Part I examined four pillars belonging to the foundation of bloodline and genealogy (Pillars 1–4). Part II examines the four pillars of the superstructure built on top of that foundation — ritual and object (Pillars 5–8): the political character of the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki myths themselves, the three sacred regalia, State Shinto and Yasukuni, and the backward-calculated antiquity of the imperial era system.
Pillar 5: The Politics of the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki Myths Themselves — History Written by the Victors
What Meiji claimed: The Kojiki and Nihon Shoki are authentic history stretching back to the age of the gods, an official record conveying the true origin of imperial rule.
Historical fact: The very myths the Meiji state used as grounds for the bansei ikkei ideology were themselves an 8th-century political product. The court of Emperor Tenmu and Empress Jitō seized power through the Jinshin War of 672, an internal conflict, and mainstream historiography — following the pioneering textual criticism of Tsuda Sōkichi — holds that the compilation of the Kojiki (712) and Nihon Shoki (720) was a state project designed to project that dynasty’s legitimacy backward into the past. In other words, the Meiji state repurposed “myth” as “history,” but the myth itself had already been manufactured in the 7th–8th centuries out of political necessity — a double structure of fiction built upon fiction.
Seen from a global perspective: The pattern of a founding myth being written well after actual power was consolidated, for purposes of legitimation, mirrors Rome’s founding myths (Virgil’s Aeneid, Livy’s histories) and China’s theory of dynastic succession by “changing the mandate” (yixing geming). Founding myths function, in many civilizations, as history written after the fact by the victors.
Pillar 6: The Three Sacred Regalia — The Lost “Original”
What Meiji claimed: The mirror, jewel, and sword that make up the three sacred regalia are the very same objects, passed down unbroken since the age of the gods, physically proving the legitimacy of the throne.
Historical fact: Of the three regalia, the sword (Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi) is recorded in the Tale of the Heike and other sources as having sunk into the sea along with the child-emperor Antoku at the Battle of Dan-no-ura in 1185. The prevailing scholarly view is that the sword currently enshrined at Atsuta Shrine is very likely a later substitute (katashiro). The sacred mirror at Ise Shrine also has a documented history of damage and reconstruction across multiple fires and periodic shrine rebuildings. Nevertheless, these objects are officially treated as the very same regalia handed down since the age of the gods, and remain central to the imperial enthronement ceremony (the Ceremony of Accession to the Throne, Sword and Jewel).
Seen from a global perspective: The phenomenon of royal regalia actually being lost and replaced with replicas, yet still authorized as “the original,” is also seen with the British Crown Jewels — melted down once during the Puritan Commonwealth and remade after the Restoration. This offers a comparative case showing that “material continuity” itself is a myth.
Pillar 7: The Modernity of State Shinto, Yasukuni, and the Daijōsai
What Meiji claimed: The rites at Yasukuni Shrine and the Daijōsai enthronement ritual are “traditions unique to Japan since time immemorial,” and State Shinto is simply an extension of Japan’s ancient, natural faith.
Historical fact: Yasukuni Shrine’s predecessor, the Tokyo Shōkonsha, was founded in 1869 to enshrine imperial-army soldiers killed in the Boshin War — an entirely modern state apparatus. State Shinto is an administrative system the Meiji government built starting with the 1868 order separating Shinto from Buddhism, bringing shrines under state control and cutting them off from sectarian Shinto — institutionally distinct from “ancient Shinto.” The Daijōsai ceremony was likewise expanded and reorganized across the Meiji, Taishō, and Shōwa eras; its present form is not a straightforward, unbroken continuation from antiquity.
Seen from a global perspective: Scholars of Japan outside the country — John Breen, and Takashi Fujitani in Splendid Monarchy — analyze the Meiji imperial institution precisely as the product of a modern nation-state’s need for a visible sovereign, situating it within a comparative history of monarchy rather than within Japan’s domestic conservative discourse.
Pillar 8: The Imperial Era System and Kigensetsu — Antiquity Calculated Backward
What Meiji claimed: Emperor Jinmu ascended the throne in 660 BCE, and this date, as the starting point of the “imperial era” (kōki), marks the beginning of Japanese history (celebrated through Kigensetsu, the 2,600th imperial anniversary, and similar events).
Historical fact: Emperor Jinmu’s existence and the date of his accession cannot be verified archaeologically or textually. In 1872, the Meiji government “established” this date by calculating it backward from descriptions in the Nihon Shoki. The following year, 1873, Kigensetsu — a national holiday commemorating this accession date — was instituted. In other words, the very date presented as an ancient starting point was, in fact, mathematically back-calculated and created by a modern government from textual description.
Seen from a global perspective: Attempts to institutionalize a founding myth as a “scientific” date are not unique to Japan, but adopting an unverifiable mythic date directly as the state’s legal calendar and national holiday is a comparatively distinctive case.
Summary of Part II
Following the four pillars of bloodline and genealogy examined in Part I (Pillars 1–4), the four pillars of ritual, object, and myth examined here (Pillars 5–8) share a common structure. What was presented as “unchanging since antiquity” was, in most cases, actually constructed or rewritten at a specific historical moment out of political necessity — the 7th–8th-century compilation of the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki, the 12th-century loss of the regalia, the 19th-century creation of State Shinto, and the 1872 establishment of the imperial era.
Having confirmed all eight pillars across Parts I and II, one question remains: are these pillars merely objects of historical curiosity, or load-bearing materials still in active use today? The following installment examines exactly which of these eight pillars contemporary political forces — Nippon Kaigi, the Conservative Party of Japan, the LDP’s conservative wing, and the further right — lean on, and how.