The China connection (2)

Jofuku aka the Chinese Xu Fu

Jofuku and Jimmu
Two legendary figures, one Chinese and one Japanese. One on the quest for immortality, the other on the path of conquest. According to tradition, both ended up traversing the Inland Sea and made land on the Kii Peninsula. Both are recognised as culture heroes and deified as kami. And yet – here’s a strange thought – what is they were both the same person? Or what if they were both based on the folk memory of the same historical event?

As dealt with in Part One, the cause of this speculation stems from the oddity in the Kojiki of mythological descent onto Mt Takachiho. Conflating the two figures seems at first somewhat ridiculous. Jimmu was the great grandson of Ninigi no mikoto, born of divine stock, who established the kingdom of Yamato which grew into modern Japan. Jofuku, known in China as Xu Fu, was dispatched by Emperor Qin to seek the mythical Isles of Immortals with the purpose of bringing back an elixir of perpetual youth.

Artist’s impression of the warrior-emperor Jimmu

As detailed in an earlier posting on Asuka Jinja, Xu Fu’s search supposedly led him to Kumano where he landed at what today is the town of Shingu. He’s deified there in a hokora at Asuka Shrine. However, that is not the only place where he’s deified in Japan, nor is it the only place where he is said to have landed with his flotilla of 3000 youths. Interestingly, there is a memorial to him at Kanmuri-dake Shrine in Kagoshima Prefecture. It commemorates Xu Fu’s supposed arrival on the opposite side of the Satsuma Peninsula from Kagoshima City.

Now let’s suppose that after first landing at Ichikikushikino on the coast, Xu Fu and his flotilla sailed round the peninsula and into Kinko Bay, where they settled and took Mt Takachiho as their guardian mountain. Let’s then suppose that at a later date the clan made their way by boat to Miyazaki in south-east Kyushu, from where they set off across the Inland Sea to Kumano. Perhaps they had heard of the plant there that promised immortality.

Emperor Jimmu
Some historians doubt that Jimmu ever existed, but mythology usually envelops a nucleus of truth and we can presume that there was an eastward invasion by a force from Kyushu that entered mainland Honshu via Kumano to settle at Yamato in the Nara basin. (For Jimmu’s conquest, see here.)

Monument to say that Emperor Jimmu stopped here
Monument at Asuka Jinja to say Emperor Jimmu stopped there

It’s not without interest then that Jimmu is said to have been born and raised in Miyazaki Prefecture and to have set out from Himuka. It’s not far from the town of Takachiho, which perhaps derived its name from memory of the former settlement around Mt Takachiho. Mythology claims this was some 2680 years ago, which can be taken to mean a very long time ago. Not so very different in fact from the 2200 years when Jofuku (aka Xu Fu) is said to have set out.

Now here’s a very odd thing. When you visit Asuka Shrine in Shingu, there’s a pillar claiming association with Jimmu. According to shrine tradition, he landed on the nearby coast and marched inland, stopping at what is now celebrated as Jofuku’s arrival place. Perhaps this is just coincidence, perhaps it’s simply because of the inviting river estuary, but one can’t help thinking there’s something more.

Seventh century myth-makers

O no Yasumaro, who compiled the Kojiki (Muromachi Era statue, pic by Michael Lambe)

Japanese mythology was put together at the end of the seventh century on the orders of Emperor Tenmu (631-686), who usurped the throne from his nephew in the Jinshin War. In order to legitimise his reign, Tenmu sought to bolster his status by establishing a direct line to the sun goddess, in much the same way Emperor Augustus cloaked himself with divine origins. Tenmu died, however, before completion of the ‘correct version’ of history, though work continued under his wife-niece Empress Jito (645-703).

The mythology was eventually published in two books, Kojiki (712) for the imperial family, and a more comprehensive and official history Nihon shoki (720). The myths were tailored in such a way as to cut out breaks in the dynastic line, as well as omitting any hint of foreign blood by claiming descent from ‘heaven’. This may explain why there is no mention in the mythical histories of Himiko, the shaman-queen of Yamatai, who was unrelated to the Yamato lineage. She lived in the third century CE, so if she could be written out of the history books, how much easier to write out Jofuku a couple of millennia earlier.

Interestingly, Tenmu was concerned to foster relations with Silla, which dominated Korea at the time, so he was keen to downplay links with China. Any suggestion of descent from Jofuku was thus out of the question. The reign of Empress Jito may explain why a goddess was chosen instead as clan founder, though the notion of a female immortal (Amaterasu) associated with weaving and sericulture pointed very much in the direction of the rice culture of the Yangtze river basin.

Could it be then that the folk memory of Jofuku settling near Mt Takachiho was incorporated into a later story of dynastic conquest? It’s possible for instance that there was Korean migration into Kyushu following Tungusik movement southwards, so that stories from their homeland were integrated into earlier stories of Chinese origin. Was Jimmu perhaps an invented composite figure, whose origin was obscured by a mythical narrative that skilfully interwove different historical currents?

Miko priestess conducting a Yayoi-era rite

Jofuku’s arrival in Japan coincided with the spread of Yayoi culture (c 300 BCE) , when a different race from the Jomon asserted dominance and introduced a more sophisticated lifestyle from the indigenous hunter-gatherers. Jofuku not only brought with him 3000 youths, presumably versed in Chinese customs and techniques, but legend says that he introduced agriculture and medicinal plants, which is why he is venerated today as a kami of farming and medicine.

So could the cultural breakthrough of Yayoi times have been attributed by Tenmu’s myth-makers not to a Chinese figure who ‘descended’ on southern Kyushu, but to a fictional Jimmu who initiated the imperial dynasty of Yamato?

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In Part Three further consideration is given to the evidence for and against the Jofuku theory of descent upon Mt Takachiho.


3 Comments

  1. Jonathan Forest Byrne

    It is interesting to note how the accounts of historic prophets become iterated through time as told by different voices. For example, in Christianity the 4 gospels of Mark, Luke, Matthew and John describe different stories of the life of Jesus Christ including both historic and mythological interpretations. This leaves one to ponder how messianic leaders of the 20th century e.g. Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King may be interpreted in future centuries?

  2. Jonathan Forest Byrne

    It is interesting to note how history and mythology overlap in many cultures. For example, the biblical story of Noah’s flood can be correlated with flooding in the Mediterranean basin at around 5,800 BCE. This alleged flood, in turn, is correlated to orbitally induced climate change resulting in an increase in sea level and glacial meltwater outflow that also included inland the Black and Caspian seas. Additionally, mythology is not necessarily relegated to the pre-scientific revolution as a way of constructing meaning for our place in the cosmos, but is also a modern post scientific revolution phenomena. For example, myths surrounding famous figures such as Babe Ruth in American professional baseball who totaled 714 home runs during his colorful career. It was alleged that “He could step up to the plate and point to where he was going to where his home run ball would land.”. Although this captures the imagination this event happened only once.

    • John D.

      Mythology is often developed from history, it would seem. In this case I suppose you’re saying that Babe Ruth is also becoming a mythic figure…

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