A Study on Asuka (飛鳥)

Abstract

Only four colours, white, blue, red and black, appear through the whole description of the Kojiki (古事記). In the mythical part of the book, white and blue are always connected with Takama-ga-hara (高天原) -the heaven-, and in the part on human histories in which the social order is described, the two colours are always connected with emperors. In the same way, red is related to the Izumo (出雲) area and to queens and princes, and black to Yomi-no-kuni (黄泉国) -the world of death- as well as to subjects of emperors. These colours are also applied systematically to the names of places appearing in the Kojiki. Especially throughout the district of Yamato (倭), white is set to Yoshino (吉野) and Asuka (飛鳥), blue to the mountain area around the Yamato basin, and red to Miwa (三輪) and Katsuragi (葛城). Yoshino, being the area where the emperor Tenmu (天武) staged his coup d'etat, became the "Mecca" of his dynasty. It was in Asuka that his palace was lccated. At Miwa, there is the shrine of Omononushi-no-kami (大物主神), who assisted the emperor's control in economic matters ; and at Katsuragi, there is the shrine of Kotoshironushi-no-kami (事代主神), who supported him in political matters. If you draw a white line between Yoshino and Asuka, and then draw a red line between Miwa and Katsuragi, you will find that the two lines cross at right angles on the map and that they form the figure of a bird spreading its wings in flight. In the fifteenth year of the emperor Tenmu's era, he gave the name "Sucho" (朱鳥) -a holy red bird- to that year and retrospectively called the past years of his reign "Byakuho" (白鳳) -a white phoenix. He also gave the name Asuka (飛鳥) to his capital. Of the two Chinese characters which form the term Asuka the "pillow words" of which are "Tobu-tori-no", the former means "flying" and the latter "a bird". From such an analysis of terms like Sucho, Byakuho and Asuka we can conclude that they originated from a predetermined design of the unknown author of the Kojiki.