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Emperor Kōrei (孝霊天皇, Kōrei-tennō?); also known as Ooyamatonekohikofutoni no Mikoto; was the seventh emperor of Japan to appear on the traditional list of emperors.1 No firm dates can be assigned to this emperor's life or reign.
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Legendary narrative
Kōrei is regarded by historians as a "legendary emperor" because of the paucity of information about him, which does not necessarily imply that no such person ever existed. Rather, scholars can only lament that, at this time, there is insufficient material available for further verification and study. The reign of Emperor Kimmei (509?-571), the 29th emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession, is the first for which contemporary historiography are able to assign verifiable dates;2 however, the conventionally accepted names and dates of the early emperors were not to be confirmed as "traditional" until the reign of Emperor Kammu (737–806), the 50th sovereign of the Yamato dynasty.3
In Kojiki and Nihonshoki only his name and genealogy were recorded. The Japanese have traditionally accepted this sovereign's historical existence, and an Imperial misasagi or tomb for Kōrei is currently maintained; however, no extant contemporary records have been discovered which confirm a view that this historical figure actually reigned. He was the sixth of eight emperors without specific legends associated with them, also known as the "eight undocumented monarchs" (欠史八代, Kesshi-hachidai?). 4
Later generations may have included this name to the list of emperors of Japan, thus making him posthumously an emperor and assigning him as one of the early sovereigns and ancestors of the dynasty that has reigned unbroken since time immemorial. If he lived, at his time the title tenno was not yet used, and the polity he possibly ruled did certainly not contain all or even the most of Japan. In the chronicle which encompasses his alleged successors in beginnings of historical time, it becomes reasonable to conclude that Kōrei, if he existed, might have been a chieftain or a regional king in early Yamato tribal society.
Jien records that Kōrei was the eldest son of Emperor Kōan, and that he ruled from the palace of Ihoto-no-miya at Kuroda in what will come to be known as Yamato province.5
Kōrei is a posthumous name. It is undisputed that this identification is Chinese in form and Buddhist in implication, which suggests that the name must have been regularized centuries after the lifetime ascribed to Kōrei, possibly during the time in which legends about the origins of the Yamato dynasty were compiled as the chronicles known today as the Kojiki.4
Notes
- ^ Brown, Delmer et al. (1979). Gukanshō, p. 252; Varley, Paul. (1980). Jinnō Shōtōki, pp. 90-92; Titsingh, Isaac. (1834). Annales des empereurs du japon, pp. 5-6.
- ^ Titsingh, pp. 34-36; Brown, pp. 261-262; Varley, pp. 123-124.
- ^ Aston, William. (1896). Nihongi, pp. 109.
- ^ a b Aston, pp. 146-147.
- ^ Brown, p. 252.
References
- Aston, William George. (1896). Nihongi: Chronicles of Japan from the Earliest Times to A.D. 697. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner. [reprinted by Tuttle Publishing, Tokyo, 2007. 10-ISBN 0-8048-0984-4; 13-ISBN 978-0-8048-0984-9 (paper)]
- Brown, Delmer M. and Ichirō Ishida, eds. (1979). [ Jien, c. 1220], Gukanshō (The Future and the Past, a translation and study of the Gukanshō, an interpretative history of Japan written in 1219). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03460-0
- Titsingh, Isaac, ed. (1834). [Siyun-sai Rin-siyo/Hayashi Gahō, 1652], Nipon o daï itsi ran; ou, Annales des empereurs du Japon. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland.
- Varley, H. Paul , ed. (1980). [ Kitabatake Chikafusa, 1359], Jinnō Shōtōki ("A Chronicle of Gods and Sovereigns: Jinnō Shōtōki of Kitabatake Chikafusa" translated by H. Paul Varley). New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-04940-4
See also
| Preceded by Emperor Kōan |
Legendary Emperor of Japan 290 BC-215 BC (traditional dates) |
Succeeded by Emperor Kōgen |
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