The ''Kojiki-den'' (古事記伝) is a 44-volume commentary on the ''

Kojiki The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperia ...

'' written by the ''

kokugaku ''Kokugaku'' ( ja, 國學, label= Kyūjitai, ja, 国学, label=Shinjitai; literally "national study") was an academic movement, a school of Japanese philology and philosophy originating during the Tokugawa period. Kokugaku scholars worked to r ...

'' scholar

Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese scholar of ''Kokugaku'' active during the Edo period. He is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies. Life Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka in Ise Province (now part of Mie ...

Overview

The ''Kojiki-den'' is a commentary on the ''

'', an eighth-century work of

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

historiography and mythology, by the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

'' scholar

Background

Motoori Norinaga was attracted to Shinto, as well as ''

waka Waka may refer to: Culture and language * Waka (canoe), a Polynesian word for canoe; especially, canoes of the Māori of New Zealand ** Waka ama, a Polynesian outrigger canoe ** Waka hourua, a Polynesian ocean-going canoe ** Waka taua, a Māori w ...

'' and ''

monogatari is a literary form in traditional Japanese literature – an extended prose narrative tale comparable to the epic novel. ''Monogatari'' is closely tied to aspects of the oral tradition, and almost always relates a fictional or fictionali ...

'', from a young age. While studying in

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

in the seventh month of the sixth year of

Hōreki , also known as Horyaku, was a after '' Kan'en'' and before ''Meiwa''. The period spanned the years from October 1751 through June 1764. The reigning emperor and empress were and .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834 ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', p. 41 ...

(1756), he purchased a copy of the

Kan'ei was a after ''Genna'' and before ''Shōhō.'' This period spanned the years from February 1624 through December 1644. The reigning emperors and empress were , and .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834) ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', p. 411./ref> Chang ...

edition of the ''Kojiki'', so it is thought that he read the work shortly after this point. His early writings following this date, such as the 1758 '' Aware Ben'' (安波礼弁) and '' Ashiwake Obune'' (排蘆小船) were more focused on the '' Nihon Shoki''. In the 1761 '' Ame Tsuchi no Ben'' (阿毎菟知弁), he had moved toward placing more value on linguistic scholarship and attacked the ''Nihon Shoki''s

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

for being a barrier to research into the ancient Japanese language.

Publication

The ''Kojiki-den'' was completed in Kansei 10 (1798). It is in 44 books, first published in 44 volumes. The first five books were first printed in 1790, with books 6 through 11 following two years later. Books 12 through 17 were printed in 1797. The rest of the work was not published until Bunsei 5 (1822), after Norinaga's death. The first editions were printed in Nagoya by Eirakuya Tōshirō (永楽屋東四郎) and others.

Textual tradition

According to the 1983 ''

Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten Nihon Koten Bungaku Daijiten (Japanese: 日本古典文学大辞典) is a reference work about Japanese literature published by Iwanami Shoten circa 1983-1985. References External links * CiNii CiNii () is a bibliographic database service for ...

''s article on the ''Kojiki-den'', written by (1919–1980), Norinaga's original manuscripts for books 17, 18, 19, and 21 through 44 (27 books, 22 volumes), and secondary manuscripts for all 44 books (except for book 3, which is represented by a tertiary manuscript), are in the holdings of the Museum of Motoori Norinaga (本居宣長記念館 ''Motoori Norinaga Kinenkan''). The secondary manuscript for book 3 is in the holdings of the

Tenri Central Library Tenri Central Library (天理大学附属天理図書館 ''Tenri Daigaku Fuzoku Tenri Toshokan'') is the library of Tenri University. It has notably extensive collections in antiquarian material, including original manuscripts from 13th-century Jap ...

References

Works cited

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kojikiden 1798 non-fiction books Motoori Norinaga Kojiki Edo-period works Shinto texts