With these industrial arts came in rapid succession the elements of a higher civilization. Books on almanac-making, astronomy, geography and divination were brought to Japan from Korea and China. The Chinese calendar[88] was first used in the reign of the Empress Suiko under the regency of Shōtoku Taishi. This almanac was based on the lunar periods and the civil year began with the new moon [pg 111] occurring about the beginning of February. But as the length of the civil year is not an exact multiple of the number of days contained in a lunation, the twelve lunar months used by the Chinese and Japanese will be about eleven days shorter than the solar year. Hence to prevent the discrepancy from increasing and throwing the seasons entirely out of their place in the calendar, an intercalary month was inserted nearly every third year. It was inserted not at the end of the year but whenever the discrepancy had reached the number of days in a lunation. The month thus inserted was called by the same name as the preceding with an explanatory prefix. From this period therefore the dates of Japanese events may be relied upon with some degree of certainty. For events occurring before this period, a knowledge of which must have been transmitted by oral tradition, the dates assigned to them in the Nihongi must have been computed by counting back to the supposed time according to the calendar in use at the time of the writing.
The astronomy and geography introduced into Japan along with almanac-making in the fifth century were without question very primitive sciences. At this time even in Europe the knowledge of these sciences was not advanced beyond the imperfect notions of the Greeks. It was not until the sixteenth century, when the discoveries of the Portuguese and the Spaniards and the English had revealed the shape and the divisions of the earth, and the Jesuits had carried this knowledge to China and Japan, that anything like a correct astronomy [pg 112] or geography was possible. By divination, which is mentioned as one of the sciences brought over from Korea, was meant the determination of future events or of lucky or unlucky conditions.
The most important civilizing force introduced from China at this period was the formal institutions of education. Although the first establishment of a school dates from the reign of the Emperor Tenji (a.d. 668-671), yet it was not till the reign of the Emperor Mommu (a.d. 697-707) that the university was regularly organized. Branch schools were also established in the several provinces. In the university there were departments for Chinese literature, for medicine, for astronomy and almanac-making, and for astrology. Under the first head were included the art of writing the Chinese characters, the practice of composition, the study of the Chinese classics, and the reading of books of Chinese history. In like manner the training of the students in medicine chiefly consisted in making them familiar with the methods which prevailed in China. The properties of medicinal plants, the variations of the pulse in health and disease and in the changing seasons, and the anatomy of the human body were the chief subjects of study. The human cadaver was never dissected, but a knowledge of anatomy was obtained from diagrams which were wholly hypothetical. In early times medical officers were appointed to experiment with medicines upon monkeys, and also to dissect the bodies of monkeys. From these dissections, as well as from the printed diagrams of Chinese books the imperfect knowledge which they had reached was derived. It was not till 1771 that [pg 113] Sugita Genpaku[89] and several other Japanese scholars had an opportunity to dissect the body of a criminal, and by personal observation found the utter falsity of the Chinese diagrams on which they had hitherto relied, and the correctness of the Dutch books, which they had, contrary to the laws of the country, learned to read.
The great reverence felt for Chinese culture led to the introduction at an early date of the Chinese system of official rank. The system remained in force down to the restoration in 1868. The officers were Daijō-daijin (Prime-Minister), Sa-daijin (Minister of the Left), U-daijin (Minister of the Right), together with eight boards,[90] charged with the various duties of administration. These boards were divided into sections, and the various departments of the government were respectively performed by them. In this way the administration became thoroughly bureaucratic, in imitation of the Chinese empire, to which the Japanese at this time looked up with the most complete reverence.
In addition to these official boards, six official ranks were also introduced from China. These ranks were designated, first, virtue; second, humanity; third, propriety; fourth, truth; fifth, righteousness, and sixth, wisdom. Each of these ranks[91] was divided [pg 114] into two orders termed respectively the Greater and the Lesser. Thus there were twelve distinctions in this system. It was introduced in the reign of the Empress Suiko, a.d. 604, and is generally attributed to the Regent Shōtoku, who was a great admirer of the continental civilization. It existed in this form until the time of the Emperor Kōtoku, when, a.d. 649, it was extended to nineteen distinctions. These were not given to the individual in recognition of talent, but to families to be by them transmitted to their posterity as hereditary rank.
For many years during this period of active intercourse with China and Korea, Dazaifu, situated on the west coast of Kyūshū, north of the present situation of Nagasaki, was the recognized port where strangers were received. This city was the seat of a vice-royalty, having control over the nine provinces of Kyūshū. The office of vice-governor was considered a place of honorable banishment to which distinguished men who were distasteful at court could be sent.
These continental influences continued for many years and indeed have never ceased. There has always existed a class of scholars who looked upon Chinese learning as the supreme pinnacle to which the human mind could attain. This was especially true of the admirers of Confucius and Confucianism. Although it was not until a much later period that the culture of a Chinese philosophy attained its highest mark, yet even in the early arrangement of the studies in the university we see the wide influence which the writings of the Chinese classics exerted.
We close this chapter with an event which evinced the advance which Japanese civilization had made, and aided greatly in promoting this advance in the subsequent centuries. This event was the publication of the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Things) and the Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan). A book still older than these is said to have been composed in a.d. 620, but it perished in a fire in a.d. 645, although a fragment is said to have been rescued. The circumstances attending the preparation of the Kojiki are given by Mr. Satow in his paper[92] on the “Revival of Pure Shintō,” and also by Mr. Chamberlain[93] in his introduction to the translation. The Emperor Temmu had resolved to take measures to preserve the true traditions from oblivion. He had the records carefully examined and compiled. Then these collated traditions were one by one committed to one of the household officers, Hiyeda-no-Are, who had a marvellously retentive memory. Before the work of compilation was finished the emperor died; but the Empress Gemmyō, who after an interval succeeded him, carried it on to its completion in a.d. 712. By her direction the traditions were taken down from Are's dictation in the form in which we now have them. It is by no means a pleasing or attractive work, even in the opinion of the Japanese. It is bald and archaic in its form and composition. It is, however, notable as being freer from the admixture of Chinese learning, and therefore a better index of the native culture of the race than the [pg 116] works which followed it.[94] Much of it consists of mere genealogies of the emperors and naked statements of leading events, but there are besides this many legends and poems which bear evidence of having been handed down in essentially their present form. As an authority for the chronology of the early events it is, of course, of small value. It is evident that where a narrative of events has been carried through many centuries by tradition alone, without written records to check or assist it, no dependence can be placed on the chronology of the events, further than, perhaps, on the order of sequence.
Only eight years after the publication of the Kojiki, a second work termed Nihongi or Chronicles of Japan was issued. It was prepared by imperial command and appeared in a.d. 720 in the reign of the Empress Genshō. It differs from the older book in being composed in the Chinese idiom, and in being much more tinctured with the ideas of Chinese philosophy. These two works, so nearly contemporaneous, both of them composed in so great a degree of the legendary elements of Japanese history, must be looked upon as marking a distinct epoch in the story of Japan.