The Possibility of the Existence of the First Emperor Jinmu
- EPOCH
- 3 days ago
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Hirohito Tsuji | University of East Anglia
The Imperial Family of Japan is characterised by its mythological roots, and it is also the oldest existing monarchy in the world. From the first Emperor Jinmu to the present day, the imperial line has been carried on by a paternal line for 126 generations, and there has never been a change of dynasty. The eight empresses (female emperors) are also of male line, and their accession to the throne were as one-point reliefs in the imperial genealogy. This is why members of the Imperial Family do not have surnames.
The achievements of Emperor Jinmu and other ancient emperors are recorded in Kojiki and Nihonshoki, the oldest surviving books in Japan. Kojiki was compiled by court nobleman Ō no Yasumaro in 712 AD and uses the annals-biographies form style in classical Japanese. Nihonshoki was compiled in 720 AD by the 40th Emperor Temmu's sixth son, Prince Toneri, Ki no Kiyohito, and Miyake no Fujimaro, among others, using the annalistic form style in classical Chinese. The former contains waka poems and songs and has a strong literary flavour, whereas the latter is a full-fledged history book that also contains many different theories.
According to Kojiki and Nihonshoki, the Japanese archipelago was created by the deity couple Izanagi-no-Mikoto and Izanami-no-Mikoto. Their eldest daughter, the sun goddess Amaterasu-Ōmikami, is regarded as the central deity of Shinto. She proclaimed that Japan should be ruled by her descendants and sent her grandson, Ninigi-no-Mikoto, down from the heavenly realm to Takachiho in Kyūshū. The great-grandson of Ninigi-no-Mikoto was Emperor Jinmu.
In 667 BC, Emperor Jinmu consulted his brothers about where it would be appropriate for him to go to rule and unify Japan in earnest. They decided to go east, noting that their relative and compatriot Nigihayahi-no-Mikoto had preceded them into Nara. On the way, they defeated or subjugated the raging deities and powerful tribes in various regions and finally arrived in Kashihara. He established a palace capital there, and on the 11 February 660 BC, ascended the throne as the first emperor of Japan. According to Nihonshoki, he died at the age of 127. On the other hand, Kojiki describes that he passed away at 137 years old. The history of Emperor Jinmu was celebrated before the Second World War, while after the war, his existence was denied.
In the medieval period, the decline in the power of the court due to the growth of the samurai class caused the presence of Emperor Jinmu to fade and the location of his mausoleum was lost. In early modern times, when learning became popular even among the working class due to the development of printing technology, Emperor Jinmu's importance as the first emperor was reassessed. Research was also carried out into the location of the missing mausoleum, and several promising sites were identified.
In 1853, an American naval fleet suddenly arrived in Japan and forced the country to open with its military force, and with that, the Japanese modern era began. At the time the 121st Emperor Kōmei felt a strong sense of crisis and feared that Japan would be invaded by the West and turned into a colony if nothing was done, so he strengthened rituals at Shinto shrines and the mausoleums of successive emperors. For this reason, the location of Emperor Jinmu's Mausoleum was officially decided upon, and extensive restorations were carried out.
After the abolition of the Shogunate, the new Meiji government began deifying Emperor Jinmu. The 11 February, the anniversary of Emperor Jinmu's enthronement, and 3 April, the anniversary of Emperor Jinmu's death, became bank holidays as 'National Foundation Day' and 'Emperor Jinmu Festival'. Rituals were held by the emperor at the Imperial Palace and Emperor Jinmu's mausoleum. Kashihara Grand Shrine was established near Emperor Jinmu's mausoleum and was listed as one of the highest-ranking Shinto shrines, apart from the Grand Shrines of Ise. The imperial edict issued by Emperor Jinmu at the time of his accession to the Throne, 'eight crown cords, one roof’, was the ideal that everyone in the world is equal under the emperor and lives in peace like a family without any discrimination. It came to be used on various occasions as a slogan to increase the national power of the Empire of Japan and unify the people. This concept was not necessarily based on academic research but rather had a strong political flavour. Although more than half of the then-branch families of the Imperial House were quite distantly related to the emperor, they were treated as royals with the right to succeed to the throne because they were related to the paternal line of Emperor Jinmu.
This is not to say that there were no opposition movements. For example, in 1939, the ancient historian Tsuda Sōkichi critically discussed Kojiki and Nihonshoki, arguing that the two books were invented to explain that emperors had ruled the land from ancient times and had no value as historical facts at all and that the early emperors, including Emperor Jinmu, were created and mythological figures. Generally, it is quite rare for ancient historians to completely dismiss ancient texts. This was condemned by the media as disrespectful; his publications were banned by the government, and he was prosecuted for violating the Publication Law. Under the Empire of Japan, such discussions were not permitted, even if these were academic research.
After the Second World War, the US military occupation of Japan implemented various reforms, believing that the sanctity views for the Imperial Family and Shinto were fuelling nationalist ideology. Shinto shrines were separated from state institutions, and Kashihara Grand Shrine became a single religious corporation. In addition, the names of many Japanese bank holidays were changed to remove veneration for the emperor, as many of them were derived from Shinto rituals, while 3 April and 11 February were removed from bank holidays as having no historical basis. Eleven branch families of the Imperial House who had distant blood ties to the emperor were expelled from the Imperial Family.
In the academic and discursive circles, communists, who had previously been ostracised as dangerous ideologues, became acceptable in the immediate post-war years, and Tsuda's theories were highly praised as the result of meticulous research. Generally, those were more liberal than previously dominant historians. Tsuda himself took the position that the reality of the early emperors and the documentary value of Kojiki and Nihonshoki should be considered separately. However, after the war, positive opinions on Emperor Jinmu were dominated by almost only conservatives or right-wingers, and it was difficult to speak freely in the opposite sense from the pre-war period. In historical academia, it was interpreted that the descriptions before the sixth century in Kojiki and Nihonshoki were nothing but fictional myths, and the view that the emperors before the 26th Emperor Keitai in the first half of the sixth century were legendary figures became mainstream. However, the basis for this negative opinion is often based on the assumption that they must be false, and it is difficult to say whether sufficient debate has been devoted to the subject based on historical and archaeological studies. Japanese historian/archaeologist Okada Noboru argues that the entire Japanese academic community has not been thinking.
One of the main grounds for rejecting Kojiki and Nihonshoki is that some early emperors, including Emperor Jinmu, had unusually long lifespans and were therefore insubstantial. However, it seems that Nihonshoki was written for a foreign audience, particularly China, and that the dates of the early emperors were deliberately manipulated, rather than being insubstantial. The key is the Ten Stems and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, the unit of year in the East Asian sphere. Emperor Jinmu began his journey in the year of +Wood Tiger, which the Chinese character dictionary Erya in the pre-Han era positions as the first year of the zodiac cycle. Also, Nihonshoki states that Emperor Jinmu's accession to the Throne was the day of +Metal Dragon, the first day of January of the year of the -Metal Rooster. The converted date into the solar calendar should be 11 February 660 BC. According to the I-Ching theory, a philosophy emphasised in ancient China, every 21 times (i.e. every 1260 years) the year of the -Metal Rooster is the year in which a great revolution by heavenly decree takes place. I-Chann’s author is not strictly known, but legend has it that Fu Xi was the author of the Hexagram and Dan, Duke of Zhou the author of the text.
The most recent -Metal Rooster year since the reign of the 40th Emperor Temmu, who ordered the compilation of Kojiki, was in 601, the reign of his great-great-grand aunt, the 33rd Empress Suiko. The next year 1260 years back from 601 is 660 BC. The date of 1 January itself is also an auspicious New Year's Day. I believe that this is why the date was set so long past, and why some emperors had to have unusually long lifespans. If Kojiki and Nihonshoki were completely spurious, they would have increased the number of fictitious emperors to make them more consistent. However, it is reasonable to assume that fabrication was not possible because not only were the names of successive emperors recited in a ceremony at each succession to the throne, but also because each clan outside the Imperial Family had traditions about successive emperors that were passed down from their ancestors. Kojiki and Nihonshoki contain episodes of mad emperors, succession to the throne from very distant relatives and the fact that the first Imperial Place was Kyūshū, not Nara. In general, these must be unfavourable to the legitimacy of the Imperial Family. It is unnatural that such episodes are contained if they are simply fictions.
So, when did Emperor Jinmu exist? 660 BC was in the Jōmon culture, but the references to Emperor Jinmu in Kojiki and Nihonshoki are clearly under the Yayoi culture. A clue can be found in the results of archaeological research. Some archaeologists now believe that the Hashihaka Kofun in Nara is the tomb of Queen Himiko, the Queen of Yamataikoku, but Nihonshoki states that it is the tomb of Princess Yamato Totoso Momoso, the daughter of the 10th Emperor Sujin. If Nihonshoki is correct, the nearby Makimuku ruins can be regarded as the palace capital of Emperor Sujin. Radiocarbon dating has shown that this tomb was built around the middle of the third century. This is consistent with Kojiki and Sumiyoshi taisha jindaiki placing the death of Emperor Sujin in the year of +Earth Dragon, in other words, 258 AD. In 1978, an iron sword discovered in the Inariyama burial mound in Saitama was inscribed with the name King Wakatakeru, the Chinese name of the 21st Emperor Yūryaku. It could be seen as proving Emperor Yūryaku's existence. The sword is also inscribed with the genealogy of Owake, a vassal of Emperor Yūryaku, and his ancestor eight generations earlier, Ōhiko, is thought to be the same person as Emperor Sujin's vassal Ōhiko. If we assume that there were eleven generations from Emperor Yūryaku to Emperor Sujin, and eight generations from Owake to Ōhiko, a period of approximately 200 years, the average of one generation would be about 18 to 25 years. Therefore, it can be hypothesised that Emperor Jinmu's reign was around the first century AD, which was the middle or late Yayoi period. This is also consistent with the description in Nihonshoki. In addition, not only do the routes of Emperor Jinmu’s expedition and the introduction of rice cultivation coincide to an odd degree, but in the mid to late Yayoi period, there were also major social changes in the area surrounding Nara, with the dismantling of several stronghold settlements, the development of many smaller settlements, and the decline of sanukite stone tool production. This cannot be put down to coincidence alone.
As mentioned above, the results of historical and archaeological research show the possibility that the existence of Emperor Jinmu was not necessarily entirely fictitious. Of course, it is out of the question to regard Kojiki and Nihonshoki as absolutes, as was the case before the war, but to deny them entirely without even a thorough examination is not scholarly. It is important to have the humility to analyse what can be read from the documents left behind by our ancestors, and to bear in mind.
Further Reading
John S. Brownlee, Japanese Historians and the National Myths, 1600-1945: The Age of the Gods and Emperor Jinmu (University of British Columbia Press, University of Tokyo Press, 1997).
Peter Martin, The Chrysanthemum Throne: A History of the Emperors of Japan (University of Hawai'i Press, 1997).
Ben-Amy Shillony, ed., Critical Readings on the Emperors of Japan (Brill, 2012).
Kiyoshi Shimizu, ed., Jinmu Tennō Ron (Kokusho Kankōkai, 2020).
Michael P. Speidel and Tomoko Fukushima, Dawn of Japan: Emperor Jinmu with Jos Gods and Warriors on Third-century Bronze Mirrors (Reichert Verlag, 2010).
Hirohito Tsuji is a Postgraduate Researcher (PhD candidate) at the University of East Anglia. He has completed an MA in interdisciplinary Japanese studies at the University of East Anglia, an MA in history and a minor programme of museology at Kokugakuin University, and a BA in Japanese history and a minor field of Shinto studies at Kogakkan University. He specialises in the Imperial Family of Japan. He is also a Visiting Fellow at the Research Institute of History and Culture, and a Conference Manager and Editor, The Digital Orientalist. He is active as an amateur enka singer.
