, for example, that the Yakushi was written before widespread control over the correct literary Chinese forms for such inscriptions, or, conversely, that the Shaka was produced before it was possible to indicate Japanese elements like word order and honorifics. Explicit or implicit, such narratives of stage-by-stage development are appealing, but the variety of seventh-century mokkan makes it difficult to assert that particular styles were employed at particular periods because other options were as yet unavailable, and the lack of precise dates for the Hōryūji inscriptions also renders such a project problematic. What can be stated unequivocally is, first, that the style of the Yakushi inscription was selected from a range of options that included the style of the Shaka inscription, and, second, that the two were juxtaposed by the mid-eighth century at the latest. Nonetheless, we can acknowledge that it is more likely that the Shaka inscription came first than that the two were created in the same period—indeed, it could be more than a century older than the Yakushi inscription. Given the likelihood that kundoku came from Korea, it is hard to imagine that it would not have been an option for reading the Shaka inscription regardless of when it was produced, but the potential time lag between the two does open up the possibility that the politically charged vernacular style of writing seen in the Yakushi inscription did not yet exist when the Shaka inscription was written. But this problem is separate from the question of what the Yakushi inscription meant when it was made (a time at which the Shaka style was certainly an option), or what meaning each had once the two were juxtaposed. The latter issue, not historically oriented speculation about precisely when a style emerged, is the core problem for this chapter. (And note that in the case of the 712 Kojiki and the 720 Nihon shoki the vernacular style precedes the orthodox, at least in terms of the dates associated with the completion of the works.)

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5.3. The earliest extant copy of the Kojiki, the Shinpukuji manuscript 眞福寺 本, dates from the late fourteenth century, over six and a half centuries removed from the work’s inception. The Kojiki is quoted in other eighth-century works (e.g., MYS 2:90 and 13:3263; see Kōnoshi 1983, 49–68), and from the ninth century was taken up as a source for reading the Nihon shoki in texts like the Nihon shoki shiki 日本書紀私記. Although the lateness of extant manuscripts is striking, especially in comparison to the case of the Nihon shoki itself, other early works employed in the project of establishing readings for the Nihon shoki do not survive at all, and the earliest extant manuscript of the mid-ninth-century Sendai kuji hongi 先代舊事本紀 is even later (Yamaguchi and Kōnoshi 1997, 418–19; for arguments about the dating of the Sendai kuji hongi, see Bentley 2006 and Teeuwen 2007). 5.4. Ō no Yasumaro first appears in the Shoku Nihongi when he is advanced from Upper Senior Sixth Rank to Lower Junior Fifth Rank during New Year’s promotions in 704 (SN I:74–76 [Keiun 1/1/7]). In 711, the year before the Kojiki preface, he is promoted from Lower Senior Fifth Rank to to Upper Senior Fifth Rank (SN I:164 [ Wadō 4/4/7]), and during New Year’s promotions in 715 is advanced to Lower Junior Fourth Rank (SN I:220 [Reiki 1/1/10]). In addition to the omission of any reference to the Kojiki itself, there are no signs that Yasumaro was rewarded in connection with its composition. His three rank advancements are all part of mass promotions, with no indication that he was singled out (although he must have been advanced two steps some time between 704 and 711). He is made head of his lineage group (uji no kami 氏長) in 716 (SN II:18–20 [Reiki 2/9/23]), and then there is a short record of his death in 723, giving his rank as Lower Junior Fourth and his post as Head of the Ministry of Public Affairs (minbukyō 民部卿) (SN II:132 [Yōrō 7/7/7]). Discovered in 1979, his grave contained a bronze plaque with the following inscription: Ō no ason Yasumaro, Lower Junior Fourth Rank and Fifth Order of Merit, of the fourth rank and fourth file of the Left Capital, died on the 6th day of the 7th month of the 60th year of the cycle [723]. The 15th day (42nd of the cycle) of the 12th month of the 7th year of the Cherishing Elderly Era. 左京四条四坊従四位下勲五等太朝臣安萬侶以癸亥/年七月六日卒之 七年十二月十五日 乙巳

養老

On the grave marker, see Ishino 1991; for a discussion of the calendrical problems in its contradiction of the Shoku Nihongi date, see Arisaka 1999, 386–421. 5.5. Examples of confusion about the style of the work in English-language accounts of the Kojiki include the following: “The text of the extant Kojiki, written for the most part in Chinese, contains occasional passages in the Japanese language, rendered phonetically by means of Chinese characters” (Konishi 1984,

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164); “written in an unstable amalgam of Chinese and Japanese” (Cranston 1993b, 3); “even this, arguably the earliest Japanese text, was written in Chinese” (Burns 2003, 80); “the Kojiki [. . .] and a few decades later the 4,500 poems of the Man’yōshū [. . .] were in Japanese, with a Chinese character representing each syllable” (Totman 2005, 116); “written in Chinese characters used to represent the sounds of Japanese, a form of writing called man’yōgana” (Piggott 2006, 408); “written phonetically, using Chinese characters for their sounds rather than their meanings, making it virtually incomprehensible to most readers” (Conlan 2009, 41). Barnes (2007, 202) is closer to the mark: “written in a hybrid style of kanbun and man’yōgana, the latter being a script using Chinese characters for their phonetic value only to transcribe native Japanese words,” although one could quibble that her preceding definition of kanbun (“a method of writing in Chinese with Japanese grammatical transformations indicated by annotation”) does not fully grasp the nature or significance of kundoku. 5.6. There is a rich history of linguistic and literary scholarship on the style of the Kojiki, harking back to the pioneering—and still vibrant—philological work of Motoori Norinaga 本居宣長 (1730–1801), as reflected in his magnum opus, the Kojikiden 古事記傳 (1767–98; first printing completed in 1822; MNZ X–XII). The first full-length commentary on the work, it remains a fundamental resource two centuries after its completion (Wehmeyer 1997 translates Norinaga’s introduction; for a recent study focusing on the place of the commentary in early modern intellectual history, see Burns 2003). Many scholars followed Norinaga, and the Kojiki has continuously been the subject of commentary and scholarship over the last two centuries. One of the most influential twentiethcentury works on its inscription is Kamei 1957; other major studies include Nishimiya 1970 and Nishimiya 1993. Kobayashi Yoshinori exhaustively catalogued the logographs of the text and their readings, demonstrating the systematic care with which the work was composed (1979a, 1979b; for an Englishlanguage introduction, see 1984; see also the introductory essay and reference material included in the Nihon shisō taikei edition of the Kojiki [Aoki et al. 1982, 477–584 and 649–92]). Yamaguchi 1995a and 2005 are representative of more recent scholarship on the main text and its readings. Also essential is Inukai Takashi’s pioneering discussion of the relationship between everyday logographic registers and the Kojiki style that builds on Kobayashi’s work (Inukai 1996; reprinted in Inukai 2005). Excellent overviews of recent scholarly trends are available in the relevant sections, by Yamaguchi Yoshinori, of the introductory essay in the Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū edition (KJK 406–9 and 423–31), and in Kōnoshi 2007a. 5.7. The character 建, normally associated with words meaning “stand” or “establish,” is an abbreviation of the graph 健 (MNZ IX:188–89; compare MYS

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9:1809 and 11:2386). Nishizaki (1995, 65) points out there are no signs of this substitution in early dictionaries, but does not offer alternative readings for the Man’yōshū poems or explain the dozens of usages in the Kojiki. In almost all of the 113 times that 建 appears in the main text of the Kojiki, the character is a logograph for the name element take1[ru] (already discussed in connection with the phonographically written name of the king on the Inariyama and, presumably, Eta-Funayama swords). In three places, however, 建 denotes the adjective take1shi (KJK 216 [line 14]; KJK 220 [lines 5 and 6]), and in one other passage besides this one it is associated with the verb take1bu (KJK 144 [line 4]). In these cases the graph is unaccompanied by a note; the syntax of the passages already ensures that there is only one possible reading. 5.8. The record of the Nihon shoki ’s submission to the throne in 720 both strengthens and weakens the interpretation of its title as “Annals of the Book [official history] of Japan”: strengthens, by separating 30 volumes of annals from another traditional component of the Chinese official history, a now-lost volume of genealogical tables; weakens, by using not this title but the alternate Nihongi 日本紀, or “Annals of Japan” (SN II:72 [Yōrō 4/5/21]). This entry is from the succeeding official history, completed in 797, but the title Nihon shoki appears in earlier works, including an early eighth-century legal commentary quoted in a mid-ninth-century compendium (RS 31:775). It is also used in the notes of the Man’yōshū (MYS 1:6 and 18), although there are more examples of Nihongi there (MYS 1:24,34,39,44,50; 2:90,193,195,202) (1:7,21,22,27 have it just as 紀; 1:6 even quotes it as 記). All extant manuscripts of the work are entitled Nihon shoki, which is the decisive factor in the contemporary scholarly preference for that title, but the earliest of those manuscripts dates from the ninth century. It is likely that both titles were in use from the work’s completion, or shortly thereafter (Yamada Hideo 1979). As Kōnoshi Takamitsu (2009) has recently argued, the various indications of the titles of the work in early sources can also be interpreted as a sign that it was circulating in various versions, many of them digests or abridgements. Although the title Nihon shoki straightforwardly designates the 30-volume work of 720, the term Nihongi eventually takes on wider significance, indicating also the national histories in general, and from the twelfth century onward becoming associated with an enormous network of citations of myths (often unrelated to the actual text of the Nihon shoki) in commentaries and prose narratives. In recent Japanese-language scholarship, this network is referred to as the Chūsei Nihongi 中世日本紀 (medieval annals of Japan); for a brief introduction in English, see Itō Satoshi 2003. 5.9. The contradictions among the issho variants of the first two books of the Nihon shoki have provided a rich lode of material for premodern commentators

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and modern scholars of myth and folklore, but they are subordinated to the main narrative, which continues unbroken across the interruptions (see the excerpts in Borgen and Ury 1990). The issho display some consistency with Chinese historiography of alternate accounts of events (as seen in contrasting narratives in the main annals and the biography sections of the Shiji ), but there does not seem to be as clear a precedent for the proximate juxtaposition of multiple alternate versions. 5.10. It is a general principle that the Nihon shoki can be read as literary Chinese (excluding proper nouns and the phonographically transcribed ‘songs’), but this does not mean that it is always correct literary Chinese. Generations of Japanese scholars have delighted in pointing out instances of what were termed washū (‘Japanese usage’ 和習, discussed in Chapter 4): passages where the Nihon shoki departed from classical Chinese norms of usage and syntax. More recent scholarship has tended to trace many such departures to vernacular Chinese usages, especially in Buddhist writings, but this does not account for all of them. As with the patterns of homophonous (in Japanese) Sinitic phonographs, it is apparent that some of the compilers were not native speakers/writers of Chinese (for extensive discussion of these issues, see Mori Hiromichi 1991 and 1999). In some cases the mistakes are suggestive of the influence of kundoku, but it is important to bear in mind that they are indeed errors: the intention, in the Nihon shoki, is to write in a style that adheres to literary Chinese standards of correctness. This in itself is the core distinction from the style of the Kojiki, which deliberately turns away from those standards. 5.11. The Jōgūki appears to have originally contained mythical material and royal genealogies, but it remains only as fragmentary quotations in later works like the thirteenth-century Shaku Nihongi (ShN; a commentary on the Nihon shoki) and the 1314 Shōtoku taishi heishiden zakkanmon 聖徳太子平氏傳雜勘文 (a commentary on the mid-Heian Shōtoku taishi denryaku 聖徳太子傳暦). The phonograph register and genealogical format of these materials suggests that they date back to the seventh century, predating the Kojiki. For more on the Jōgūki, see Lurie 2001, 421; Wada 1995, 250–54 and 770–72. The Rekiroku, another lost work, is quoted extensively in early biographies of Shōtoku. Apparently an annalistic history of Japan based on the Nihon shoki, with added material from the Kojiki and other early historical works, it is thought to date to the latter half of the eighth century (Wada 1995, 59–61 and 561–67; HSM 111–12). On abridgements and re-edited versions of the Nihon shoki, see Kōnoshi 2009. 5.12. Prince Toneri, an elder statesman who was almost certainly a figurehead rather than an active compiler of the Nihon shoki, was one of the most influential sons of Tenmu (his mother, Princess Niitabe 新田部皇女 [d. 699] was one of Tenji’s daughters). A prominent figure in early Nara-period politics,

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he was appointed chidajōkanji 知太政官事 in 720, shortly after the death of Fujiwara no Fuhito, and remained in that post until his death in 735. Junnin Sovereign 淳仁天皇 (r. 758–64), manipulated by the powerful Fujiwara no Nakamaro and then deposed by Kōken/Shōtoku Sovereign, was Toneri’s seventh son. 5.13. The Kokushi taikei collects four incomplete manuscripts of “private records” (shiki) of official court lectures on the Nihon shoki (labelled kō, otsu, hei, and tei; KT VIII), and extensive quotations from their missing sections and from other, non-extant records can be found in works like the Shaku Nihongi and the Wamyō ruijūshō 和名類聚抄 (the kō and tei texts are thought to be records of the 812 and 936 lectures, respectively). The Honchō shojaku mokuroku 本朝書籍目録 and one of the extant shiki texts refer to a non-extant record for a lecture from Yōrō 5 (721) (甲本 refers to a Yōrō shiki 養老私記), but there is reason to doubt its authenticity. However, glosses cited as stemming from the Yōrō-era (717–24) lectures do conform to the Nara-period vowel system, which suggests that nascent Nihon shoki scholarship of the later Nara period could have come to be associated with a putative 721 lecture in the year following the work’s completion. 5.14. Aspects of the distinctive history of kundoku of the Nihon shoki are represented in the Nihon koten bungaku taikei edition (NS) and the more recently published Shinpen Nihon koten bungaku zenshū edition (Kojima et. al. 1994–98). A radical difference between these two editions is their approach to the kundoku reading of the work. The Taikei follows the “old readings” (kokun 古訓 ) formulated by Heian scholars and attested to by the shiki, the Shaku Nihongi, and the glosses found in most manuscripts and premodern printed editions. The newer Zenshū edition dispenses with many of these old readings, replacing them on the one hand with words attested as Nara-period vocabulary ( jōdaigo 上代語), and on the other hand with the Sino-Japanese readings (on’yomi 音 読み) that were frequently relied on in mainstream kundoku from the Heian period to the present. The resulting yomikudashi is perhaps less consistent than the older version, but it is often easier to follow. Wang Zhenping (1989, 296–326; 2005, 171–79) discusses kundoku in his informative accounts of diplomatic connections between the Chinese and Japanese courts. He is certainly right to argue that the traditional kundoku readings of the Nihon shoki often blunt or reorient the significance of the literary Chinese terms to which they are applied (on which topic see Fukuda 1999a and 1999b), but it is unlikely that these reading traditions provide insight into the actual dynamics of diplomatic communication in the seventh and eighth centuries. There is no evidence that the distinctive kundoku methods that came to be associated with the Nihon shoki during the Heian period reflect practices of courts

406

Endnotes to Pages 247–52

predating the inception of the work itself. More importantly, as demonstrated in this chapter’s analysis of the Amaterasu passage, the text of the Nihon shoki itself is sometimes marked by tensions between the literary Chinese significance of its characters and the kundoku readings indicated by its own notes. Such divergences are better seen as maintaining both meanings in parallel than as concealing the import of the characters. 5.15. Skepticism about the Kojiki has not been limited to doubts about the preface. The late emergence of its manuscripts (the earliest extant one, the Shinpukuji text, dates from the late fourteenth century, over six-and-a-half centuries after the work’s compilation), apparent discrepancies between the genre label jo (C. xu 序) and the content and format of the preface, and especially the absence in the official histories of any reference to the work or to Yasumaro having done any state-sponsored editing, all led to the development of a range of theories arguing that the Kojiki is a later forgery rather than an early eighth-century work (surveyed in Obata 1996, 258–60). But there are references to the Kojiki in the Man’yōshū (MYS 2:90 and 13:3263; see Kōnoshi 1983a) and its phonograph inventory relies on early Sino-Japanese readings and distinguishes a set of vowel distinctions (including one for the syllable mo) consistent with the early eighth century. These points make it difficult to justify skepticism about the main text. The case of the preface is not as straightforward, although doubts about it are currently rare among mainstream scholars (for a critical survey of earlier arguments against its authenticity, see Kurano 1973, 12–34). The Shoku Nihongi spells the name “Yasumaro” as 安麻呂, but both the Kojiki preface and his grave marker (on which see endnote 5.4) have it as 安萬侶, which strengthens the case for an eighth-century provenance. Nonetheless, that case is not ironclad: for a recent account that reopens the issue of its authenticity, arguing that it is a ninth-century forgery, see Miura 2007. Although I am inclined to accept the preface as authentically written by Ō no Yasumaro in 712, treating it as a later forgery would have no affect on the arguments made in this chapter about the style of the main text of the Kojiki. 5.16. It is important that the works discussed in this chapter—the Hōryūji inscriptions, the eighth-century histories, and the senmyō of the Shoku Nihongi— are not actually written by sovereigns (or proclaimed by them, in case of senmyō ). (However, some scholars do speculate about Kōken/Shōtoku [r. 749–58, 764– 70] having been directly involved in drafting some of the fifteen that are recorded for her reign in the Shoku Nihongi [about these proclamations, see Bender 2007 and 2009].) Poetry, in the Kaifūsō and the Man’yōshū, represents the sole case of such ‘real’ authorship, though even in the Man’yōshū the phenomenon of representative composition (daisaku 代作), in which a court poet composes as a royal figure, is a crucial issue for seventh-century literature. Whether actual,

Endnotes to Pages 254–59

407

or as pretense or pose, the act of writing or reading for the sovereign is a major component of the political meaning of writing in the seventh and eighth centuries, and a central location for the emergence of concepts of authorship that would continue to exert influence through the modern period (for thoughtprovoking comparative perspectives, see Chartier 1995 and Bauml 1980; I discuss the problem of authorship in early Japan in connection with the legendary Prince Shōtoku in a separate study [Lurie n.d.]). Chapter Six EPIGRAPHS:

Richards 1929, 39; SKKS 6:625, Winter. 6.1. In the Man’yōshū banquet poem, in the third line of the heading, I have opted for the varient 化 rather than the 作 found in the cited Man’yōshū edition (MYS). For this reading, see Yoshii 1984; Kojima, Kinoshita, and Tōno 1995; Itō Haku 1996; Satake, Kinoshita, and Kojima 1998; Satake et al. 2002; and Inaoka 1997–2006. Although it seems to refer to some sort of ornamental head-gear, the precise meaning of the term 蘰 (literally, bag-wig or bag-hair ornament) is unclear (Kojima 1964, 1052–54; Satō Michiko 2002, 158–84). The presumption of commentators is that some such article was displayed or illustrated along with the poem, or, as Inaoka Kōji cleverly suggests, that the absence of such an article was the point, which would turn the phrase “Commonplace guests cannot gaze upon it” into an implicit insult (Inaoka 1997–2006). A loose translation of this poem and its paratexts can be found in Nippon gakujutsu shinkōkai 1940, 111–12. 6.2. The banquet poem can also serve as a reminder of the textual vagaries of the Man’yōshū (and other transmitted sources). The reading of 魚 for the first character of the final line is from the Hirose text 廣瀬本, an early modern manuscript discovered in 1994. The Man’yōshū edition on which I have generally relied (MYS) and its earlier paper version (Satake, Kinoshita, and Kojima 1998) both adopt this graph, but other contemporary editions maintain a variant reading found in other manuscripts: 莫 (Itō Haku 1996; Inaoka 1997– 2006; Satake et al. 2002). I follow the minority here: the cursive forms of the two characters are similar, and throughout the Man’yōshū the graph 莫 is associated with na only in contexts connected to the negative adjective nasi and negative command na, whereas 魚 is used more freely as a vernacular phonograph for that syllable (MYS 10:2190; 10:2207; 11:2798; 13:3295), including one similar (9:1750) and one identical (4:509) spelling of the same word nadusapu. As shown elsewhere, this is far from the only case of vernacular phonographs being used for expressive effect, so even if the “fish” reading were disallowed for this particular poem it would not affect the overall picture presented in this chapter.

408

Endnotes to Pages 260–63

6.3. From the earliest days of focused commentary on the Man’yōshū, the inscription of its poems has been subject to an impressive tradition of scholarship. Pioneering scholars like Sengaku 仙覺 (thirteenth century) and Yūa 由阿 (late thirteenth to mid-fourteenth centuries) began a long line of works on the categorization of how words and syllables are written. This tradition reached new heights in the Edo period and was further strengthened by the influence of Western philology and linguistics from the late nineteenth century on. Through the pioneering work of Edo-period scholars and its continuation by modern specialists in interpretive philology (kunkogaku 訓詁學), the differing functions of graphs viewed in isolation, their working together in larger styles, and the correlations between such styles and particular sections of the Man’yōshū, as well as particular authors or groups of authors, have been clarified to an impressive degree. As philological scholarship on the anthology reached a high point with monumental works of mid-twentieth-century scholarship like the Man’yōshū chūshaku commentary (Omodaka 1957–77) and the Jidaibetsu kokugo daijiten: jōdaihen ( Jōdaigo jiten henshū iinkai 1967); essential contributions to the analysis of its writing have been made by specialists including Furuya Akira (1998; 2009), Ide Itaru (1999), Inaoka Kōji (1976), Kojima Noriyuki (1964; 1973–78), Hachiya Nobuaki (1956–62; 1959; 1962; 1966; 1974), Tsuru Hisashi (1995), and many others. The variety of Man’yōshū inscription is matched by the variety of approaches and terminologies devoted to it in this scholarship. In accordance with their different periods, disciplines, and approaches, researchers have discussed “inscription” (hyōki 表記), “writing” (shoki 書記), “[methods of ] character usage” ( yōji[hō ] 用字[法]), “graphic method” (mojihō 文字法) “written style” (kakizama 書き様), and “graphic consciousness/awareness” (moji ishiki 文字 意識); each term emphasizes different aspects of writing in the anthology. Comparison with the use of writing in the Kojiki and Nihon shoki, other written sources, Shōsōin documents, and epigraphy had long been an important component of research on the variety of Man’yōshū writing, but the field was transformed and re-energized (along with most other aspects of the study of early Japan) by the cascade of mokkan and other archaeological materials discovered starting in the 1960s. For a historical survey of classic scholarship on the inscription of the Man’yōshū, see Takeda, Hisamatsu, and Morimoto 1961–63; a convenient summary of more recent research is available in Sakamoto and Mōri 1995, 57–63, while Lurie 2004 discusses recent trends, particularly in relation to the Hitomaro Collection and late seventh-century inscription. Tollini 2005 provides extensive treatment of categories of graphic usages. 6.4. In May 2008 archaeologists announced the discovery that a mokkan from the mid-eighth-century capital site of Shigaraki was inscribed with the “Asaka Mountain” poem. In a vivid confirmation of Tsurayuki’s juxtaposition, the re-

Endnotes to Pages 264–70

409

verse of the same tablet bore the “Naniwa Port” poem on the other side (this side had been independently reported earlier; the mokkan itself was excavated in 1997). Later that year there were reports of still more poem mokkan, including one with another Man’yōshū verse. It is likely that further examples of all-phonograph poetry mokkan from the seventh and eighth centuries will continue to be discovered in the coming years. For discussions of these recently excavated sources, which have received a great deal of media attention, see Inukai 2008b; Sakaehara 2007 and 2008; Inui 2009; and Ueno 2009. 6.5. The count of graphs in song 8 that are the sole phonograph for their syllable in the ‘songs’ of the Kojiki includes go2 碁 because there is only one occurrence of an alternate, the formally similar 其 (KJK 86, song 2). Of the four graphs that alternate with formally similar homographs (a 麻 with 摩, ku 久 with 玖, ni 邇 with 爾, and ka 加 with 迦), only the latter two (邇/爾 and 加/迦) really alternate; 摩 and 玖 are quite rare. There is one more variant for ka, 可, but it only appears once (KJK 262, song 42). Moreover, ga 賀 and no2 能 are almost exclusively employed to write their syllables. For the four nonunique graphs, o 意 alternates with 於 (or 淤), yo2 余 with 与, si 斯 with 志, and ki1 岐 with 伎. 6.6. Another distinction in phonographic style related to that between Sinitic and vernacular is apparent from comparison of poem mokkan and the ‘songs’ of the eighth-century histories. The former are relaxed about distinguishing between voiced and unvoiced consonants, so that, for example, -du (“port”) in the Naniwa poem mokkan is written with phonographs for the unvoiced tu (川 [NKMSS 434]; 都 [in the Hōryūji graffito]), and the -da- in the Asukaike tablet is written with the unvoiced (in isolation) ta 田. (Vernacular phonographs are particularly susceptible to this sort of voicing.) Contrastingly, the Kojiki and Nihon shoki generally rely on separate sets of Sinitic phonographs for voiced/ こ ご unvoiced pairs: namely, ko2 / go2 in the quoted poem (Kojiki 許 / 碁; Nihon shoki こ ご 據 / 馭). For a comparison of the graphs used in mokkan with those used in the Kojiki that points out the high degree of sophistication and clarity of the latter, see Inukai 1996, 292–96. 6.7. Unlike the Kojiki, and like the Nihon shoki, the Man’yōshū incorporates variant accounts that contradict elements of the main text, such as different versions of particular lines—and even entire poems—and varying attributions of certain works. These are especially prominent in the early portions of the anthology, which are organized by reign and complement the Nihon shoki annals, especially those for the seventh century. As with the Nihon shoki, these variants have been taken as keys to the development of the work itself, but it is also important to consider the impact of their deliberate foregrounding in the text as we have it. Moreover, terms like ‘variety’ or ‘diversity’ have strong positive

410

Endnotes to Pages 271–75

connotations in the contemporary academy, but as suggested in previous chapters, their use here should not necessarily be interpreted as celebratory. Readers inclined to utopian celebration of ‘difference’ as a kind of freedom, or those suspicious of such an inclination on my part, should remember that to literacy advocates and script reformers the Man’yōshū represents a near-perfect dystopia. 6.8. Since the sets of phonographs that later came to be called man’yōgana derive from formalization of character-sound correspondences, their roots run back to multiple earlier stages in the history of the ‘Chinese’ writing system. Phonographic inscription of earlier stages of the Japanese language begins at least as early as the fifth-century Sakitama-Inariyama sword inscription, and can plausibly be traced back to names and terms recorded in the third century “Account of the Wa” in the Sanguozhi. Beyond that, phonographic inscription of Chinese words goes all the way back to the earliest extant examples of the script. The term man’yōgana itself, however, is relatively recent: it is found in Edo-period sources such as the Rigen shūran 俚言集覽 (a nineteenth-century dictionary) but apparently no earlier, although the Nihon kokugo daijiten cites fifteenth- and sixteenth-century examples of the synonymous man’yōgaki 萬葉書き. (Earlier terminology for different scripts is discussed in the following chapter.) 6.9. The following poem demonstrates the variety of phonographic adjuncts frequently employed in the logographic mode: Since last we met Not so many days have passed; Must I long for you In such helplessness as this— In madness piled on madness?” (Cranston 1993b, 443 [poem 790]). あひ み て は

いく ひ も へ ぬ を

ここだ く も

く る ひ に く る ひ

おもほゆるかも

相 見而者

幾 日毛不経乎

幾許 久毛

久流比尓久流必

所 念 鴨

(MYS 4:751)

With the exception of the fourth line, the major units of meaning in this poem are denoted logographically—that is, characters are employed to write words (or in some cases, parts of words), as in, for example, 相見而者, in which both the verb and the particles te and pa are written logographically, or in 幾日毛不経乎, in which the noun ikupi1 and verb/auxiliary verb combination pe2nu are as well. But this poem is primarily rather than entirely logographic: in the second and third lines, the particles are indicated with the Sinitic phonographs (ongana 音假名) 毛 and 乎; the entire fourth line is also inscribed with Sinitic phonographs; and the final particle of line five is written with a common vernacular phonograph (kungana 訓假名), 鴨. Depending on the nature of the poem and the predilections of the authors or scribes involved, different portions of the anthology display different approaches to this combination of logographs, Sinitic phonographs, and vernacular phonographs.

Endnotes to Pages 277–79

411

One major distinction that cuts across both the divide between logography and phonography and the contrast between Sinitic and vernacular readings is the number of syllables associated with a given character. On the one hand, registers of writing in the Man’yōshū that seem on first glance to employ exclusively Sinitic phonographs often turn out to be better described as all-monosyllabic; that is, they include logographs, and sometimes vernacular phonographs, as long as they are monosyllabic. On the other hand there is a close association between polysyllabic phonographs of the vernacular and Sinitic categories; for example, they were frequently mixed in toponyms and other proper nouns (there are strong logographic overtones, often etymological, for vernacular phonographs in such contexts). It may be that monosyllabic versus polysyllabic was a more important distinction for contemporary writers and readers than either logographic versus phonographic or Sinitic versus vernacular. 6.10. Among English-language accounts of Hitomaro’s work itself, Levy 1984 remains the only published monograph, but the best treatment to date appears in Duthie 2005. On the canonization of Hitomaro within the Man’yōshū itself and his subsequent veneration, see Commons 2009. Portions of Lurie 2004 have been adapted and incorporated into this chapter, but it contains a more detailed discussion of the historiography of the inscription of the Hitomaro Collection and how it has been affected by new mokkan discoveries. Enumerating the Japanese-language scholarship on Hitomaro and the Collection would take a book-length bibliography, but the second and third volumes of Kōnoshi and Sakamoto 1999–2005 provide an excellent place to start. Because of ambiguities in the way sets of Collection poems are delimited, there is some argument about which poems the Man’yōshū attributes to it. I follow the dominant account, that of Inaoka Kōji (for which see Inaoka 1999, which remains the best introduction to the Collection despite the collapse of Inaoka’s approach to the history of writing). 6.11. Some of the other Man’yōshū poems that provide support for establishing a reading for the abbreviated logography of MYS 11:2377 are as follows: なにせむに

Line 1 (何為

いのちつぎけむ

Line 2 (

命

継

わぎもこに

Line 3 (吾妹

戀 前

しなましものを

Line 5 (死

奈尓世武尓

):

物

(MYS 5:803);

なに せ む に

何 為牟尓

(MYS 16:3886)

い の ち つが まし

伊能知都我麻之 (MYS 15:3733) わ ぎ も こに

):

こひせぬさきに

Line 4 ( 不

な に せ むに

):

和伎毛古尓

(MYS 15:3566; also 15:3627,3744,3762; 19:4222)

):

ものいはぬさき に

な が こ ひせ ずは

):

(MYS 2:86), and many phonographically written み せ ま しも のを 〜ましものを (e.g., 美世摩斯母乃乎 [MYS 5:797])

(MYS 16:3795); 那我古飛世殊波 (MYS 5:864; and also 17:3975, 18:4082, 20:4386,4391) 物 不言 先 丹

し な ま し もの を

死奈麻死 物 呼

412

Endnotes to Pages 280–81

6.12. The following is an example of an Unabbreviated Form poem: Thunder in the air Over the inlets of Ōkura: It must be the wild geese Crossing to Fushimi’s paddy fields, Where in blinds the hunters lie in wait (Cranston 1993b, 241 [poem 380]). おほくら の

巨 椋乃

いり え とよむ な り

い め ひと の

ふし み が た ゐ に

かりわたる ら し

入 江 響 奈理 射目 人 乃

伏 見何田井尓

鴈 渡 良之 の

(MYS 9:1699)

Here, bound forms like the genitive particle no2 (乃) and the auxiliary verb nari な り ( 奈理 ) are spelled out in Sinitic phonographs. Abbreviated Form poems are しなまし ものを not completely devoid of phonography: as seen in the final line ( 死 物 ) of MYS 11:2377, they do make use of some vernacular phonographs, and even, very rarely, of Sinitic phonographs. Moreover, it is not the case that the Unabbreviated Form poems employ only Sinitic phonographs, or never omit phonographic adjuncts. The distinction between these two modes of inscription is based on tendencies rather than on absolutes. In Inaoka Kōji’s influential classification, the 364 poems of the Hitomaro Collection contain 210 Abbreviated Form (196 tanka and 14 sedōka) and 150 Unabbreviated Form (127 tanka, 21 sedōka, and 2 chōka) poems (the remaining 4 are from the primarily phonographic Book XIV [MYS 14:3417, 3470, 3481, 3490] and are usually assumed to have been rewritten in a style consistent with the other poems included there). It is important to emphasize the limited scope of the terms “abbreviated” and “unabbreviated,” which date back to the scholarship of Aso Mizue (1972): these both designate primarily logographic styles found only in the poems of the Hitomaro Collection. The Works of Hitomaro (poems directly attributed to him) employ more yomisoe than the average primarily logographic poem, but less than the Unabbreviated Form poems. There is a continuum of increasingly explicit inscription from the Abbreviated to the Unabbreviated to the Works to the non-Hitomaro poems of the primarily logographic books of the Man’yōshū, but all three categories of Hitomaro materials can also be seen as subtypes of the general logographic style. (For influential discussions of expressive uses of writing in the Works, see Tetsuno 1989 and Itō Haku 1991.) 6.13. The literal sense of the term gikun 義訓 is “meaning gloss”—hence, “semantic logograph”—but it might better be rendered as “analogic logograph.” Rather than a (relatively) straightforward link between graphs and Japanese words, there is a more involved connection between the graphs in あき relation to each other (or to an absent set of equivalents, as in gikun like 金 aki1 “autumn,” which derives from the association of the season and the ‘metal’ phase from the Five Phases of Chinese philosophy) and the word they rep-

Endnotes to Pages 283–87

413

resent (of course this is a matter of degree). Some gikun are rare, even nonce あられ はつはつ formations—both 丸雪 “hail” and 小 端 “barely” appear only in the Abbreviated Form poems of the Collection, the former only once—but others have を と め much wider currency: there are 21 examples of 未通女 “maiden” in the entire Man’yōshū, 17 of them unassociated with Hitomaro (indeed, fully a third of the logographic instances of this fairly common word are written this way). The point is not that every occurrence of this sort of usage in the Hitomaro Collection is unusual, but that the Collection, and particularly the Abbreviated Form poems, contains an unusually large number of such usages. 6.14. Perhaps the most prominent literary Chinese usage of the compound 惻隠 (mod. C. ceyin) is in the Mencius: Suppose a man were, all of a sudden, to see a young child on the verge of falling into a well. He would certainly be moved to compassion [. . .] Whoever is devoid of compassion is not human. 今人乍見孺子將入於井、皆有

惻隱之心 [. . .] 無惻隠之心非人也。 (MZ 3b:2691a [公孫丑上]; Lau 1970, 82)

Using a compound with this sense of “compassion” to write the word nemo2 ko2ro2 is not a leap between completely unrelated meanings, but it involves a far more diffuse connection between the characters and their Japanese reading than is typically the case. The other Abbreviated Form poems with this 惻隠 usage are MYS 11:2393, 11:2472, 12:2857, and 12:2863. 6.15. ‘Artistic’ play with graphs of the sort already surveyed in the Hitomaro Collection is limited only by the formal requirements of legibility, and thus at its limit is comparable to music or abstract art. However, as emphasized above, in many cases it seems likely that there are meaningful connections between the nontranscriptive effects and the legible ‘content’ of the text. A parallel that may come more readily to mind is with calligraphy, which is also liable to expressive connections between ‘form’ and ‘content’ (synaesthetic and conventional though they are). But the effects discussed in this chapter could be termed ‘hyperlegible,’ setting them off in kind from those examined under the rubric of calligraphy, which involves the ‘alegible’ application of aesthetic standards to writing (to use terms employed in Chapter 1). But here as well, positing comprehension on the part of particular readers is less the issue than tracing linkages between graphs, and groups of graphs, and particular (vocalizable) linguistic forms. Such linkages are not unique to early Japan. Similar interplay between words and graphs persists in subsequent Japanese literature, and is also found in Chinese practices (e.g., selection of semantically appealing or pejorative characters for phonographic transcription of non-Sinitic words). There are more distant echoes of these effects in controversies over alphabetic spelling reform,

414

Endnotes to Pages 287–96

which often involve aesthetic sensitivity to unconventional spellings. Other phenomena with some common features include mondegreens and eggcorns, which depend in part on the interplay between visually distinct terms and their homophonous or near-homophonous pronunciations, and the use of nonstandard spellings to reflect pronunciation differences (“eye dialect”), especially to the extent that it connotes rather than denotes differences in speech. 6.16. Some restrictions on the variety of Man’yōshū inscription are imposed by the nature of language. In yomisoe, only certain types of words can be omitted and successfully reconstituted by the reader, and contrasts between the vocabularies and structures of Chinese and Japanese mean that certain words are not susceptible to logographic inscription (however, as discussed later on in Chapter 6, this particular limitation is often overstated). Furthermore, to the extent that different systems of Sino-Japanese pronunciation reflect geographical or temporal differences in the Chinese language, alternate Sinitic phonographs are not necessarily equally available to be freely selected. 6.17. The Hitomaro Collection Unabbreviated Form poems include examples of logographic inscription of the adjective kanasi, and also of another adjective in the same construction with the causative/explanatory suffix mi1 conみればかなし も みれば くるし み struction: 見 者 悲 裳 (MYS 9:1796) and 見者 苦 弥 (MYS 10:2006). These show か な し み that the inscription 加奈之弥 in MYS 9:1690 was almost certainly selected over かなし み at least one viable logographic option, 悲 弥 , which though feasible in the Hitomaro Collection is unattested there (it does appear elsewhere in the anthology [MYS 19:4214]). In logographic environments, when free forms (‘independent words’ as opposed to bound morphemes) are written out phonographically, it often appears that no established logographs were available, as in the inscription of nadusapu in the “transcendent maiden” poem discussed at the な づ さ ひ そ こ し beginning of this chapter (魚津左比曽来之 [MYS 6:1016]) or of kurupu in the く る ひ に く る ひ 久 流 比 尓 久 流 必 line (MYS 4:751) mentioned in endnote 6.9 above. But the more eccentric logographs in the Hitomaro Collection and elsewhere suggest that it actually would have been possible in many such cases to find logographs for such words as well: nadusapu is logographically written 足沾 in MYS 10: 2071 (see Uchida 2005, 367–81), and kurupu is associated with 狂, among other characters, in Heian-period dictionaries (e.g., RMS 397). Alternately, new logographs (so-called kokuji) could be created, as is often the case with plant and animal names without obvious Chinese equivalents. But even if these possibilities are discounted and an interlude of phonography is ascribed to lack of a viable logograph, it is still the case that such a shift in mode has connotative effects that could potentially influence a reader’s experience of the text.

Endnotes to Pages 312–21

415

Chapter Seven EPIGRAPHS:

R. Alan Brown 1985, 532; William Matthews, lines from “Frazzle” (1998), in Matthews 2004, 300; Nietzsche 1989 [1887]. 7.1. The graphic simplifications that produced visually distinctive phonographs were accompanied by two other important changes. One was phonological: as originally distinctive Old Japanese syllables merged, the number of homophonous phonographs increased. The other was purely graphic: seventhand eighth-century phonographs generally distinguished, at least in formal contexts, between voiced and unvoiced consonants, but with the visual simplification of graphs this distinction was abandoned, so that distinguishing between voiced and unvoiced became a contextual matter. (Diacritics indicating voicing [dakuten 濁點] developed during the Heian period, but their application was inconsistent until the twentieth century.) 7.2. In English, see the overview of ‘abbreviated phonograms’ in Seeley (1991: 59–69); I have also consulted the accounts in Kobayashi Yoshinori 1998 and Tsukishima 1981. The primary context for the development of abbreviated phonograph characters is marginal glosses of kundoku readings (kunten 訓點, the probable Korean origins of which were discussed in Chapter 4). But glosses also took the form of slightly or extensively cursivized phonographs, and also okoto-ten 乎古止點, coded marks (dots or lines) whose position on a character indicates what grammatical elements should be added to it (see Seeley 1991, 202–4 and Kornicki 2008 for introductory discussions). One of the great subfields of Japanese linguistics (kokugogaku 國語学) has been the study of the language preserved in such annotated manuscripts, which provide many insights into vocabulary and usage (admittedly in limited contexts) of the Heian period in particular. For an introduction, see Yoshida et al. 2001. 7.3. The derivation of the regular style is discussed by Yamada Yoshio (1935) in a pioneering work on the language of kundoku. For more on futsūbun, see Yamamoto Masahide 1965 and Okamoto Isao 1980. In English, Twine 1991 provides an overview of nineteenth- and twentieth-century styles, and Ueda 2008 discusses the shadow cast by kundoku over early debates on reforming written language. Paralleling the way that a modern literary style was engineered in the Meiji period from the kundoku techniques advocated by Satō Issai 佐藤 一齋 (1772–1859) and Dazai Shundai 太宰春臺 (1680–1747) and other Edoperiod figures, the first written Japanese—that is, even the earliest forms of written Japanese that survive—was dependent on kundoku for its inception and development (as discussed in Chapter 4). No matter how far back we go, we will not find purely oral, preliterate Japanese.

416

Endnotes to Pages 323–35

7.4. See Pollack 1986 and Okada 1991 for discussions of a contrast between kanbun and wabun in terms of cultural bifurcation or divided subjectivity. Not all such accounts dwell on the supposed difficulties involved: in an unusually positive assessment Steenstrup (1979, xi) attributes an “element of conceptual analysis” in the thinking of Japanese elites to “the fact that they were, at least to a certain extent, bilingual.” Noting a parallel to the situation in “premodern Western Europe,” he surmises that “one of the deeper roots of ‘modernization susceptibility’ may lie buried here.” Although these remarks share assumptions about language and writing with scholars who lament the complexity of Japanese inscription, it is striking to see the same features portrayed so positively in terms of modernization theory. 7.5. Even before the Edo period, there were attempts to establish links between stylistic and linguistic difference. The claim that some form of writing predated the introduction of the Chinese script, first made in the late thirteenthcentury Shaku Nihongi commentary on the Nihon shoki, was taken up by medieval commentators (see Stoilova 2005), and eventually led to the fictitious “God Age script” ( jindai moji 神代文字) championed by Edo-period thinkers such as Hirata Atsutane 平田篤胤 (1776–1843). (For a brief discussion of the jindai moji, see Seeley 1991, 3–4.) The polemic against kundoku that gained momentum in the eighteenth century had a precursor in the Keian oshō kahō waten 桂庵和尚 家法倭點, a treatise by Keian 桂庵 (1427–1508), a Kyushu monk who had studied in Ming China (see Murakami 1998, which also contains an extensive discussion of early Edo-period kundoku). 7.6. Boltz (1996, 197) stresses that the huiyi class should not be taken seriously as a type of character derivation: “In origin characters are never formed this way; this is an artificial, retrospective category.” It is true that this category, which dominates popular accounts of the structure and meaning of Chinese characters, seems to be a retrospective construction that does not account for the origins of early characters. But if we consider the full temporal and geographical extent of character-based writing it becomes clear that Boltz’s dismissal is overstated: almost all characters created in Japan (kokuji) make use of precisely this principle of construction, and cannot be analyzed otherwise. This method of adding to the existing script by creating new characters derives in part from metalinguistic and metagraphic discourses like that of the Six Classes themselves. Anglophone discussions of kokuji include Obata-Reiman 1983 and Commons 1998; in Japanese, see Satō Minoru 1999 and Sasahara 2006 and 2007. 7.7. Boltz (1996, 197) interprets the zhuanzhu class as “writing etymologically related words with related, but not identical, characters,” as in Xu Shen’s examples of 老 lao “old” and 考 kao “aged.” The divergent proposal adopted by

Endnotes to Pages 348–49

417

Coulmas (1991, 99) suggests something of the controversy over what this class designates: “one character is used to represent a word of the same or similar meaning, but different pronunciation, thus acquiring an additional pronunciation,” as in 樂 yue “music”/le “pleasure.” (But Boltz [personal communication, 1 March 2009] sees the situation with 樂 as analogous to that with 老/考: “cognate and phonetically related” words “written with related or identical characters.”) The wording of Xu Shen’s explanation of the zhuanzhu class is so opaque that discussions of it depend on analyses of his examples, and of the use of the term in the body of the Shuowen itself. A frequently cited study on this topic is Serruys 1957; see also Kōno 1994, 45–68. 7.8. Among precedents for the idea of a writing-related ‘cultural sphere,’ there is an Edo-period notion of “same script” 同文, as in the title of a famous treatise by Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 (1657–1725), Dōbun tsūkō 同文通考. This was followed by the late nineteenth-century Pan-Asianist, and mid-twentiethcentury imperialist, concepts of “same writing, same race” 同文同種 and “same writing, same language” 同文同語. The crucial underlying concept, however, is much older and more fundamental. The traditional Chinese sense of 文 (C. wen; J. bun) already involves the central claim of this line of thought: the implicitly determinist argument that having the same writing system implicates countries in the same cultural sphere. We might say that in the post–World War II period, scholars who started to pay attention to common features of character usage on the Chinese periphery made this argument more explicit by talking about bunka 文化 “culture” or bunmei 文明 “civilization,” but these compounds themselves ultimately stem from the same core notion of bun [wen]. 7.9. There are fluctuations in the area covered by the so-called kanji bunkaken or Higashi Ajia sekai; at its narrowest it refers only to China, Korea, and Japan, although usually Vietnam is also included. Significantly, the Liao, Xi Xia, and Jurchens are often omitted; actually these northwestern states are problematic for the notion of a writing-based ‘cultural sphere’ whether or not they are included. An argument against including them would be that they were too shortlived—only a few centuries of character-based systems—but Vietnam and the Koreas no longer use characters or character-derived scripts; what is the cutoff point? (As Wigen and Lewis [1997, 175] point out, there have been attempts to argue for a unified Southeast Asian region based on a common experience of Japanese colonialism—if that is an argument that can be taken seriously, why should a few centuries be taken as trivial?) But perhaps the issue is more the disappearance of not just the Siniform scripts but the states and societies that employed them—and in some cases even the languages they recorded. At any rate, the problematic status of these states suggests some of the difficulties in making the Chinese writing system the basis of a posited region.

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7.10. I first encountered the term “Latin of East Asia” in a Chūō kōron dialogue between Katō Tōru and Zhang Jing (2005a; available in a slightly abridged English translation as Katō and Zhang 2005b). Katō (2006) has also used the term “Esperanto of East Asia,” which has intriguing (and possibly unintended) resonances of artificiality. Although these phrases hint at a new approach to the history of writing in the region, Katō himself does not seem to be proposing them as such, as he does not dwell on their implications and continues to use the term kanji bunkaken alongside them. The formulation is not new to Katō and Zhang; as Robert Tuck kindly pointed out to me, the comparison was made in English over a century ago: “[ Japan’s] ‘Ancient Rome’ was China, and her petrified syllabics and ideographs formed Japan’s Latin” (Griffis 1893), and it was a common component of late nineteenth-century arguments about script reform (for some examples, see Yeounsok Lee 2010, 11, 15, and 43). The parallel is also mentioned in the Brower (1981) review quoted above; it is discussed more extensively in Reckert 2008, and given careful consideration in Fraleigh 2005, 4–6, and Kornicki 2008. In recent work Wiebke Denecke (2006) has provided a fascinating twist to the comparison, arguing that Chinese-style literature played a role in Japan much like the Greek tradition did in Rome. It is somewhat misleading for me to suggest that the notion of “Latin of East Asia” does not involve a center, given that the Roman Empire had actual administrative oversight over the area that gave rise to Latin as the European lingua franca. Certainly it is true that portions of the Koreas, Vietnam, and Central Asia were under Chinese administration at high points in the geographical expanse of the empire, but the timing and character of the emergence of writing in those territories makes it difficult in many cases to see things in terms of developments directly from the written language of Chinese administration. So “Latin of East Asia” could be said to share with the cultural sphere of characters an implicit exaggeration of the centralizing role of China, but this implication is not as spatially stressed. Kornicki (2008) approaches this issue differently: perhaps because his discussion is centered on the early modern period, he sees the common language of Latin as involving less centrality in Europe than that of Chinese-style logography in East Asia, because unlike China the Roman Empire became a thing of the past. Inspired by the parallels among Latin, Chinese, and Sanskrit textualities, the scholar of Buddhism Jean-Noël Robert (2006) has proposed the term “hieroglossia” to designate the combination of sacred classics in a ‘dead’ written language with glossing and commentarial traditions in a different vernacular, a special case of the broad phenomenon sociolinguists refer to as “diglossia.” Placed in such comparative contexts, kundoku and the phenomena that depend on it seem much less exotic than they do at first glance.

Endnotes to Pages 356–58

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7.11. Most academic linguists are comfortable with the anti-Whorfian assumption that all languages are equally capable of expressing ideas, representing experiences, and so on, although modern linguistics is also strongly predisposed to the opposite position on writing systems, which are not conceptualized as equally capable of representing language. But languages are equivalent in principle only. In actuality, built-up vocabulary for a particular area of expertise, or honorific patterns integrated with social structures, for example, represent an investment of adaptive time by previous generations of speakers. If need be current speakers can make the same adaptations, which is why the crudely Whorfian idea that vocabulary differences and the like prevent certain concepts or patterns of thought is so silly, but in sufficiently well-bounded contexts we might be able to compare languages in which such new adaptations need to be made with those in which they are not necessary. Perhaps evaluative comparisons between writing systems could be similarly conceptualized. See Sampson 1985, 18–19, for a similar discussion of evaluative approaches to language and to writing. Coulmas 2009 provides a recent discussion of what specific standard of ‘merit’ might be applied. 7.12. It seems clear that the Mesoamerican scripts developed independently of the Old World writing systems, which means at least two independent inventions. Most scholars discount Near Eastern influence on the Chinese invention, but there are some who argue otherwise (Mair 1992a; Wei 1999). The relationship between the Egyptian and the Sumerian scripts is unclear, although geographical and temporal proximity make a connection more likely than in the Chinese or Mesoamerican cases. There are a few other candidates for unrelated inventions: the Indus Valley ‘script’ is the most prominent, though it is controversial (Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel 2004; Parpola 2005). But the vast majority, if not all, of other scripts develop directly or indirectly from the Egyptian, Sumerian, Chinese, or Mesoamerican, whose status as writing and subsequent influence are undisputed. Controversies over the notion of ‘protowriting’ were addressed in Chapter 1.

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Index

Abbreviated Form (ryakutai ), 279–80. See also under Hitomaro Poetry Collection Abbreviated phonographs (katakana), 202, 210, 275, 296, 314–16, 415n7.2. See also Kana Achiki no Fubito, 109–11 Adaptation. See Reception of writing Addition, in kundoku, 178–79. See also Yomisoe Administration vs. religion, 3–4, 63, 147–50 Administrative code (ryō ), 118, 305, 306 Aesthetics and writing, 6–7, 11, 31– 32, 153–54, 255, 369n1.6, 413n6.5 Ajiki, 381n2.27 Akkadian, 6, 360–61 Aldridge, Edith, 182n Alegibility, 37–38, 49, 63–66, 149, 352, 371n1.14; defined in contrast with legibility, 2, 28–33, 45, 368n1.5; and diplomatic writing, 74, 77, 79–80, 372n2.2; and early Korean writing, 84; and Tomb

period inscriptions, 90, 99, 101–3; and kingship, 108; and marking government property, 118; and Buddhism, 135, 142, 146–47, 387n3.14; and Indic writing, 170 Alloglottography, 361 Alphabet, 170, 210, 340, 350–51, 354–55, 357–59; alphabetic literacy, 38–39; alphabetic triumphalism, 357 Amaterasu, 226, 229, 234–37, 248– 49 Amino Yoshihiko, 315n Amitābha, 215 Anachronism, 105–14, 126, 141, 220 Analects, 176–77, 179n, 188–89, 201, 396n4.17; as textbook, 112, 161 Anapchi, 200–201 Annotation, 184, 230–31, 238–42, 250. See also Commentary An Shigao, 144 Anthropology, discipline of, 26, 32, 34 Arabic, 330 Arai Hakuseki, 417n7.8

478 Aramaic, 6, 343, 346, 360 Aritōshi, 381n2.25 Asahi shinbun, 20, 263 Asaka Mountain poem, 261, 408n6.4 Asia, concept of, 347–48 Aso Mizue, 412n6.12 Association, in kundoku, 176–77 Asuka, 164 Asukadera, 140, 385n3.9, 394n4.12, 399n5.1 Asuka Enlightenment, notion of, 141 Asukaike, 148, 262, 384n3.6, 394n4.12; glossary mokkan, 187n31; quatrain ( jueju) mokkan, 189; poem (uta) mokkan, 206 Asuka palace, 388n3.18 Ateji, 314 Authority, 54–55, 63–66, 214, 222– 25, 232, 242–53 Authorship, 406n5.16 Avatam.saka Sutra, 339 Azuma uta, 271, 302, 307 Banquet poetry, 155, 257–58, 307n Barnes, Gina, 402n5.5 Barthes, Roland, 30–31 Batten, Bruce L., 128n, 129 Bauml, Franz, 108n Beishi, 373n2.4 Benjamin, Walter, 169 Bhais.ajyaguru, 215. See also Yakushi Biao (document format). See Manifests Bibliography, as genre, 144, 328–29 Bidatsu, 107, 139–40, 386n3.12 Bilingual fallacy, 12, 180, 207–12, 231–32, 248–49, 323–34, 415n7.4

Index Bohr, Neils, 369n1.7 Bokusho doki (potsherd inscriptions), 125, 163, 388n3.19 Bolinger, Dwight, 287 Boltz, William G., 173, 334, 342, 416n7.6, 416n7.7 Border Guard poems, 307–8 Boswell, James, 357 Brower, Robert, 331 Brown, R. Alan, 312, 356 Buddha’s foot poems, 267 Buddhism, 131–50, 203, 214–25, 336–37, 339, 352; epigraphy, 125, 132–36, 143, 214–25; role in the history of writing, 131–37; transmission of, 136–41; state support of, 139–41; before midsixth century, 142; temples, early history of, 142–43; and multiple literacies, 142–50; Shingon, 170. See also Sutras; Alegibility Bunmei kaika, 321 Bureaucracy, 69–71, 103–5, 118–19, 159–65, 378n2.19 Buretsu, 108n Burial contracts (baichiken), 150n Burns, Susan, 402n5.5 Calcolect, 211, 232 Calligraphy, 31–32, 153–54, 255, 306, 317, 324, 369n1.6, 413n6.15 Can, King of Wa, 81, 374n2.9 Caoshu, 316 Carr, E. H., 213 Cefeng (investiture), 65, 70 Census registers, 111, 114n, 128, 129, 130, 163 Center and periphery, 69–72; in Tomb period, 90–92, 98, 375n2.11; in seventh and eighth

Index centuries, 129–31, 163–64, 306, 383n3.6 Central Asian writing, 344–46 Changes, Book of, 326n Charakteres (Greek magical pseudowriting), 32 Chen Shou, 373n2.3 Cherokee, 344 Chinese characters: East Asian writing system, as, 6, 203, 346–53; cultural sphere of (kanji bunkaken), 12, 348–50, 417n7.8, 417n7.9; history of, 171–74; structure of, 172–73, 334–36; modularity of, 173; nature of, 315; radicals of, 336 Chinese ethnic minorities, writing systems of, 343–44 Chinese histories. See Official histories Chinese language, 170–71, 176n11, 265, 388n4.1; literary Chinese, defined, 171n3 Chinese-language writing, 170–75. See also Bilingual fallacy Chinese-style poetry, 189–90, 255, 303–4, 327–28 Chinese worldview, notion of, 174, 342 Chinese writing system: as East Asian writing system, 6, 203, 346–53; history of, 171–74, 334; used for non-Chinese languages, 342–53 Ch’ogo, King of Paekche, 85 Chōka (long poem), 256 Chu Nom, 343–44, 347 Chusanzang jiji, 144, 387n3.15 Chūsei (medieval period), 318 Chūsei Nihongi, 403n5.8

479

Chuxue ji, 384n3.8 Civil, Miguel, 361 Civilization, concept of, 34, 357–58 Clerical script style (lishu), 18, 316 Closed vs. open systems of writing, 339–40 Coetzee, J. M., 26–28, 43, 45, 64 Coinage of new words, 321–22, 352 Coins, 2, 8, 52–56, 148–49, 371n1.11, 371n1.12 Colonialism, 65 Commentary, 12, 337–39 Commons, Anne, 411n6.10 Como, Michael, 221, 227 Comparison of Kojiki and Nihon shoki, 105, 235–39, 242–44, 400n5.2, 404n5.10 Complexity, 353–57, 362–63 Comprehension, 32–33, 63, 107, 147 Concordances, 291 Confucianism, 117, 149, 234, 319, 326n21, 327n, 333 Conlan, Thomas, 402n5.5 Context, 290–300 Copying, 157–59 Coulmas, Florian, 335n, 357, 361, 416n7.7, 419n7.11 Craft literacy, 93n, 99, 113 Cranston, Edwin, 257, 402n5.5 Creativity, 354–57 Criticism of the Japanese writing system, 312, 353–57 Cultural influence on writing, 174, 341–42, 349, 359, 361–63 Culture influenced by writing, 347– 53 Cuneiform, 6, 300n, 360–61 Cursive style, 316

480

Index

Cursivized phonographs (hiragana), 202, 261, 275, 314, 316. See also Kana Curtius, Ernst Robert, 351 Daifang, 76–77, 76n, 197 Daigoji, 385n3.9 Daihannya haramittakyō, 385n3.10 Daisaku (surrogate authorship), 406n5.16 Daishiro, 49 Daitōa kyōeiken, 348 Darwin, Charles, 361 DaTang Xiyuji, 240–41 Dating of inscriptions, 92, 94, 96, 125, 193, 218, 221. See also Era names Dazaifu, 150n, 154, 258, 387n3.16 Dazai Shundai, 332, 415n7.3 Dedicatory inscriptions. See Buddhist epigraphy DeFrancis, John, 41, 43–46, 341, 353, 356, 363, 368n1.4 Denecke, Wiebke, 418n7.10 Derrida, Jacques, 23n Destruction of texts, 143–44, 159 Determinism, 156, 352, 353 dhāran.ī, 205, 336–37 Dharmaraks.a, 144 Diacritic marks, 183–84, 202, 359– 60, 415n7.1 Dictionaries. See Lexicography Diplomacy, 74–77, 87, 110, 137n25, 197–98, 350; documents and the tributary system in, 69–71, 81–83, 96. See also Manifests; Seals Diringer, David, 361–62 Dōbun tsūkō, 417n7.8 Document (monjo) mokkan, 122–23 Documents, Book of, 326n

Domination and writing, 27–28 Dongguan hanji, 148 Duthie, Torquil, 378n2.18, 411n6.10 Dynastic histories, Chinese. See Official histories Earliest evidence of writing, 8, 17–20, 47–59 Early modern Japan, 318–20, 321, 352, 408n6.3; linguistic thought of, 332–33, 416n7.5, 417n7.8; kundoku and, 392n4.7, 415n7.3 East Asia, concept of, 347–49 East Asian world (Higashi Ajia sekai), 349 East Asian writing system. See under Chinese characters Eastern Chin, 84 Eastern Jin, 197, 375n2.10 Edo Period. See Early modern Japan Education, 126, 158, 161, 184, 319, 320, 330; and literacy, 36, 44, 356n52; of early royalty, 109–13, 117 Efficiency, notion of, 260, 305, 308– 9, 353–57, 362–63 Emishi, 151–53 Emperor Ming, 108n Engi shiki, 251n39 English orthography, 179, 180, 354, 360, 413–14 Ephemeral writings, 157, 159–62 Epigraphy, 125, 157–58, 197–99; formulaic nature of, 77–79, 87, 134–35. See also under Buddhism; sword inscriptions; mirror inscriptions; seals; stele inscriptions Era names, 54, 78–79, 87, 382n3.2, 399n5.1

Index Errors, 59–60, 99–103, 160n57, 188– 90, 404n5.10 Erya, 337–38 Eta-Funayama sword inscription, 92–93, 95–99, 221n, 376n2.14, 377n2.16, 378n2.19; and Tomb period writing, 101, 103, 104, 378n2.18; signature of, 113, 218, 224 Ethnicity, 331n26 Evaluation of writing, standards for, 355–56, 418n7.11 Evolution, 361–62 Exegesis of graphs and terms (xungu), 338–39 Exegetical network, 282–83, 337–39 Exoticism, 29–31 Fanqie spellings, 336 Farris, Wayne, 118, 375n2.10, 394n4.13 Figure-ground relations in writing, 284–85 Finnegan, Ruth, 34–35 Five Kings of Wa, 81–83, 91, 374n2.9 Foreignness of writing. See Native vs. foreign Fraleigh, Matthew, 418n7.10 Fudoki, 256n, 267, 388n3.17 Fuhon coins, 148–49 Fujimoto Yukio, 396n4.17 Fujimura Shin’ichi, 367n1.2 Fujiwara capital, 124, 165, 207 Fujiwara lineage group, 165, 395n4.14. See also Kōmyō Fujiwara mixed-style mokkan, 207 Fujiwara no Asakari, 151, 155 Fujiwara no Fujito, 405n5.12 Fujiwara no Kamatari, 388n3.17

481

Fujiwara no Nakamaro, 405n5.12 Fujiwara no Sukeyo, 328 Fujiwara palace, 164, 164n, 384n3.6, 395n4.14 Fujiwara Palace guards (ejifu) mokkan, 164 Fukuyama Toshio, 400n5.1 Fumi no Obito, 109, 111 Fumi (writings), as generic term, 325 Funayama. See Eta-Funayama Fune no Fubito, 106–7 Furigana, 322 Fusō ryakki, 386n3.12 Futsūbun, 321 Gangōji, 385n3.9, 399n5.1 Gangōji engi, 137–41, 385n3.9, 386n3.11, 388n3.17 Ganlu zishu, 336 Gaozong of Tang, 382n3.3 Gaur, Albertine, 31 Gelb, I. J., 40–41, 358–59, 361–62, 370n1.9 Genbun itchi, 320–21 Gender, 325–27, 330 Genette, Gerard, 245 Genji monogatari, 276, 325, 327–28, 357n Genmei, 225, 244, 247 Genshō, 245 Geography, 347–49 Germanic languages, 351 Gikun (semantic logographs), 280–81, 288–89, 391n4.6, 413n6.13 Gisho (playful writings), 274n24, 280n33, 309, 310n Glossaries, 184–85, 337, 339. See also Lexicography Glottography, 41–44, 370n1.9. See also Language and writing

482 God Age ( jindai ), 234–35 God Age Script ( jindai moji), 416n7.5 Gōdansho, 380n2.25 Goody, Jack, 33–34, 37–40, 155, 354 Gough, Kathleen, 39n Government affecting writing, 306, 345 Graphosphere, 31 Great Divide between orality and literacy, notion of, 2, 34–35 Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, 348 Great king, title of, 92, 95, 378n2.8 Greenberg, Clement, 369n1.6 Guangya, 337 Gunpu (district chief directives), 163 Hall, John Whitney, 67, 104, 387n3.14 Handoku (transposition), 177n15 Han dynasty, 53, 69–72, 316, 336, 338; Eastern (Later), 18, 56–57, 74, 78, 144, 384n3.8; Western (Former), 71, 374n2.8 Han’gul. See under Korean writing Han (Korean peninsular ethnonym), 83 Hannas, William, 354–55 Hanshu, 71, 233–34, 237, 326n, 371n1.12 Harris, Roy, 42, 361 Harris, William, 24–25, 27, 164n, 370n1.8 Hateda No. 1 Mound, 60–61 Havelock, Eric, 33–34, 38n30, 99, 155, 354 Hayakawa Shōhachi, 121n, 127n Hayashi Razan, 392n4.7 Hearn, Lafcadio, 30

Index Heian period, 164, 324–28, 352n47; and kundoku, 184, 210, 392n4.7, 392n4.8, 405n5.4, 415n7.2; and kana, 276, 313–18, 322, 345, 397n4.20 Heijō capital, 125, 164, 165 Heijō palace, 147, 191, 262, 395n4.14 Heijō roadside notice mokkan, 165– 66 Heike monogatari, 357n Hentai kanbun, 181–82 Heterograms, 360 He Yan, 112 Hieda no Are, 225, 247 Higashi Ajia sekai, 349 Higuchi Takayasu, 60 Himiko, 75–77, 78n, 79, 373n2.5, 373n2.6 Hio Keizan, 332 Hiragana (cursivized phonographs), 202, 261, 275, 314, 316. See also Kana Hirakawa Minami, 51, 63n, 98, 376n2.12 Hirata Atsutane, 416n7.5 Hirota shell, 17–20, 47, 51, 54, 55n, 68, 73 Historiography: of literacy, 16, 33–40, 155–56; of writing, 16, 121n, 155–56, 357–64, 419n7.12; of Buddhism, 136–41, 215, 220 History, Book of, 199 History of writing, post-eighth century, 11–12, 313–23, 397n4.20, 415n7.1. See also Early modern Japan; Modern Japan; Heian period Hitomaro, 256, 277, 299, 310n, 411n6.9, 411n6.10, 413n6.13 Hitomaro Poetry Collection, 275n27, 277–87, 295, 298–301, 308,

Index 411n6.10; unabbreviated form, 280, 285n, 412n6.12, 414n6.17; abbreviated form, 280–84, 285n, 286, 292, 298–301, 412n6.12, 413n6.13 Hōkōji, 399n5.1 Honchō shojaku mokuroku, 328, 329n, 405n5.13 Honorific language, 192, 193, 221 Horses, 118, 165, 189, 190 Hōryūji, 125n, 132, 214–15, 262, 385n3.9 Hōryūji engi, 215n Hou Hanshu, 72, 78n, 108n, 233, 237, 326n, 373n2.4, 384n3.8 Hourani, Albert, 330 Houston, Stephen, 20n, 339 Hudson, Mark J., 368n1.3 Human interactions and media, 162– 66 Hyakumantō darani, 146–47, 159, 318 Hyangch’al and hyangga. See under Korean writing Hyman, Malcolm, 42–43, 370n1.9 Iba, 207n Ichinoya Miyajiri, 49 Ideographic writing, notion of, 40– 41, 173–74, 351–52, 353, 360 Ideology and writing, 6, 8–9, 22 Idu. See under Korean writing Ikarugadera, 385n3.9 Ikisan Chōshizuka mound, 59–60 Illiteracy, 37–38. See also Alegibility Inaoka Kōji, 407n6.1, 411n6.10, 412n6.12 Inaridai No. 1 Mound, 89, 376n2.13 Inariyama. See Sakitama-Inariyama Incan khipu, 42–43

483

Indic culture and writing, 170, 343, 350 Influence, notion of, 195. See also Reception Innis, Harold, 33, 155–56 Inscriptions. See Epigraphy Inukai Takashi, 228, 307n, 402n5.6 Investiture (cefeng), 65, 70 Iran, 360 Ise Yamada haikaishū, 67 Ishida Mosaku, 144–45, 387n3.15 Isŏngsansŏng, 200–201 Isŏngsansŏng mokkan, 200 Isonokami Shrine, 86–87, 375n2.11 Issho. See Variant accounts Itabuki Palace, 124 Itawa, 92 Itō Haku, 272n Iwanami kōza sekai rekishi, 349 Iwashimizu Hachimangū, 379n2.21 Iyer, Pico, 36 Izumo, 380n2.23 Jakobson, Roman, 390n4.5 James, William, 44 Japanese language, 174–75, 205, 265 Japan (Nihon), country name, 128– 29 Ji, King of Wa, 83n, 374n2.9 Jiajie (borrowed graphs), 335, 336 Jidaibetsu kokugo daijiten: jōdaihen, 408n6.3 Jindai (God Age), 234–35 Jindai moji (God Age Script), 416n7.5 Jin dynasty, 85, 97, 344–45, 389n4.2 Jingū, 235n, 381n2.26 Jinmu, 234–35, 241 Jinshin War, 120, 128, 129 Jinshu, 85, 149

484 Jitō, 120, 121, 128, 140, 164, 235 Jōgūki, 243, 404n5.11 Jōgū shōtoku hōō teisetsu, 137–40, 385n3.9, 386n3.11, 388n3.17 Johnson, Samuel, 357–58 Jomei, 383n3.4 Jōmon period, 21, 21n, 368n1.3 Junnin, 405n5.12 Jurchen, 344–46, 417n7.9 Jurchen scripts, 344–45, 346 Kaeriten. See Kunten Kafka, Franz, 118 Kaifūsō, 128, 155, 303, 381n2.27, 383n3.4, 406n5.16 Kaishu (standard script), 316 Kaiyuan shijiaolu, 144, 387n3.15 Kaizō, 48n, 49n, 50 Kakinomoto no Hitomaro. See Hitomaro Kakuhitsu (stylus), 397n4.19 Kakyō hyōshiki, 267 Kamei Takashi, 228, 231, 279 Kamezuka, 57–58, 61 Kana, 202, 208, 261, 275, 301n57, 324–29, 347. See also under Heian period Kanbun, 181–82. See also Kundoku Kangxi zidian, 336, 340 Kanji bunkaken, 12, 348–50, 417n7.8, 417n7.9 Kanji-kana majiribun, 317. See also Mixture of logographs and phonographs Kannonji, 207n64, 384n3.6, 393n4.9; glossary/dictionary mokkan, 186, 205, 393n4.9; Analects mokkan, 187–89, 201, 394n4.11; poem mokkan, 262, 266 Kanō Morohira, 379n2.21

Index Kanshi. See Chinese-style poetry Karasuba, 381n2.25 Karlgren, Bernhard, 60 Katabe, 50 Katakana (abbreviated phonographs), 202, 210, 275, 296, 314–16, 415n7.2. See also Kana Katō Tōru, 417n7.10 Kawaguchi Katsuyasu, 98, 375n2.10 Kaya, 97 Keene, Donald, 213 Keian, 392n4.7, 416n7.5 Keian oshō kahō waten, 416n7.5 Keichū, 309n Khipu, 42–43 Kibi no Makibi, 380n2.25 Kii no kuni meisho zue, 379n2.21 Kiki kayō (songs of the chronicles), 255–56 Kinai region, 80–81, 91. See also Yamato kings King Father of the East, 58n King Kwanggaet’o stele, 84–85 King of Dian, 372n2.1 King of Guangling, 372n2.1 King of the East, 102 King’s Bestowal sword, 88–91, 98, 134–35, 376n2.12, 376n2.13, 377n2.16 Kingship, 68–69, 80, 107–9, 110–11, 232 Kinmei, 120, 137, 139–41 Kinoshita Masatoshi, 291 Ki no Tsurayuki, 261–62, 267, 408n6.4 Kitan, 344–46 Kitan scripts, 344–45, 346 Kita-Ōtsu, 186, 187n, 205, 339, 393n4.10

Index Kita-Ōtsu glossary mokkan, 186–87, 205 Kiyomihara, 164, 394n4.12 Kŭnch’ogo, King of Paekche, 197 Kobayashi Yoshinori, 228n, 305, 389n4.3, 396n4.19, 402n5.6 Kōfukuji, 165n Kogo shūi, 246, 381n2.27 Koguryŏ, 81–85, 106–7, 110, 127, 134, 195–98, 240 Kojiki, 225–32, 227–32, 233n20, 332, 406n5.15; account of Wani, 111– 13, 188; written style of, 210–11, 227–32, 249–50, 307, 401n5.5; preface of, 225–26, 247–50, 280n31, 287n43, 304, 381n2.27; Amaterasu episode in, 229–30; reception of, 246, 401n5.3, 402n5.6; origins of, 247–50; songs of, 255–57, 263–68, 302; compared with Man’yōshū, 270, 279; phonographs in, 307, 337. See also Comparison of Kojiki and Nihon shoki Kojiki, song number: 8, 264, 409n6.5; 2, 409n6.5; 42, 409n6.5 Kojikiden, 332n29, 402n5.6 Kōken/Shōtoku, 146, 405n5.12, 406n5.16 Kokin wakashū, 261, 267, 307, 317, 398n4.21 Kokuji (domestically created characters), 238n27, 340, 414n6.17, 416n7.6 Kokyō ibun, 158 Komaro, 117 Komatsu Hideo, 192n, 221n, 231 Kōmyō, Royal Consort, 154, 155, 162

485

Kongōjō daranikyō, 135, 143, 145, 159 Konishi Jin’ichi, 401n5.5 Konkōmyō saishōkyō, 385n3.10 Kōnō Rokurō, 349 Kōnoshi Takamitsu, 232, 236n, 403n5.8 Korean language, 196, 208–9 Korean writing, 83–88, 195–204, 395n4.16, 397n4.20; and kundoku, 5–6, 10, 195–96, 198–203, 396n4.19; influence of, 83–84, 96–97, 127–28, 149, 208–9, 350; and diplomacy, 85–88, 106–7, 117, 197–98; interaction of Korean states with archipelago, 127–28; and Buddhist epigraphy, 134; mokkan, 200–201; hyangch’al and hyangga, 201–2, 396n4.18; idu, 202, 347; t’o, 202; han’gul, 345. See also Scribes Kornicki, Peter, 418n7.10 Kōrokan, 155, 160, 387n3.16 Kose no Sukunamaro, 259 Kōtoku, 140 Kudara hongi, 378n2.20 Kudaraki, 378n2.20 Kudara Shinsen, 378n2.20 Kumārajīva, 144 Kundoku, 175–84, 203–4, 207–12, 223, 231–32, 321–23; defined, 5, 175, 179, 389n4.3; and translation, 179, 390n4.5; as method of writing, 180–82; productivity of, 181–84, 210–12, 264–75; language of, 182, 391n4.7; contrasted with ondoku, 183–84, 303, 392n4.8; origins of, 184–85, 193–94; in mokkan, 185–94; and everyday communication, 190–94; and phonographs, 206–7,

486

Index

264–75; and Kojiki, 228–29, 231– 32; and Nihon shoki, 238–41, 246– 47; and Man’yōshū, 278–79; as means of literary expression, 284, 286, 303; and Chinese exegetical network, 338–39; as extension of Chinese writing system, 338–41; parallels to outside East Asia, 351, 359–61; historiography of, 389n4.3. See also under Korean writing Kungana. See Vernacular phonographs Kunten, 184, 202, 210, 332, 396n4.19, 415n7.2 Kunten fukko, 332 Kun’yomi, 177 Kuratsukuri, 387n3.14 Kurayamada no Maro no omi, 117 Kurozumi Makoto, 339n38 Kushikiryō, 306 Kusu of Paekche, 85–86 Kwanggaet’o stele, 197 Kyŏngju tablet, 198–200, 396n4.17 Kyūji, 245 Kyunyŏ, 396n4.18 Label mokkan (tsukefuda or nifuda), 123–24, 154, 200, 305 Lacquer-impregnated documents (urushigami monjo), 125, 160 LaMarre, Thomas, 209n, 324n Language and thought, 44, 351 Language and writing, 40–45, 203–4, 351–53. See also Logography Language game, 38n29 Laozi, 161

Latin, 12, 331, 350–51, 359–60, 417n7.10 Ledyard, Gari, 189n, 395n4.16, 396n4.17 Legibility. See Alegibility Lelang, 71–72, 196–97 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 22–28, 30, 38, 45, 64–65, 368n1.4 Lewis, Mark Edward, 342 Lewis, Martin W., 347–48 Lexicography, 184–87, 334–40 Liangshu, 78n, 198, 373n2.4, 373n2.5, 385n3.8 Liaodong peninsula, 196 Liao dynasty, 344, 417n7.9 Libraries, 158 Lineage groups (uji ), xx, 105, 107, 111, 215, 220; and the history of Buddhism, 139–40 Lishu (clerical script style), 18, 316 Li Si, 173 Literacies. See Multiple literacies Literacy, full vs. partial, 4, 20 Literacy rates, 164–65, 370n1.8 Literature, 128, 303–4, 357 Liushu (six classes), 172, 334–36, 416n7.6, 416n7.7 Liu Song dynasty, 81–83, 91, 96, 113, 136 Loan-translation, 211 Loanwords, 177, 183, 211, 273, 351, 360 Local writing. See Center and periphery Logographic dissonance, 284 Logography, 173–74, 190–94, 280– 84, 337–39, 341, 414n6.17; persistence of in Japanese writing, 249–53, 303–8, 346; producing overtones or resonances in

Index poetry, 281–84, 288–89, 293–95; legitimacy of, 303, 341. See also Kundoku Logography vs. phonography, 41, 207–8, 249–53, 313–17, 336–45, 359–61; in poetry, 260, 271–77, 288–90, 295–97, 302–8 Lotus Sutra, 145, 184, 386n3.12 Loyang, 76–77 Mabi city (Okayama), 150n Magic, 19, 32, 51, 59, 123, 149, 369n1.7 Mahan, 85 Mahāprajñāpāramitā sutra, 385n3.10 Mainichi shinbun, 20 Mair, Victor, 338 Makura no sōshi, 393n4.9 Mana (unmodified characters), 324 Mandate of heaven, 234 Manifests (biao), 70–71, 81–83, 106– 7, 110, 117, 197 Manuscripts, 158–59 Man’yōgana, 271, 402n5.5. See also Phonography Man’yōshū, 128, 155, 233n20, 331, 406n5.16; kundoku in, 185, 210– 11; and Korean writing, 202, 396n4.18; importance of logography in, 239, 271–72, 275–77; dating of, 268, 383n3.4; structure and content of, 268–70, 296–98, 302; phonography in, 271, 301–2, 363; reception of, 279, 290–91, 300; logographic overtones or resonances in, 281–84, 288–89, 293– 95. See also Hitomaro Poetry Collection Man’yōshū, poem number: 3:235, 256; 8:1594, 257; 16:3816-20, 257;

487 6:1016, 258, 260, 407n6.1, 414n6.17; 16:3807, 261; 3:239, 263; 10:1920, 263; 20:4516, 268; 12:3023, 272, 275, 278; 17:3935, 272, 275, 278, 288, 292–93; 11:2377, 279, 411n6.11, 412n6.12; 7:1293, 280; 7:1306, 280; 11:2360, 280, 281, 295; 11:2411, 280; 11:2436, 281; 11:2501, 282, 284, 289, 289n; 11:2473, 283; 11:2481, 289n; 4:560, 292–93; 4:751, 293, 410n6.9, 414n6.17; 11:2545, 294; 6:919, 294n; 15:3595, 294n; 7:1285, 295; 9:1690, 295, 414n6.17; 9:1796, 295, 414n6.17; 11:2720, 295; 5:803, 296, 411n6.11; 10:2238-39, 298–300, 299n, 302, 305; 10:2243, 299; 5:793, 301; 9:1787, 309; 3:394, 309n; 4:664, 309n; 7:1321, 309n; 7:1324, 309n; 10:2064, 309n; 10:2066, 309n; 10:2092, 309n; 11:2578, 309n; 11:2602, 309n; 11:2834, 309n; 12:3028, 309n; 16:3817, 393n4.10; 16:3853, 393n4.10; 20:4360, 395n4.15; 2:90, 401n5.3, 406n5.15; 9:1809, 403n5.7; 11:2386, 403n5.7; 13:3263, 406n5.15; 4:509, 407n6.2; 9:1750, 407n6.2; 10:2190, 407n6.2; 10:2207, 407n6.2; 11:2798, 407n6.2; 13:3295, 407n6.2; 2:86, 411n6.11; 5:797, 411n6.11; 5:864, 411n6.11; 15:3566, 411n6.11; 15:3627, 411n6.11; 15:3733, 411n6.11; 15:3744, 411n6.11; 15:3762, 411n6.11; 16:3795, 411n6.11; 16:3886, 411n6.11; 17:3975, 411n6.11; 18:4082, 411n6.11;

488 19:4222, 411n6.11; 20:4386, 411n6.11; 20:4391, 411n6.11; 9:1699, 412n6.12; 14:3417, 412n6.12; 14:3470, 412n6.12; 14:3490, 412n6.12; 11:2393, 413n6.14; 11:2472, 413n6.14; 12:2857, 413n6.14; 12:2863, 413n6.14; 10:2006, 414n6.17; 10:2071, 414n6.17; 19:4214, 414n6.17 Man’yōshū chūshaku, 408n6.3 Man’yōshū sōsakuin, 291 Martin, Samuel, 390n4.4 Material basis of writing, 17, 49, 55– 56, 82n, 87, 154–62, 173n6 Matsuo Bashō, 357n Matthews, William, 312 McCallum, Donald F., 140n, 142, 387n3.14 McLuhan, Marshall, 34, 155 Medieval Japan, 318 Meiji period. See Modern Japan Meiji University, 61 Mencius, 413n6.14 Mengqiu, 184n Mesoamerica, 42–43 Mesopotamia, 149 Metageography, 347–49 Metagraphic and metalinguistic discourses, 12, 324–29, 332–42 Michalowski, Piotr, 368n1.4 Middle East, 330 Miidani No. 2 Mound, 380n2.23 Mikumo, 60–61 Miller, Roy Andrew, 169, 308–10, 342, 352 Milne, A. A., 15 Min, Priest, 382n3.3 Minabuchi Shōan, 117, 382n3.3 Minamoto no Yoritomo, 318

Index Ming, Han Emperor, 372n2.1 Ming, Wei Emperor, 75 Mirror inscriptions, 56–63, 77–79, 87, 99–103, 371n1.13 Mirrors, Buddhist, 142 Mirrors, domestic copies of, 79–80 Miscellaneous mokkan, 123 Mitokomatsubara, 53 Mixture of logographs and phonographs, 201–2, 206–7, 230–31, 250–53, 295–96, 301–2 Miyanomoto, 150n Mizuno Masayoshi, 49n Mobility of texts, 157–58 Mochida No. 25 Mound, 60–61 Mochizuki Shinkyō, 387n3.15 Modern Japan, 320–22, 333, 345, 352, 392n4.7, 415n7.3 Modern society and literacy, 24–25, 31 Moji to no meguriai, 349 Mokkan, 121–25, 143, 159; reuse of, 160–61; used for writing practice, 161, 388n3.18; coexisting with paper, 161–62; evidence of kundoku, 185–94; Korean, 200–201; phonography in, 205–7, 262–63, 305; compared with epigraphic or literary writing, 221, 227–29, 266–67, 290n46, 304, 409n6.6. See also particular archaeological sites Mongol, 343 Mongol invasion of Korea, 395n4.16 Mononobe lineage group, 140 Mononobe no Moriya, 386n3.12 Mononobe no Okoshi, 386n3.12 Monumental writings, 157–58 Mori Hiromichi, 95n Morinouchi, 191, 200, 205

Index Morinouchi letter mokkan, 190–91, 221 Motoori Norinaga, 251n, 332–33, 402n5.6 Mu, King of Zhou, 58n Muku jōkō daidaranikyō, 146n Multilinguality and the written environment, 29–31, 207–12 Multiple literacies, 35–37, 49, 193–94, 351, 356–57, 362–63; in the Tomb period, 63–66, 102–3, 108; in the seventh and eighth centuries, 114, 120–21, 150–51, 166; Buddhism and, 142–50 Murasaki Shikibu, 325 Murite, 92, 98, 103, 378n2.19 Nagano, 384n3.6 Nagaoka, 164n Nagara Toyosaki, 127n, 381n3.1 Nagaya, Prince, 395n4.14, 395n4.15; household, 164, 191, 205, 229, 395n4.14, 395n4.15; letter mokkan, 191–92, 221 Nakatomi no Kamatari, 126, 382n3.3 Nakazono Satoru, 19 Nambikwara, 22–28, 43, 45, 65, 368n1.4 Nam P’ung-hyŏn, 397n4.19 Naniwa, 123–24, 164, 310 Naniwa palace, 206, 262, 285, 381n3.1, 384n3.6 Naniwa Palace mokkan, 123–24, 206 Naniwa Port poem, 261–63, 266–67, 275, 307, 409n6.4, 409n6.6 Naniwa Toyosaki, 126 Nara period, 143–44, 146, 159, 164, 383n3.6, 395n4.14

489

Na seal, 72–76, 78–79, 89–90, 372n2.1, 372n2.2, 378n2.18 National consciousness, 195, 209, 330–33, 345–46 Native vs. foreign, 222, 240–41, 330– 32, 345–46 Natural selection, 361 Naxi script, 343, 344 Netsuka, 49 New Literacy Studies, 35–36, 39–40 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 312 Nihongi, 403n5.8 Nihon ( Japan), country name, 128– 29 Nihon kōki, 246n Nihonkoku genzaisho mokuroku, 328 Nihon Montoku Tennō jitsuroku, 246n Nihon sandai jitsuroku, 246n Nihon shoki, 148, 232–42, 332, 381n2.26, 381n3.1, 382n3.3, 383n3.5, 398n5.1; Paekche records in, 97, 378n2.20; early writing depicted in, 105–14, 116–18, 126–29, 381n2.27; early sovereigns depicted in, 107–8, 381n2.26; Buddhism in, 138–41, 150, 385n3.10, 386n3.12; title of, 233–34, 403n5.8; written style of, 235–42, 404n5.10; Amaterasu episode in, 236; kundoku of, 238– 42, 246–47, 405n5.14; origins of, 245–46, 388n3.18; reception of, 246–47, 401n5.3, 404n5.11, 405n5.13; songs of, 255–57, 258, 264–66, 302; phonographs in, 307, 337, 409n6.6; Taika reforms in, 382n3.2; issho (see Variant accounts). See also Comparison of Kojiki and Nihon shoki

490

Index

Nihon shoki, song number: 113, 257; 114, 257; 96, 258n; 115, 258n; 5, 264 Nihon shoki shiki, 401n5.3 Niitabe, Princess, 404n5.12 Ninigi, 226, 234 Nishigawara Morinouchi. See Morinouchi letter mokkan Nishijima Sadao, 71, 76, 349 Nishizaki Tōru, 403n5.7 Nontranscriptive vs. transcriptive levels, 287 Norito, 251n39 Northern Wei dynasty, 197, 373n2.3, 375n2.10 Numerals, 51 Ō no Yasumaro, 225, 242, 244, 247– 49, 263, 406n5.15; career of, 226n, 401n5.4 O’Connor, M., 115 Odes, Book of, 199, 326n Official histories, 71, 74–77, 81–83, 136–37, 233–34; Korean states in, 83, 85. See also individual Chinese and Japanese titles; Six National Histories Ōgyū Sorai, 332, 391n4.5 Ōjin, 109–13, 141, 226, 381n2.26 Okada, Richard, 415n7.4 Okadayama No. 1 Mound, 379n2.23 Okazaki Kuniaki, 19–20 Okiji, 179 Okinoyama, 53–54 Okumura Etsuzō, 210 Okurigana, 322 Ōmi, 164. See also Tenji On Beyond Zebra, 340 Ondoku, 183–84, 303, 392n4.8

Ongana (Sinitic phonograph), defined, 273 Ōnin war, 318 Ōno no Azumahito, 151, 155 On’yomi, 177, 182–83, 265–66, 321, 390n4.4 Opaque vs. transparent literacies, 26– 28. See also Alegibility Open vs. closed systems of writing, 339–40 Oracle bones, 172–73, 334367n1.1 Orality, 33–36, 121n, 204, 231n18, 232, 250–53, 255–57, 303, 307, 315n5, 330 Origins, notion of, 367n1.1 Ō Shinni, 105–9, 126, 224, 235, 380n2.25, 381n2.27 Ōtomo, Prince, 128, 383n3.4 Ōtomo family, 271 Ōtomo no Ikenushi, 258 Ōtomo no Sukune Momoyo, 292 Ōtomo no Tabito, 258, 292, 331 Ōtomo no Yakamochi, 258, 259n, 268, 276, 302, 308 Ōwake, Prince, 386n3.12 Paekche, 82–85, 97, 109–13, 127, 134, 195–98, 200–201, 378n2.20; and the Seven-Branched Sword, 85–88, 375n2.10; and transmission of Buddhism, 136–39, 385n3.10, 386n3.12 Pakistan, 25, 38 Paper, 82, 124, 143, 153, 157–62 Paratexts, 245, 270 Periphery. See Center and periphery Perry, Matthew, 392n4.8 Petrucci, Armando, 31n ‘Phags-pa, 343, 350

Index

491

Phonography, 186–87, 204–7, 262– 63, 265–67, 408n6.4, 409n6.6, 410n6.8, 410n6.9; in prose, 206, 301n57, 313; and poetry, 262–68, 271, 276; avoidance of, 279, 301. See also Logography vs. phonography Piggott, Joan, 131, 234n23, 402n5.5 Pinyin, 44, 355 Pitch accent, 95n Place names, 306 Poetry, 254–55, 259; Chinese-style, 189–90, 255, 303–4, 327–28; on mokkan, 262–63, 276. See also Man’yōshū Political uses of writing, 63–66, 68– 69, 74, 79–80, 129–31, 209–10, 222–25, 306 Pollack, David, 311, 415n7.4 Ponghwang-tong mokkan, 201 Postgate, Nicholas, 63, 147 Potsherd inscriptions (bokusho doki), 125, 163, 388n3.19 Pragmatic literacy, 36, 114. See also Multiple literacies Printing, 146–47, 318–20 Proclamations. See Senmyō Protowriting, 42–43, 51, 136, 198, 384n3.8 Provinces. See Center and periphery Pseudo-inscriptions, 2, 59–62, 102 Pseudo-Kufic decoration, 32 Pulgram, Ernst, 370n1.9 Puyŏ pond mokkan, 201

Radicals, character, 336 Readership vs. spectatorship, 29–31 Reading, nature of, 179–80 Reception of writing, 22, 45, 51–52, 54–55, 63–66, 74, 79, 90, 101–3, 130–31, 149 Record of the Wa, 74–77, 373n2.3, 410n6.8. See also Sanguozhi Records of the Historian, 326n Reflexivity, 341 Reform of writing, 7, 355, 413–14 Rekichō shōshikai, 251n Rekiroku, 243, 404n5.11 Religion. See Buddhism; Administration vs. religion Religious literacy, notion of, 131–32, 149–50 Reuse of written materials, 159–61 Rice, 21, 106, 123, 154, 190–92 Richards, I. A., 254 Rikkokushi (Six National Histories), 244–46 Rites, Book of, 199, 326n Ritsuryō kokka (code-based state), 129–31 Robert, Jean-Noël, 418n7.10 Romance languages, 350–51 Romanization. See Alphabet; Pinyin Rough drafts, 161, 388n3.18 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 358 Rubbings, 157–58, 388n3.17 Rubio, Gonzalo, 361 Ruijū myōgishō, 186n Ryō no gige, 118n, 306

Qianziwen, 112–13, 161, 184n Qi dynasty, 371n1.11 Qin dynasty, 53, 161, 338 Qin Emperor, First, 173 Queen Mother of the West, 58, 10

Saga-bon, 317 Saidoku, 178n16 Saigyō, 254 Saimei, 140, 383n3.4 Sakimori, 307–8

492 Sakitama-Inariyama sword inscription, 94–99, 113, 205, 218, 221n, 376n2.15, 377n2.16, 410n6.8; and Tomb period writing, 101, 103, 104, 134, 378n2.18, 380n2.24 Śākyamuni, 132, 133, 141, 215–16, 384n3.7, 385n3.9, 386n3.11, n3.12 Śākyamuni mandorla, 134–35, 143 Salomon, Frank, 42, 46 Samdae mok, 396n4.18 Samguk Sagi, 84, 197–98, 200n, 203n, 379n2.22 Samguk Yusa, 200n, 396n4.18 Sampson, Geoffrey, 41–42, 44, 341, 370n1.9, 419n7.11 Sanguozhi, 72n, 74–78, 83, 205, 373n2.3, 373n2.4, 373n2.5, 410n6.8 Sanjōku no Tsubo, 124 Sanskrit studies, 170n Sansom, George B., 354 Sarusawa pond, 165n Sassanian empire, 360 Satō Issai, 415n7.3 Scott, James C., 28 Scribes, 126, 134, 218; in the Tomb period, 82, 88–105; depicted in early histories, 105–14 Scriptoria, 158, 306 Seals, 70–71, 76. See also Diplomacy Sedōka, 269, 281, 412n6.12 Seeley, Christopher, 221n6, 309n, 367n1.1, 372n2.1, 374n2.7 Seikun (vernacular logograph), defined, 273 Seion (Sinitic logograph), defined, 273 Self-referentiality, 52n43, 57, 78, 87n30, 98–99, 118, 341 Sema Masayuki, 188–89

Index Semasiography, 41–44, 370n1.9. See also Language and writing Semi-cursive style, 316 Semitic masks, 360 Sendai kuji hongi, 246, 401n5.3 Sengaku, 408n6.3 Senmyō, 207, 250–53, 406n5.16 Sequoyah, 344 Seuss, Dr., 340n Seven-Branched sword, 85–88, 97, 197, 375n2.10, 377n2.16, 379n2.21 Shaka inscription (Hōryūji main hall), 214–18, 221–24, 236, 239, 244, 398n5.1, 400n5.2 Shakukun (borrowed glosses), 274 Shaku Nihongi, 246, 404n5.11, 405n5.13, 405n5.14, 416n7.5 Shang dynasty, 172, 367n1.1, 374n2.8 Shanyang, King of Guangling, 372n2.1 Shigaraki, 408n6.4 Shiji, 233, 404n5.9 Shikanoshima, 72 Shiki county, 135 Shinni, 105–9, 126, 224, 235, 380n2.25, 381n2.27 Shinpukuji manuscript (Kojiki), 401n5.3 Shinsen Man’yōshū, 275n Shin’yaku Kegonkyō ongi shiki, 185, 339 Shittan, 170n Shōen, 318 Shōheikō, 319 Shoji engishū, 385n3.9 Shoku Nihongi, 155, 226n, 245, 247, 256n, 267, 381n2.27, 401n5.4, 406n5.15. See also Senmyō Shoku Nihon Kōki, 246n

Index Shōmu, 381n3.1 Shōrinzan, 60 Shōsōin, 153 Shōsōin documents, 153, 154, 158, 160, 387n3.15; phonograph letters, 206, 313; senmyō drafts, 251, 252, 388n3.18 Shōtoku, Prince, 110n, 120, 141, 385n3.9, 386n3.12, 386n3.13, 404n5.11; and epigraphy, 125, 215, 216–17, 219–21 Shōtoku taishi denryaku, 404n5.11 Shōtoku taishi heishiden zakkanmon, 404n5.11 Shu kingdom, 74, 77n, 373n2.3 Shuowen jiezi, 172, 238n, 334, 336, 338, 340, 384n3.8, 389n4.3, 417n7.7 Siddham, 170n Signatures, 93, 218, 224 Silk Road, 350 Silla, 83–85, 97, 127, 155, 195–201, 271, 382n3.3, 395n4.16, 396n4.18, 397n4.19 Sinitic logograph (seion), defined, 273 Sinitic phonograph (ongana), defined, 273 Sino-Japanese war, 333 Six Dynasties period, 176n, 265, 306, 309n, 338, 383n3.6 Six National Histories (rikkokushi), 244–46 Slavery, 24–25 Sŏl Ch’ong, 203n Sŏnggmyŏng, King of Paekche, 138 Sŏngsansansŏng mokkan, 200–201 Social significance of writing, 162–66, 305–8 Soga lineage group, 107, 116, 120, 140–41, 164 Soga no Iname, 139, 386n3.12

493

Soga no Iruka, 117 Soga no Umako, 106, 139, 386n3.12 Sogdian, 343, 344, 350 Song dynasty, 373n2.3, 373n2.4, 384n3.8 Songshu, 72n6, 81–83, 96, 103, 197, 374n2.9 Sosurim, King of Koguryŏ, 197 Sovereign (tennō ), xx, 128–29, 221 Spectatorship vs. readership, 29–31 Spelling, 180. See also English orthography Spring and Autumn Annals, 326n Spring and Autumn period, 52, 371n1.11 Standardization, 173, 289–90, 292– 93, 295, 305–6, 389n4.2 Standard script style (kaishu), 316 State formation, 68–69, 118–19, 129–31, 163–64 Steenstrup, Carl, 416n7.4 Stele inscriptions, 84–85, 151–53, 156–58, 192–93, 388n3.17 Street, Brian, 35–37, 39n Stylistic variety, 207–14, 223–25, 259–60, 265–67, 270–77, 287, 310–11, 313, 414n6.16. See also Bilingual fallacy Suda Hachiman mirror, 99–103 Suda Hachiman Shrine, 99, 379n2.21 Suga Masatomo, 86 Sui dynasty, 117, 120, 127, 136–37 Suiko, 120, 125, 131, 140–41, 226; and the Yakushi inscription, 219– 20, 224 Suishu, 83n, 136, 137, 198, 382n3.3, 385n3.8 Sumerian, 6, 360–61 Susano-o, 229

494

Index

Sutras, 157, 184, 205, 337, 339, 352; colophons compared to dedicatory inscriptions, 135; in accounts of transmission of Buddhism, 137–39; survival of, 143–44; translation and copying of, 144– 46; as source of merit, 145–46 Suzuki Naoji, 389n4.3, 392n4.7 Swann, Nancy Lee, 371n1.12 Sword inscriptions, 3, 8, 77–79, 86– 99, 134–35 Synonymy, 287 Taga fortress stele, 151–53, 155, 162 Taihō code, 121, 163, 206n, 382n3.2, 383n3.6 Taihō era name, 382n3.2, 399n5.1 Taika reforms, 120, 126, 382n3.2 Taiping yulan, 373n2.4, 384n3.8 Takagi Ichinosuke, 286 Takamuku no Genri, 382n3.3 Takechi Shiyū, 379n2.21 Talismanic use of writing. See Magic Tanegashima, 17 Tang dynasty, 127, 200, 265, 306, 345 Tangut script, 344, 346 Taniguchi mound, 59–60 Tanka (short poem), 256 Tattoos, 29–30, 33, 64–65 Taxation, 123, 154 Taxonomy of early Japanese writing, 273, 280n31, 411n6.9 Teiki, 245 Teleology and the history of writing, 4–5, 51, 305, 357–64 Tenji, 116–17, 126, 128, 163, 383n3.4

Tenmu, 121, 128, 140, 148, 225, 235n, 244, 245, 247, 399n5.1 Tennō. See sovereign Terminology for early Japanese graphs, 273–75 Thomas, Rosalind, 39 Thousand Character Classic, 112–13, 161, 184n Three Kingdoms period (China), 56, 57 Three Kingdoms period (Korea), 84, 195–96, 201, 202, 395n4.16, 396n4.18 T’o. See under Korean writing Tōdaiji, 153, 154, 160 Tōdaijiyama sword inscription, 77– 79, 88, 90, 374n2.7, 375n2.11 Tōdō Akiyasu, 349 Tokugawa Ieyasu, 319 Tokugawa shogunate, 320 Tokyo National Museum, 132 Tomb period writing, 47–62, 90–91, 97–99, 103–5, 113–14, 380n2.24 Toneri, Prince, 245, 404n5.12 Tōno Haruyuki, 376n2.14, 394n4.13 Tori of the Shiba, Buddha-Master, 217–18, 224 Tosa nikki, 327–28 Tōshi kaden, 388n3.17 Totemic uses of writing, 31, 32 Totman, Conrad, 402n5.5 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 318–19 Transcriptive vs. nontranscriptive levels, 287 Translation, 179, 181, 210–11, 327– 28, 348, 352, 390n4.5 Transparent vs. opaque literacies, 26– 28. See also Alegibility Transposition, in kundoku, 177–78

Index Tributary system, 74–77, 80, 81–83, 85, 87–88, 97–98 Trigger, Bruce, 43, 354, 359, 361–62 Tristes Tropiques, 22–28 Tsude Hiroshi, 103 Tsukegana, 322 Tsukishima Hiroshi, 247, 390n4.5 Tsukushi circle, 292, 308 Tsukushi Kōrokan, 154 Turkish writing, 344, 355n Twine, Nanette Gottleib, 415n7.3 Tyler, Royall, 325n Ueda Masaaki, 374n2.6 Ueno Makoto, 291n Uenomiya, 124 Uighur, 344 Uji. See lineage group Uji no Waki-iratsuko, 109–10 Unabbreviated Form (hiryakutai ), 280. See also under Hitomaro Poetry Collection Unger, J. Marshall, 41, 341, 363 Unified Silla period, 96 Unread writing, 2–3, 16–17. See also Alegibility Urabe Kanefumi and Kanekata, 246 Urushigami monjo (lacquerimpregnated documents), 125, 160 Uta, 255–56. See also Man’yōshū Uta mokkan, 262–63 Utsubo monogatari, 392n4.7 Variant accounts, 243, 409n6.7 Variants, textual, 403n5.9, 409n6.7

495

Vernacular logograph (seikun), defined, 273 Vernacular phonograph (kungana), 200n48, 267, 273, 290, 293–94 Verse, 254–55, 300–301 Vietnamese, 343–44 Vimalakīrti Sutra, 384n3.7 Visser, M. W., 387n3.15 Visually distinctive phonographs. See kana Vocalization, 208, 218n, 239–40, 250–53, 260, 287, 303, 315n5, 330. See also Kundoku; Ondoku Wa, 71–72, 75–83, 85–88, 127, 137– 38, 205, 372n2.1, 374n2.9, 375n2.11, 410n6.8 Wadō kaichin, 148 Wadoku yōryō, 332 Waiting for the Barbarians, 26–28, 30, 45, 64 Wajinden. See Record of the Wa Waka, 255–56. See also Man’yōshū Wakabayashi, Judy, 391n4.5 Wakan rōeishū, 329 Wakatakiru, 94, 95n, 377n2.17 Wa kings, 80–83, 87–88. See also Yamato kings Wamyō ruijūshō, 405n5.13 Wang, Tao, 63, 147 Wang Mang, 53, 371n1.12 Wang Xizhi, 153, 309 Wang Yŏnson, 133 Wang Zhenping, 405n5.14 Wani, 109–13, 115, 126, 161, 188, 224, 381n2.27 Wani lineage group, 110n Warring States period, 171n, 176n, 343, 374n2.8

496 Washū (contamination of style by Japanese elements), 181, 404n5.10 Watt, Ian, 33–34, 37–40, 155 Wa (Wo) people, 71–72 Wei kingdom, 72n, 74–77, 81, 373n2.3, 373n2.5 Weilue, 373n2.3 Weishu, 197, 373n2.3 Weizhi, 373n2.3 Wen (textual patterns), 108 Wen (unit graphs), 172, 334–35 Wenxuan, 161, 237, 384n3.8 Whorf, Benjamin Lee, 351 Wigen, Kären, 347–48 Wilkinson, Toby, 63, 147 Wiman, 84, 196 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 15, 36n, 38n Women, 325–27, 330 Wooden documents. See Mokkan Wooster, Bertie, 115 Wowake, 94, 95n, 98, 103, 134, 378n2.19 Writing: historiography of, 16, 121n, 155–56, 357–64, 419n7.12; definition of, 40–46 Writing game, 38n29 Writing Lesson (Triste Tropiques), 22– 27, 30, 45, 64–65 Writing practice, 161, 187–89 Writing without words, notion of, 42–43 Wu, King of Wa, 81–82, 83n, 96, 374n2.9, 378n2.17; manifest of, 81–83, 96, 103–4, 113, 136, 380n2.24 Wu Hung, 387n3.14 Wu kingdom, 74, 77n, 96, 373n2.3, 378n2.17 Wu Liang shrine, 58n

Index Wu of Han, 372n2.1, 374n2.8 Wuyuan people, 384n3.8 Xenography, 360 Xia Houxuan, 153 Xing, King of Wa, 374n2.9 Xingshu, 316 Xin state, 53 Xi Xia, 344, 417n7.9 Xuanzang, 144, 240, 385n3.10 Xu Bing, 340, 369n1.6 Xungu (exegesis), 338–39 Xu Shen, 334, 416n7.7 Yabataishi, 380n2.25 Yakkō hokke genki, 386n3.12 Yakubun sentei, 332 Yakushi inscription (Hōryūji main hall), 214–16, 219–24, 232, 252, 399n5.1, 400n5.2 Yamadadera, 124 Yamada Yoshio, 415n7.3 Yamaguchi Nakami, 322n14 Yamanoue no Okura, 296, 331 Yamanoue stele, 192–93 Yamashina temple, 165 Yamatai, 75–77, 91, 205, 373n2.4, 374n2.6, 375n2.11 Yamato court, 120, 131, 137, 142 Yamato kings, 80–81, 88, 90–91, 97, 98–99, 113, 116, 164, 378n2.18, 378n2.19 Yan, 84, 196, 371n1.11 Yanagimachi, 50 Yashiro, 124 Yayoi period writing, 17–20, 47–59, 65, 71–80 Yi dynasty, 395n4.16 Yijing, 384n3.8 Yi script, 344

Index Yi Sŏng-si, 350 Yiwen leiju, 108n, 148 Yogācārabhūmi śāstra, 396n4.19 Yōmei, 141, 219–20, 222 Yomisoe, 179, 278–79, 298–99, 414n6.16 Yoshida Kazuhiko, 387n3.13 Youxianku, 258 Yūa, 408n6.3 Yue Yi, 153 Yue Yi lun, 153, 154, 155n, 162 Yu Huan, 373n2.3 Yupian, 338 Yūryaku, 96, 375n2.9, 377n2.17 Yutai shinyong, 309n

497

Zhang An, 92, 93, 99 Zhang Jing, 417n7.10 Zhao, 371n1.11 Zhen, King of Wa, 81, 83n, 374n2.9 Zheng Xuan, 112 Zhi, King of Wa, 86 Zhou dynasty, 52n, 54, 56, 161, 172, 196 Zhou Xingsi, 112 Zhuang script, 344 Zi (compound graphs), 172, 334–35 Zoku kokyō ibun, 158 Zuo commentary, 199

Harvard East Asian Monographs (*out-of-print)

*1. *2. 3. *4.

Liang Fang-chung, The Single-Whip Method of Taxation in China Harold C. Hinton, The Grain Tribute System of China, 1845–1911 Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Kaiping Mines, 1877–1912 Chao Kuo-chün, Agrarian Policies of Mainland China: A Documentary Study,

1949–1956 *5. Edgar Snow, Random Notes on Red China, 1936–1945 *6. Edwin George Beal, Jr., The Origin of Likin, 1835–1864 7. Chao Kuo-chün, Economic Planning and Organization in Mainland China: A Documentary Study, 1949–1957 *8. John K. Fairbank, Ching Documents: An Introductory Syllabus *9. Helen Yin and Yi-chang Yin, Economic Statistics of Mainland China, 1949–1957 10. Wolfgang Franke, The Reform and Abolition of the Traditional Chinese Examination System 11. Albert Feuerwerker and S. Cheng, Chinese Communist Studies of Modern Chinese History 12. C. John Stanley, Late Ching Finance: Hu Kuang-yung as an Innovator 13. S. M. Meng, The Tsungli Yamen: Its Organization and Functions *14. Ssu-yü Teng, Historiography of the Taiping Rebellion 15. Chun-Jo Liu, Controversies in Modern Chinese Intellectual History: An Analytic Bibliography of Periodical Articles, Mainly of the May Fourth and Post-May Fourth Era *16. Edward J. M. Rhoads, The Chinese Red Army, 1927–1963: An Annotated Bibliography *17. Andrew J. Nathan, A History of the China International Famine Relief Commission *18. Frank H. H. King (ed.) and Prescott Clarke, A Research Guide to China-Coast Newspapers, 1822–1911 *19. Ellis Joffe, Party and Army: Professionalism and Political Control in the Chinese Officer Corps, 1949–1964 *20. Toshio G. Tsukahira, Feudal Control in Tokugawa Japan: The Sankin Kōtai System *21. Kwang-Ching Liu, ed., American Missionaries in China: Papers from Harvard Seminars *22. George Moseley, A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Ili Kazakh Autonomous Chou

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1860–1864 51. Ellsworth C. Carlson, The Foochow Missionaries, 1847–1880 52. Yeh-chien Wang, An Estimate of the Land-Tax Collection in China, 1753 and 1908 53. Richard M. Pfeffer, Understanding Business Contracts in China, 1949–1963

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Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Konan (1866–1934) Jeffrey C. Kinkley, ed., After Mao: Chinese Literature and Society, 1978–1981 C. Andrew Gerstle, Circles of Fantasy: Convention in the Plays of Chikamatsu Andrew Gordon, The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry,

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1919–1937 149. Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic 150. Merle Goldman and Paul A. Cohen, eds., Ideas Across Cultures: Essays on Chinese Thought in Honor of Benjamin L Schwartz 151. James M. Polachek, The Inner Opium War 152. Gail Lee Bernstein, Japanese Marxist: A Portrait of Kawakami Hajime, 1879–1946 *153. Lloyd E. Eastman, The Abortive Revolution: China Under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 154. Mark Mason, American Multinationals and Japan: The Political Economy of Japanese Capital Controls, 1899–1980 155. Richard J. Smith, John K. Fairbank, and Katherine F. Bruner, Robert Hart and China’s Early Modernization: His Journals, 1863–1866 156. George J. Tanabe, Jr., Myōe the Dreamkeeper: Fantasy and Knowledge in Kamakura Buddhism 157. William Wayne Farris, Heavenly Warriors: The Evolution of Japan’s Military,

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Harvard East Asian Monographs 170. Denise Potrzeba Lett, In Pursuit of Status: The Making of South Korea’s “New” Urban Middle Class 171. Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan, Hiraizumi: Buddhist Art and Regional Politics in TwelfthCentury Japan 172. Charles Shirō Inouye, The Similitude of Blossoms: A Critical Biography of Izumi Kyōka (1873–1939), Japanese Novelist and Playwright 173. Aviad E. Raz, Riding the Black Ship: Japan and Tokyo Disneyland 174. Deborah J. Milly, Poverty, Equality, and Growth: The Politics of Economic Need in Postwar Japan 175. See Heng Teow, Japan’s Cultural Policy Toward China, 1918–1931: A Comparative Perspective 176. Michael A. Fuller, An Introduction to Literary Chinese 177. Frederick R. Dickinson, War and National Reinvention: Japan in the Great War,

1914–1919 178. John Solt, Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katue (1902–1978) 179. Edward Pratt, Japan’s Protoindustrial Elite: The Economic Foundations of the Gōnō 180. Atsuko Sakaki, Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction 181. Soon-Won Park, Colonial Industrialization and Labor in Korea: The Onoda Cement Factory 182. JaHyun Kim Haboush and Martina Deuchler, Culture and the State in Late Chosŏn Korea 183. John W. Chaffee, Branches of Heaven: A History of the Imperial Clan of Sung China 184. Gi-Wook Shin and Michael Robinson, eds., Colonial Modernity in Korea 185. Nam-lin Hur, Prayer and Play in Late Tokugawa Japan: Asakusa Sensōji and Edo Society 186. Kristin Stapleton, Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895–1937 187. Hyung Il Pai, Constructing “Korean” Origins: A Critical Review of Archaeology, Historiography, and Racial Myth in Korean State-Formation Theories 188. Brian D. Ruppert, Jewel in the Ashes: Buddha Relics and Power in Early Medieval Japan 189. Susan Daruvala, Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity *190. James Z. Lee, The Political Economy of a Frontier: Southwest China, 1250–1850 191. Kerry Smith, A Time of Crisis: Japan, the Great Depression, and Rural Revitalization 192. Michael Lewis, Becoming Apart: National Power and Local Politics in Toyama,

1868–1945 193. William C. Kirby, Man-houng Lin, James Chin Shih, and David A. Pietz, eds., State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars 194. Timothy S. George, Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan 195. Billy K. L. So, Prosperity, Region, and Institutions in Maritime China: The South Fukien Pattern, 946–1368 196. Yoshihisa Tak Matsusaka, The Making of Japanese Manchuria, 1904–1932

Harvard East Asian Monographs 197. Maram Epstein, Competing Discourses: Orthodoxy, Authenticity, and Engendered Meanings in Late Imperial Chinese Fiction 198. Curtis J. Milhaupt, J. Mark Ramseyer, and Michael K. Young, eds. and comps., Japanese Law in Context: Readings in Society, the Economy, and Politics 199. Haruo Iguchi, Unfinished Business: Ayukawa Yoshisuke and U.S.-Japan Relations,

1937–1952 200. Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro, and Patricia Ebrey, Culture and Power in the Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, 200–600 201. Terry Kawashima, Writing Margins: The Textual Construction of Gender in Heian and Kamakura Japan 202. Martin W. Huang, Desire and Fictional Narrative in Late Imperial China 203. Robert S. Ross and Jiang Changbin, eds., Re-examining the Cold War: U.S.-China Diplomacy, 1954–1973 204. Guanhua Wang, In Search of Justice: The 1905–1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott 205. David Schaberg, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography 206. Christine Yano, Tears of Longing: Nostalgia and the Nation in Japanese Popular Song 207. Milena Doleželová-Velingerová and Oldřich Král, with Graham Sanders, eds., The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Project 208. Robert N. Huey, The Making of ‘Shinkokinshū’ 209. Lee Butler, Emperor and Aristocracy in Japan, 1467–1680: Resilience and Renewal 210. Suzanne Ogden, Inklings of Democracy in China 211. Kenneth J. Ruoff, The People’s Emperor: Democracy and the Japanese Monarchy,

1945–1995 212. Haun Saussy, Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China 213. Aviad E. Raz, Emotions at Work: Normative Control, Organizations, and Culture in Japan and America 214. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow, eds., Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China 215. Kevin O’Rourke, The Book of Korean Shijo 216. Ezra F. Vogel, ed., The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle,

1972–1989 217. Thomas A. Wilson, ed., On Sacred Grounds: Culture, Society, Politics, and the Formation of the Cult of Confucius 218. Donald S. Sutton, Steps of Perfection: Exorcistic Performers and Chinese Religion in Twentieth-Century Taiwan 219. Daqing Yang, Technology of Empire: Telecommunications and Japanese Expansionism in Asia, 1883–1945 220. Qianshen Bai, Fu Shan’s World: The Transformation of Chinese Calligraphy in the Seventeenth Century 221. Paul Jakov Smith and Richard von Glahn, eds., The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History 222. Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative 223. Jordan Sand, House and Home in Modern Japan: Architecture, Domestic Space, and Bourgeois Culture, 1880–1930

Harvard East Asian Monographs 224. Karl Gerth, China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation 225. Xiaoshan Yang, Metamorphosis of the Private Sphere: Gardens and Objects in Tang-Song Poetry 226. Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912 227. Joyce A. Madancy, The Troublesome Legacy of Commissioner Lin: The Opium Trade and Opium Suppression in Fujian Province, 1820s to 1920s 228. John Makeham, Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects 229. Elisabeth Köll, From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China 230. Emma Teng, Taiwan’s Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 231. Wilt Idema and Beata Grant, The Red Brush: Writing Women of Imperial China 232. Eric C. Rath, The Ethos of Noh: Actors and Their Art 233. Elizabeth Remick, Building Local States: China During the Republican and PostMao Eras 234. Lynn Struve, ed., The Qing Formation in World-Historical Time 235. D. Max Moerman, Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan 236. Antonia Finnane, Speaking of Yangzhou: A Chinese City, 1550–1850 237. Brian Platt, Burning and Building: Schooling and State Formation in Japan, 1750–1890 238. Gail Bernstein, Andrew Gordon, and Kate Wildman Nakai, eds., Public Spheres, Private Lives in Modern Japan, 1600–1950: Essays in Honor of Albert Craig 239. Wu Hung and Katherine R. Tsiang, Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture 240. Stephen Dodd, Writing Home: Representations of the Native Place in Modern Japanese Literature 241. David Anthony Bello, Opium and the Limits of Empire: Drug Prohibition in the Chinese Interior, 1729–1850 242. Hosea Hirata, Discourses of Seduction: History, Evil, Desire, and Modern Japanese Literature 243. Kyung Moon Hwang, Beyond Birth: Social Status in the Emergence of Modern Korea 244. Brian R. Dott, Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China 245. Mark McNally, Proving the Way: Conflict and Practice in the History of Japanese Nativism 246. Yongping Wu, A Political Explanation of Economic Growth: State Survival, Bureaucratic Politics, and Private Enterprises in the Making of Taiwan’s Economy, 1950–1985 247. Kyu Hyun Kim, The Age of Visions and Arguments: Parliamentarianism and the National Public Sphere in Early Meiji Japan 248. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China 249. David Der-wei Wang and Shang Wei, eds., Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late Ming to the Late Qing and Beyond

Harvard East Asian Monographs 250. Wilt L. Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer, eds., Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature 251. Barbara Molony and Kathleen Uno, eds., Gendering Modern Japanese History 252. Hiroshi Aoyagi, Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan 253. Wai-yee Li, The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography 254. William C. Kirby, Robert S. Ross, and Gong Li, eds., Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History 255. Ellen Gardner Nakamura, Practical Pursuits: Takano Chōei, Takahashi Keisaku, and Western Medicine in Nineteenth-Century Japan 256. Jonathan W. Best, A History of the Early Korean Kingdom of Paekche, together with an annotated translation of The Paekche Annals of the Samguk sagi 257. Liang Pan, The United Nations in Japan’s Foreign and Security Policymaking, 1945– 1992: National Security, Party Politics, and International Status 258. Richard Belsky, Localities at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial Beijing 259. Zwia Lipkin, “Useless to the State”: “Social Problems” and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing, 1927–1937 260. William O. Gardner, Advertising Tower: Japanese Modernism and Modernity in the 1920s 261. Stephen Owen, The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry 262. Martin J. Powers, Pattern and Person: Ornament, Society, and Self in Classical China 263. Anna M. Shields, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Huajian ji 花間集 (Collection from Among the Flowers) 264. Stephen Owen, The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827–860) 265. Sara L. Friedman, Intimate Politics: Marriage, the Market, and State Power in Southeastern China 266. Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics 267. Sophie Volpp, Worldly Stage: Theatricality in Seventeenth-Century China 268. Ellen Widmer, The Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in NineteenthCentury China 269. Steven B. Miles, The Sea of Learning: Mobility and Identity in NineteenthCentury Guangzhou 270. Lin Man-houng, China Upside Down: Currency, Society, and Ideologies, 1808–1856 271. Ronald Egan, The Problem of Beauty: Aesthetic Thought and Pursuits in Northern Song Dynasty China 272. Mark Halperin, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives on Buddhism in Sung China,

960–1279 273. Helen Dunstan, State or Merchant? Political Economy and Political Process in 1740s China 274. Sabina Knight, The Heart of Time: Moral Agency in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction 275. Timothy J. Van Compernolle, The Uses of Memory: The Critique of Modernity in the Fiction of Higuchi Ichiyō

Harvard East Asian Monographs 276. Paul Rouzer, A New Practical Primer of Literary Chinese 277. Jonathan Zwicker, Practices of the Sentimental Imagination: Melodrama, the Novel, and the Social Imaginary in Nineteenth-Century Japan 278. Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945–2005 279. Adam L. Kern, Manga from the Floating World: Comicbook Culture and the Kibyōshi of Edo Japan 280. Cynthia J. Brokaw, Commerce in Culture: The Sibao Book Trade in the Qing and Republican Periods 281. Eugene Y. Park, Between Dreams and Reality: The Military Examination in Late Chosŏn Korea, 1600–1894 282. Nam-lin Hur, Death and Social Order in Tokugawa Japan: Buddhism, Anti-Christianity, and the Danka System 283. Patricia M. Thornton, Disciplining the State: Virtue, Violence, and State-Making in Modern China 284. Vincent Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics 285. Peter Nickerson, Taoism, Bureaucracy, and Popular Religion in Early Medieval China 286. Charo B. D’Etcheverry, Love After The Tale of Genji: Rewriting the World of the Shining Prince 287. Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring & the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680–1785 288. Carol Richmond Tsang, War and Faith: Ikkō Ikki in Late Muromachi Japan 289. Hilde De Weerdt, Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127 –1279) 290. Eve Zimmerman, Out of the Alleyway: Nakagami Kenji and the Poetics of Outcaste Fiction 291. Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912–1940 292. Richard J. Smethurst, From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s Keynes 293. John E. Herman, Amid the Clouds and Mist: China’s Colonization of Guizhou, 1200–

1700 294. Tomoko Shiroyama, China During the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929–1937 295. Kirk W. Larsen, Tradition, Treaties and Trade: Qing Imperialism and Chosŏn Korea, 1850–1910 296. Gregory Golley, When Our Eyes No Longer See: Realism, Science, and Ecology in Japanese Literary Modernism 297. Barbara Ambros, Emplacing a Pilgrimage: The Ōyama Cult and Regional Religion in Early Modern Japan 298. Rebecca Suter, The Japanization of Modernity: Murakami Haruki between Japan and the United States 299. Yuma Totani, The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II

Harvard East Asian Monographs 300. Linda Isako Angst, In a Dark Time: Memory, Community, and Gendered Nationalism in Postwar Okinawa 301. David M. Robinson, ed., Culture, Courtiers, and Competition: The Ming Court (1368– 1644) 302. Calvin Chen, Some Assembly Required: Work, Community, and Politics in China’s Rural Enterprises 303. Sem Vermeersch, The Power of the Buddhas: The Politics of Buddhism During the Koryŏ Dynasty (918–1392) 304. Tina Lu, Accidental Incest, Filial Cannibalism, and Other Peculiar Encounters in Late Imperial Chinese Literature 305. Chang Woei Ong, Men of Letters Within the Passes: Guanzhong Literati in Chinese History, 907–1911 306. Wendy Swartz, Reading Tao Yuanming: Shifting Paradigms of Historical Reception (427–1900) 307. Peter K. Bol, Neo-Confucianism in History 308. Carlos Rojas, The Naked Gaze: Reflections on Chinese Modernity 309. Kelly H. Chong, Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea 310. Rachel DiNitto, Uchida Hyakken: A Critique of Modernity and Militarism in Prewar Japan 311. Jeffrey Snyder-Reinke, Dry Spells: State Rainmaking and Local Governance in Late Imperial China 312. Jay Dautcher, Down a Narrow Road: Identity and Masculinity in a Uyghur Community in Xinjiang China 313. Xun Liu, Daoist Modern: Innovation, Lay Practice, and the Community of Inner Alchemy in Republican Shanghai 314. Jacob Eyferth, Eating Rice from Bamboo Roots: The Social History of a Community of Handicraft Papermakers in Rural Sichuan, 1920–2000 315. David Johnson, Spectacle and Sacrifice: The Ritual Foundations of Village Life in North China 316. James Robson, Power of Place: The Religious Landscape of the Southern Sacred Peak (Nanyue 南嶽) in Medieval China 317. Lori Watt, When Empire Comes Home: Repatriation and Reintegration in Postwar Japan 318. James Dorsey, Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan 319. Christopher Bolton, Sublime Voices: The Fictional Science and Scientific Fiction of Abe Kōbō 320. Si-yen Fei, Negotiating Urban Space: Urbanization and Late Ming Nanjing 321. Christopher Gerteis, Gender Struggles: Wage-Earning Women and Male-Dominated Unions in Postwar Japan 322. Rebecca Nedostup, Superstitious Regimes: Religion and the Politics of Chinese Modernity 323. Lucien Bianco, Wretched Rebels: Rural Disturbances on the Eve of the Chinese Revolution 324. Cathryn H. Clayton, Sovereignty at the Edge: Macau and the Question of Chineseness 325. Micah S. Muscolino, Fishing Wars and Environmental Change in Late Imperial and Modern China

Harvard East Asian Monographs 326. Robert I. Hellyer, Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1750–1868 327. Robert Ashmore, The Transport of Reading: Text and Understanding in the World of Tao Qian (365–427) 328. Mark A. Jones, Children as Treasures: Childhood and the Middle Class in Early Twentieth Century Japan 329. Miryam Sas, Experimental Arts in Postwar Japan: Moments of Encounter, Engagement, and Imagined Return 330. H. Mack Horton, Traversing the Frontier: The Man’yōshū Account of a Japanese Mission to Silla in 736–737 331. Dennis J. Frost, Seeing Stars: Sports Celebrity, Identity, and Body Culture in Modern Japan 332. Marnie S. Anderson, A Place in Public: Women’s Rights in Meiji Japan 333. Peter Mauch, Sailor Diplomat: Nomura Kichisaburō and the Japanese-American War 334. Ethan Isaac Segal, Coins, Trade, and the State: Economic Growth in Early Medieval Japan 335. David B. Lurie, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing

Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Selected Titles (Complete list at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/weatherhead-studies.html) Planning for Empire: Reform Bureaucrats and the Japanese Wartime State, by Janis Mimura. Cornell University Press, 2011. Passage to Manhood: Youth Migration, Heroin, and AIDS in Southwest China, by Shao-hua Liu. Stanford University Press, 2010. Imperial Japan at Its Zenith: The Wartime Celebration of the Empire’s 2,600th Anniversary, by Kenneth J. Ruoff. Cornell University Press, 2010. Behind the Gate: Inventing Students in Beijing, by Fabio Lanza. Columbia University Press, 2010. Postwar History Education in Japan and the Germanys: Guilty Lessons, by Julian Dierkes. Routledge, 2010. The Aesthetics of Japanese Fascism, by Alan Tansman. University of California Press, 2009. The Growth Idea: Purpose and Prosperity in Postwar Japan, by Scott O’Bryan. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009. National History and the World of Nations: Capital, State, and the Rhetoric of History in Japan, France, and the United States, by Christopher Hill. Duke University Press, 2008. Leprosy in China: A History, by Angela Ki Che Leung. Columbia University Press, 2008. Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan, by Kim Brandt. Duke University Press, 2007. Mediasphere Shanghai: The Aesthetics of Cultural Production, by Alexander Des Forges. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007. Modern Passings: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan, by Andrew Bernstein. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006. The Making of the “Rape of Nanjing”: The History and Memory of the Nanjing Massacre in Japan, China, and the United States, by Takashi Yoshida. Oxford University Press, 2006. Bad Youth: Juvenile Delinquency and the Politics of Everyday Life in Modern Japan, 1895–1945, by David Ambaras. University of California Press, 2005. Rearranging the Landscape of the Gods: The Politics of a Pilgrimage Site in Japan, 1573–1912, by Sarah Thal. University of Chicago Press, 2005. The Merchants of Zigong: Industrial Entrepreneurship in Early Modern China, by Madeleine Zelin. Columbia University Press, 2005. Science and the Building of a Modern Japan, by Morris Low. Palgrave Macmillan, Ltd., 2005. Kinship, Contract, Community, and State: Anthropological Perspectives on China, by Myron L. Cohen. Stanford University Press, 2005.