Jindai moji
Jindai moji or Kamiyo moji are forged characters purported to have been used in ancient Japan. Some have claimed since the mid-Edo period that such ancient characters, for example such as Chikushi characters and Hokkaido characters, have been found in archeological remains, in Kofun and on mountains, but all jindai moji are generally considered to be forgeries.
File:Hokkaido itaimoji.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1.4|Hokkaido characters investigated by Enomoto Takeaki and John Milne
History
The concept of jindai moji was first addressed at the end of the Kamakura period. Urabe no Kanekata mentioned in Shaku Nihongi that his father, Urabe no Kanefumi, argued that the ancient Japanese could not have performed bone-style fortunetelling with turtleshells, as described in the Nihon Shoki, without having a writing system. The Urabe had a family monopoly on plastromancy, giving them a family interest in claiming perpetual service to the Imperial family even before the arrival of Chinese culture.Some examples of jindai moji appeared during the Edo period, each set being named after its supposed source. Even then, the authenticity of jindai moji was supported by scholars such as Tsurumine Shigenobu, and at least one scholar, Hirata Atsutane, changed his opinion from negative to positive. Other scholars, such as Kaibara Ekken, Dazai Shundai, Kamo no Mabuchi, Motoori Norinaga and Tō Teikan, rejected both the concepts and the claimed examples. The most famous publication denying the existence of jindai moji was Jindaiji ben, attached to Kana no motosue by Ban Nobutomo, which appeared in 1850. The skepticism about jindai moji that developed in the Edo period has been the prevailing attitude among scholars ever since.
In 1930, a Ontake-kyō religious sect,, was charged with lèse-majesté by the special higher police. Amatsukyō was based around that were partly written in what its members said were jindai moji. Experts in linguistics and other scholars gave evidence in court that the documents were forgeries. The documents and other artifacts of this sect were destroyed in the American bombardment of Tokyo during World War II.
Reasons for skepticism
- The italic=no, written in 808, clearly states that the Japanese had no writing system, and thus no characters, before kanji were imported, and nobody before Urabe no Kanekata made any reference to such "ancient characters".
- The examples of jindai moji that have been put forward over the years have all clearly been based on Modern Japanese, which had five vowels, and not Old Japanese, which until the Heian period had eight vowels.
- Shinkichi Hashimoto studied documents written in man'yōgana during the Nara period and found the Jōdai Tokushu Kanazukai, proving that there were 88 sounds in the ancient language, but jindai moji have only 50 or fewer, matching the Gojūon and Iroha of the Heian period.
- If jindai moji had been in use before the Japanese became aware of kanji, it is impossible to explain why they would have swiftly and totally abandoned such characters in favor of the much more complex new characters derived from China, or why they then went on to develop man'yōgana, hiragana and katakana, all of which are based on kanji and show no evidence of any connection with jindai moji.
Claims in favor of ''jindai moji''
Some recent writers have interpreted the following passage in the Shaku Nihongi to support their view that jindai moji were in use in ancient Japan: "There are six or seven documents written in characters of Hi Province in the Ministry of the Treasury."It was reported in the late 19th century that ancient characters had been found in Ryukyu and in Ezo. These claims received some support from mainstream scholars at the time.
Examples
- （ヲシテ文字）
- （出雲文字）
- （阿比留文字、肥人書）
- （阿比留草文字、薩人書）
- （筑紫文字）
- （カタカムナ文字、八鏡化美津文字）
- Hokkaido characters（北海道異体文字、アイヌ文字）
- （琉球古字）
- （豊国文字、神宮文字）
- （対馬文字）
Notable references
- Shinmura Izuru, 『上古文字論批判』
- Shinkichi Hashimoto, 『國語学概論』 Geirin 『藝林』 第4巻
- Naozumi Ochiai, 『日本古代文字考』 落合直澄
- Kiyohiko Ago, 『神代文字研究原典』