pan until A.D.
284, when it was brought from China. Up to that time therefore no written
accounts existed or could exist of the early history of the country. Oral
tradition was the only agency by which a knowledge of the events of that
epoch could be preserved and transmitted. That such a method of preserving
history(28) is uncertain and questionable no one can doubt. We may expect
to find therefore in the accounts which have come down to us of those
centuries which transpired before written records were introduced, much
that is contradictory and unintelligible, and much out of which the truth
can be gleaned only by the most painstaking research.

The oldest book of Japanese history which has come down to us is called
_Kojiki_,(29) or _Records of Ancient __ Matters_. This work was undertaken
by the direction of the Emperor Temmu (A.D. 673-686), who became impressed
with the necessity of collecting the ancient traditions which were still
extant, and preserving them in a permanent record. Before the work was
ended the emperor died, and for twenty-five years the collected traditions
were preserved in the memory of Hiyeda-no-are. At the end of that time the
Empress Gemmyo superintended its completion, and it was finally presented
to the Court in A.D. 711. By a comparison of this work with _Nihongi_, or
_Chronicles of Japan_, which was completed A.D. 720, only nine years after
the other, we are convinced that the era of Chinese classicism had not yet
fallen upon the country. The style of the older book is a purer Japanese,
and imparts to us the traditions of Japanese history uncolored by Chinese
philosophical ideas and classic pedantry which shortly after overwhelmed
Japanese literature. But in many particulars these two works, almost
equally ancient, supplement and explain each other. The events given in
the two are in most respects the same, the principal difference being that
the _Chronicles_ is much more tinctured with Chinese philosophy, and the
myths concerning the creation especially show the influence of that dual
system which had been introduced to give a philosophical aspect to the
Japanese cosmogony.

The _Kojiki_(30) has been translated into English, to which have been
added a valuable introduction and notes. The _Nihongi_ (_Chronicles of
Japan_) has never been translated entire into English, but has been used
by scholars in connection with the _Kojiki_. Among the Japanese it has
always been more highly esteemed