Preface — Yasumaro presents the book序

Your servant (臣) Yasumaro (安萬侶) speaks.

Now when the mingled beginning had already congealed, breath and form had not yet shown themselves. There was no name and no doing, so who could know its shape? Yet when heaven and earth first parted, three gods became the head of all making. When the yin and the yang opened here, two spirits became the ancestors of the host of kinds.

And so they passed in and out of the hidden and the shown, and the sun and the moon appeared when the eyes were washed. They sank and floated in the sea water, and the gods came forth when the body was cleansed. Therefore, though the great beginning is dark and far off, we know by the root teaching the time when the soil was conceived and the islands were born. Though the first origin is distant and dim, we look by the former sages upon the age when the gods were born and men were set up.

Truly we know this. The mirror was hung and the jewel was spat out, and a hundred kings followed one another. The sword was bitten and the serpent was cut, and the myriad gods increased. They took counsel at Yasugawa (安河) and made all under heaven level. They spoke together at Ohama (小濱) and made the land clean.

And so Ninigi no Mikoto (番仁岐命) first came down upon the peak of Takachiho, and Emperor Kamuyamato (神倭天皇) made his way through Akizushima (秋津嶋). A thing changed into a bear and showed its claws, and the heavenly sword was got at Takakura (高倉). A thing grew a tail and blocked the road, and a great crow led the way to Yoshino (吉野). They set out dances and drove off the robbers. They listened to a song and brought the foe to submit.

One awoke from a dream and honored the gods, and for this he is called a wise sovereign. Another looked out at the smoke and comforted the common people, and to this day he is handed down as a holy emperor. The fixing of the borders and the opening of the realm were settled at Chikatsuafumi (近淡海). The setting right of surnames and the choosing of clans were graven at Tohotsuasuka (遠飛鳥).

Their pace, swift or slow, was different in each case, and adornment and substance were not the same. Yet there was none who did not look back to the old to set straight the ways that had already fallen, and shine light on the present to mend the laws and teachings that were about to break off.

Who ruled the great eight islands from the great palace of Asuka Kiyomihara (飛鳥清原大宮)

When it came to the age of the emperor, the hidden dragon kept to the root and the repeated thunder answered its time. By a song heard in a dream he thought of taking up the great work. By casting into the water at night he knew that he would receive the foundation.

Yet the time given by heaven had not yet come, and he withdrew at Nanzan (南山) as a cicada slips its shell. When the affairs of men ripened together, he walked like a tiger in the eastern land. The imperial carriage suddenly went forth and crossed mountains and streams. The six hosts thundered, and the three armies ran like lightning. He leaned on his spear and raised his power, and fierce warriors rose like smoke. The crimson banners made the soldiers shine, and the evil crowd broke apart like roof tiles.

Not twelve days had passed before the disordered air cleared of itself. Then he loosed the oxen and rested the horses and came back to the capital with a gentle face. The banners were furled and the halberds put away, and dancing and singing stayed on in the city.

When the year stood in Daliang (大梁), the year of the cock, and the month trod on Jiazhong (挾鍾), the second month, he ascended the throne of the Son of Heaven at the great palace of Kiyomihara. His way outran the sovereign Xuanyuan (軒轅), and his virtue overtopped the kings of Zhou. He grasped the tally of heaven and gathered in the six directions. He gained the great line of heaven and enfolded the eight far ends. He rode the rightness of the two breaths and set in order the courses of the five elements. He set up the divine pattern to lead the customs, and spread a fine air to widen the land.

Beyond this, the sea of his wisdom was vast and wide, and he searched deep into the far past. The mirror of his heart was bright and shining, and he saw the former ages clearly.

Then the emperor said, "I hear that the imperial chronicles and the root words held by the various houses have already departed from the truth, and that much falsehood has been added to them. If their errors are not corrected now, their meaning will perish before many years have passed. These are the warp and the weft of the state, the great foundation of the sovereign's rule. Therefore I would have the imperial chronicles chosen and set down and the old words examined and sifted, the false pared away and the true fixed, so that they may flow down to the later ages."

At that time there was a toneri (舍人) whose surname was Hieda (稗田) and whose name was Are (阿禮), and he was twenty-eight years old. He was clever by nature. What passed before his eyes he recited with his mouth, and what brushed his ears he graved on his heart. The emperor then commanded Are to recite and learn the succession of the sovereigns and the old words of the former ages.

But fortune shifted and the age changed, and the work was not yet carried out.

Bowing low, I consider

His Majesty the Emperor has gained the One and dwells broadly. He reaches through the Three and nurtures all alike. He sits in Zichen (紫宸), and his virtue covers the farthest place a horse's hoof can reach. He sits at Xuanhu (玄扈), and his teaching shines as far as the prow of a ship can come.

The sun floats up with doubled light, and the clouds scatter and are no mere smoke. Omens of joined branches and twinned ears of grain are written in the histories without end. Tribute borne by relays of beacons and by repeated interpreters leaves no month empty in the treasury. It may be said that his name stands higher than Wenming (文命) and his virtue crowns that of Tianyi (天乙).

Then, grieving that the old words had gone awry and wishing to set right the errors of the former records, on the eighteenth day of the ninth month of the fourth year of Wado (和銅) he commanded your servant Yasumaro, "Choose and set down the imperial words and the old words that Hieda no Are has recited, and present them." I have followed the command with care and gathered them out one by one.

But in the far past speech and meaning were both plain, and when one spreads out the writing and frames the phrases it is hard to set them down in graphs. If one tells it wholly by the meanings of the graphs, the words do not reach the heart. If one strings it wholly by their sounds, the sense of the matter grows too long.

So now, within a single phrase I have sometimes mixed sound and meaning, and within a single matter I have sometimes set it down wholly by meaning. Where the sense of the words is hard to see I have made it plain with a note, and where the meaning is easy to grasp I have added no note. Again, the 日下 of a surname is called Kusaka, and the graph 帶 in a name is called Tarashi. Such things I have left as they were and not changed.

What is set down here runs from the opening of heaven and earth to the age of Oharida (小治田). Therefore from Ame no Minakanushi no Kami (天御中主神) down to Hikonagisatake Ugayafukiaezu no Mikoto (日子波限建鵜草葺不合命) makes the first book. From Emperor Kamuyamato Iwarebiko (神倭伊波禮毗古天皇) down to the age of Homuda (品陀) makes the middle book. From the emperor Ohosazaki (大雀) down to the great palace of Oharida (小治田大宮) makes the last book.

All of it is set down in three books and respectfully presented. Your servant Yasumaro, in true fear and true dread, bows his head, bows his head.

The twenty-eighth day of the first month of the fifth year of Wado (和銅). Oho Asomi (太朝臣) Yasumaro, of the Senior Fifth Rank Upper and the Fifth Order of Merit.