In the island kingdom of Japan,
the legendary first emperor Jimmu
is said to have descended from Amaterasu
through a line of gods at their minimum.
Six-sixty BCE is the traditional date
for Jimmu's eastern expedition from Kyushu
to the Yamato plain, where he founded
the imperial line that Japan would issue.
Historically, the date is far too early.
The Yayoi rice-culture people had barely arrived.
The Yamato state would not coalesce
until several centuries after this contrived.
But the myth sets the frame: the imperial line
descends from the sun goddess through her grandson
Ninigi who came down to Mount Takachiho
carrying the Three Sacred Treasures begun:
the mirror Yata no Kagami,
the sword Kusanagi (taken from the tail
of the eight-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi
by Susanoo in myth's oldest detail),
and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama.
These three still exist (or so it is said)
as the imperial regalia of Japan,
passed down through seventy centuries' tread.
Jimmu's great-grandfather was Ninigi.
Jimmu's great-grandmother was Toyotamahime,
daughter of the sea dragon god, who bore
Ugayafukiaezu, Jimmu's father, extremely.
So Jimmu has divine lineage both through
the sun goddess Amaterasu above
and through the sea dragon gods below.
He is sky and sea, embraced by both's love.
He marched east from Kyushu, subduing
local chieftains, defeating rivals as he went.
At Kashihara in the Yamato plain
he founded the capital, his tent.
He ascended the throne there, we are told,
on February 11 of 660 BCE.
This date became Japan's National Foundation Day,
a holiday ever since, at least in theory.
For centuries after, the emperors listed
are largely legendary or semi-so.
The tenth emperor Sujin may be
the first with some historical glow.
The twelfth, Keikō, had a son Yamato Takeru,
the culture hero who conquered the eastern Emishi,
who killed his brother in his father's bathroom,
was sent to die on difficult missions barely.
He received Kusanagi from his aunt
Yamatohime, priestess of Amaterasu at Ise.
He used it to cut grass in a fire trap set by enemies,
saving his life, naming the sword "grass-cutter" in simplicity.
His son or nephew (accounts vary) Chuai
was the fourteenth emperor, who died young,
leaving his pregnant queen Jingū to rule.
She is the great semi-historical warrior tongue.
Empress Jingū led an invasion of Korea
while pregnant with the future emperor Ojin.
She held the birth back three years by
tying stones to her waist, the legend's imagine.
She conquered the Korean kingdoms (or received
their tribute), returning triumphant
to bear Ojin, who would be deified as
Hachiman, god of war, the most welcomed triumphant.
Modern historians are skeptical of Jingū's
Korean invasion. But there was certainly
contact with Korean kingdoms Baekje, Silla, Gaya,
trade, migration, cultural transfer apparently.
From Baekje came writing, Confucianism, Buddhism
into Japan — Buddhism officially in 538 or 552,
though private transmission was earlier.
From Gaya came iron, craftsmen, immigrant troops.
The Yamato court was consolidating
in the fourth and fifth centuries, building
the massive kofun burial mounds,
the largest tombs in the world, filling.
The Daisenryō Kofun attributed to
emperor Nintoku is longer than the Great Pyramid,
though lower — a 486-meter keyhole shape
of earth and stone, for the imperial pyramid.
These burial mounds mark the emergence
of a centralized state in the Japanese archipelago,
absorbing Korean immigrants, Chinese influence,
building toward what would become emperor Yamato.
The Soga clan would push Buddhism.
The Mononobe clan would resist.
In 587, the Soga won, and Buddhism
became the state religion, with Shinto's midst.
The Kofun period was ending. The Asuka period
beginning. The constitution of Prince Shōtoku
in 604 would organize the state
along Chinese lines — the shape we still see.
Stand.