Herpes Inside My Nose

The Kojiki and the mythological origins of Japan



We welcome the emergence of a new translation, directly from the Japanese text, a work of historical, literary and religious of the most important of Japan, completed in 712 AD (1) The author of translation, Paul Villani, is a researcher at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Catania and collaborates with the teaching of Japanese language and culture of the Faculty of Political Science, University of Naples "L'Orientale". He has written two important works, Shintoism. Variations on linguistic and religious themes (1990) and Introduction to the History of Thought in East Asia (1998).

The events narrated in the work

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this work on the origins of Japanese mythology is that which describes the origins of the archipelago and the first stories of gods and men. The last of a series Izanagi and Izanami are. Izanagi, the floating bridge of Heaven, plunges a spear into the water below, then lifts and drops that fall from an island is formed. The two gods descend on the island and, after performing a ritual dance around a sacred pole, merge, and generate the main islands of Japan. Izanami also generates the god of fire, born, burn and kill his mother, who descends into the underworld (Yomi). Izanagi then drops himself in the world of the dead to return to earth Izanami, but since it has already eaten the food of the dead, is horribly disfigured and his body eaten by worms hell-beings are born. Izanami became ashamed to be so horrible and out against the ex-lover, the demons of hell. Izanagi fled, unable to return to the world of the living and seal with a large stone entrance into the kingdom of the dead. Izanami kill every day a large number of living beings, Izanagi, but will try to make it rise to a greater number.

Back in the living world, Izanagi undergoes a cleansing ritual to purify the contamination of death, charged with this energy and water contaminant three gods are born. Amaterasu, the sun goddess, Susanoo, the god of storms, and Tsukiyomi, the moon god. Amaterasu and Susanoo are fighting over questions of power, and Susanoo performs acts which, according to the ancient Japanese code, actual sins, as contaminate certain environments break the dikes of rice fields, lay uncovered in the building of a horse skinned sister on the other hand .

Amaterasu, enraged, be contained within a cave, plunges the world into darkness. The gods are doing everything to get her out and eventually they succeed: Amaterasu peeking from the opening of the cave and is then blown out. Back light, Susanoo was exiled on earth. After a certain period of time, Amaterasu sent her grandson Ninigi on earth with the task of recovering the power exercised by Susanoo. Susanoo gives power, and Amaterasu Delivery Ninigi the three imperial symbols: the jewel Yasaka, Yata mirror, the sword Kusanagi, and Ninigi leads his clan to Kiushu Yamato. Jinmu descend His empire based in 660 BC

considerations

The stories told were written down in the eighth century, and are a key revision in imperial affairs and diverse histories, formed over the centuries in the various clan of ancient Japan. They point out the clear figure of the divine origin of the Tenno (emperor), indicating as before a deity was the goddess Amaterasu specification of the Yamato clan, while the deity Susanoo constituted perhaps the most important clans of Izumo. Ninigi symbolizes the alliance between Yamato, purchasing powers of command, and Izumo, which maintains a religious independence. The symbols of imperial power is transmitted to Ninigi, then by him to the legendary first emperor. It can be assumed that the transition from the native Jomon culture (fusion of Siberia, Pacific, Southeast Asia) to the subsequent Yayoi civilization coincided with the arrival of people from mainland Southeast Asia, that would be superimposed on the previous civilizations, including the introduction of agriculture as the primary means of subsistence. In both cases this would be peaceful civilization. In the first centuries AD C., Chinese sources speak of the population of the Wa, who have lived both sides of the Strait of Korea, in Japan there are many small states (clan?), Headed by men and women, and thereafter takes on particular importance and the empress state Yamata (Yamato?). We know that people around the fourth century from Korea arrived in Japan are knights, soldiers with a remarkable warrior culture, which overlap with the earlier civilizations, domination and merging with them. In 395 Japan made an expedition to Korea, occupying the territories in the south. From this "melting pot" will be born the basic structure on which it will build the next Japanese civilization.

The work, published in the series Letteratura universale Marsilio, is thus presented by the publisher:

"The Kojiki takes shape in the sphere of dynastic Japanese court between the end of the seventh century and the beginning of the eighth In those key decades in the history of Japan, the centralization of political power is accompanied by critical changes in the dominant culture. The model of Chinese civilization tends to become dominant in all fields of knowledge and harness in their stylistic also the official written language. The Kojiki (literally "old things written ') deviates from this trend because it also approved his writing comes from orality. The work gives asylum to acting in fact likely, possibly mnemonic, made by a Yasumaro Are the draw, the revision of obsolete documents 'restored' to a design of the sovereign Tenmu. The result is a text in which we find, or already in germ in flower, form and content that have inspired great art, first literary archipelago. It is also the oldest existing documentation of Japanese culture, a mine from which it drew information philologists, historians, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, politicians .

Thanks to this translation, preceded by a brief but significant introduction, followed by an agile and footnotes, the Kojiki, until now only available in an old edition dated axes, intends to readers with renewed freshness and in a form very agile.

Notes

1) (ed.) Paul Villani, Kojiki. A tale of ancient events, Marsilio 2006. Review published in Arts of the Orient, 2007.