There are soooo many myths being repeated constantly about Japan´s imperial family although historical science has already proven them to be clearly wrong. For example, you often read in the media things like: “a dynasty that has lasted for more than two thousand years”. This – I am saying it while being aware that I will probably have to repeat it again and again
- is clearly a legend. Empirical evidence indicates that the monarchy in Japan originated around the fifth century A.D.. Nevertheless, the (still) official genealogy of the imperial house claims that the first tenno, Jimmu, founded the monarchy in 660 B.C. This 660 B.C. date is very obviously made up. The authors of Japan´s first historical records, the “
Kojiki” (712 A.D.) and the “
Nihongi” (720 A.D.), quite simply used Chinese astrological and genealogical tables, calculating that 1260 lunar years had passed since the reign of the first (Chinese) emperors. (Imperial China was at the time the much-admired great role model of the budding Japanese monarchy.) Taking 600 A.D. as their starting point and subtracting 1260, they concluded that, to be on a par with the Chinese monarchy, the first Japanese emperor ought to have ascended the throne in 660 B.C. So, they just maintained that he had...
To put it differently: a lot of the so called historical facts about Japan´s imperial house have been made up or manipulated in order to serve political purposes. That was the case in the 7th century when Emperor Temmu ordered the writing of Japan´s first history “with its goal the enhancement of a glorious emperor-centered past” (Jerrold M. Packard), and that happened again during the Meiji restoration at the end of the 19th century. As Kenneth Ruoff wrote, “the imperial institution constructed during the Meiji era was as much a cultural and ideological invention as a political-legal system. Virtually all aspects of the monarchy were reinvented and modernized. New imperial “traditions” or practices “which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past,” were invented, and old traditions manipulated to suit the modern age.” (The People´s Emperor, page 20)
What is worse, this tendency to believe and maintain whatever seems useful or desirable, is not a matter belonging to the past. Conservative politicians like former trade minister Takeo Hiranuma assert even today that Japan´s mythical first emperor, Jimmu, began his reign 2,672 years ago although, as I already stated, this is a legend, and, what is more, a legend that cannot under any circumstances be true. (For more concerning Japan´s invented traditions and the dislike of the IHA for scientific historical research please see
this blog.)
