Wajinden

The ''Wajinden'' refers to the passages in the 30th volume of the Chinese history chronicle ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' that talk about the Wa people who would later be known as the Japanese people. It describes the mores, geography, and other aspects of the Wa, the people and inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago at the time. The ''Records of the Three Kingdoms'' was written by Chen Shou of the Western Jin Dynasty at the end of the 3rd century (between 280 ( Demise of Wu) and 297, the year of Chen Shou's death).

Overview

There was no independent biography called "Wajinden" in "records of the three kingdoms".、and the description of Yamato is part of the "Biography of Wei", vol. 30, "Biography of Wushan Sunbei Dongbi". Therefore, some believe that it is meaningless unless one reads not only the article on the Yamato but also the whole of the Biography of the Eastern Yi.. Yoshihiro Watanabe, a researcher of "Records of the Three Kingdoms," states that, like the "Book of Wei" in "Sanguozhi," the "Biography of Wei" was not written by the author Chen Shou during his actual visits to the Korean Peninsula and Japan, but was written based on rumors and reports from people who had visited the Korean Peninsula and Japan, and its authenticity is questionable. He further recommended that "the worldview and political situation of Chen Shou (233-297), the author of the "Records of the Three Kingdoms," be examined not only by reading through all 370,000 characters of the "Records of the Three Kingdoms" (the notes by Pei Songzhi (372-451) are comparable to the text with about 360,000 characters), but also by reading the "Records of the Three Kingdoms" as Chen Shou's You have to be familiar with the Confucian scriptures (keiten) that form the worldview to understand it.".

For the first time in the official history of China, a comprehensive article about the Japanese archipelago has been written. The "Book of the Later Han" Touden is older, but the "Sangokushi" Wajinden was written earlier. In the Kodansha academic library "Wakokuden", "Gohansho" is recorded first.

The book describes the existence of a country in Wa (some say later Japan) at that time, centered on the country of Yamatai (Yamai-Kuni), as well as the existence of countries that did not belong to the queen, with descriptions of their locations, official names, and lifestyles. This book also describes the customs, flora and fauna of the Japanese people of the time, and serves as a historical record of the Japanese archipelago in the 3rd century.

However, it is not necessarily an accurate representation of the situation of the Japanese archipelago at that time, which has been a cause of controversy regarding the Yamataikoku
On the other hand, there are also some researchers such as Okada Hidehiro who cast doubt on the value of the "Weijing Wajinden" as a historical document. Okada stated that there were large discrepancies in the location and mileage and that it lacked credibility..Takaraga Hisao said, "The "Wei zhi wan ren" is not complete, and it cannot be regarded as a contemporaneous historical material because of the lack of total consistency and the long transcription period..Although it is certain that the "Wei biography" predates the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," there are many errors in the surviving anecdotes. In addition, Yoshihiro Watanabe stated that the "Wei Ji Wa Jinden" contains "many biases (distorted descriptions) due to the internal politics and diplomacy of Cao Wei

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