— 10 —
or rather Heaven Itself, at Katano in Kawachi Province, which Chinese religious custom is entirely alien to the original Shinto cult of old Japan (The Shoku Nihongi, Vol. XXXVIII, Vol. XXXIX. The Kokushi Taikei, Japanese edition, Vol. II, pp. 720, 735). There was another trend of thought, however, running counter to the spirit of the times which blindly accepted Chinese civilization then overpowering the country with irrestible[errata 1] force.—Nationalism versus foreign influence! Conservatism versus liberalism! So, according to the Nihonkoki, an historical book compiled under Government auspices, an Imperial Edict was issued in A.D. 809, which forbade the circulation of a suprious work, written from the standpoint of the Chinese and Korean immigrants, entitled Wakan-Sorekitei-Fuzu or the Book on the Genealogies of All the Sovereigns Both at Home and Abroad, it being injurious to social order in Japan, because it falsely asserts that the royal families of China and Korea as well as the Japanese are all sprung from one and the same God, Ame-no-Minakanushi-no-Kami, one of the greatest deities worshipped by the ancient Japanese, and thus blasphemes the highest heavenly ancestoral[errata 2] God of the Imperial family of Japan (Vide the Nihonkoki, Vol. XVII. The Kokushi Taiki, Japanese edition. Vol. III, p. 95). Moreover, the appearance of the Shinsen-Shojiroku or Register of Family or Clan Names compiled in A.D. 815 by the Imperial Prince Manta and the Daido Ruijuho or Work on the Japanese Medical Prescriptions Classified in the Daido Era compiled in A.D. 898 by Abe-no-Sanenao, Izumo-no-Hirosada, etc., and the Daido Hongi compiled in the Daido Era (the beginning
