Table 1: Omi, Muraji and Tomo-no-Miyatsuko I

¶When the sacred ancestors of old administered the heavenly undertaking, it was in order to revere their forebears with awe and to soothe and pacify the myriad people, and to that end there was no means they did not exhaust. They honored the rites and made them their teaching, they transformed the people and made that their government; government and instruction were one thing, and rites and governance were not to be divided. If there was anyone who opposed the imperial transformation and harmed government and instruction, punishment was at once inflicted, and there was none who was not crushed. In those days the officials who assisted and guarded the Sovereign, and the ministers who received his will and spread instruction abroad, were all descendants of the deities and followed the ceremonies of Heaven. It seems that, since there was already the enlightened wisdom of the Sovereign, the head of the realm, who illumined and governed all under Heaven, and he was assisted by ministers who were as his limbs, claws and fangs in spreading government and instruction, this was the reason why the imperial throne was preserved forever and the myriad people were led into the realm of benevolence and longevity. When Amaterasu-Ōmikami sent the Imperial Grandchild down to the land of the Reed Plains, the two deities Takeikazuchi-no-Kami and Iwainushi-no-Kami, receiving the great command, made their martial might blaze forth. Their valiant bearing and great achievements resounded through the Eight Great Islands, and because of this Ōkuninushi-no-Kami devoted himself sincerely to the ceding of the land, Takeminakata-no-Kami too pledged submission, and the land of the Reed Plains was at last unified. Now, ever since Susanoo-no-Mikoto built his pure palace in Izumo and opened up the land, six generations had passed, and his descendants and kin had spread through the realm, while the remaining scions in various places still contended for power. For this reason, when the Heavenly Grandchild was about to descend, he took great care to prepare his armaments and ships, and first chose outstanding men from among the deities and set them in the posts of assistance and command, so that the plans for pacifying and nurturing the land left nothing overlooked. After several generations there were still regions that did not submit to the imperial transformation, and men such as Eukashi and Nagasunehiko, and bands such as the Tsuchigumo and the Yaso-takeru, held their ground and ran rampant; the Great Founder (Emperor Jinmu) was greatly angered, raised a mighty host, and campaigned far and wide for eight years until the land within was pacified. Only then did he establish the Kuni-no-Miyatsuko and the Agatanushi to govern it, and also set up the Ōsukuni-no-Matsurigoto-no-Daibu (grandees who reported on the governance of the realm) to take charge of the great affairs of state. That he sacrificed to the deities on the hill of Tomi and gave expression to his great filial piety was in keeping with the purpose of honoring the rites and instructing the people, and all of it accorded with the radiant teaching of Amaterasu-Ōmikami. The ministers who served in the army at that time likewise each cultivated the offices of their ancestors and devoted their loyalty to the court, and this too was nothing other than the means by which they gave expression to filial piety toward their forebears. Thereafter, successive sovereigns carried on the work of instruction and nurture one after another and extended and broadened the great undertaking. When it came to Emperor Sujin, he sent generals to the Four Circuits and also dispatched imperial princes to pacify the eastern lands; this too made the reverence of the deities the root of guiding the people. At about this time there was also the designation Kyōshi-taifu (court nobles and grandees), but this was meant to spread the imperial transformation widely, and it was merely that the court historians wrote it into their text in accordance with what these men did; it is not necessarily the case that such an office title existed. Through the reigns of Emperor Suinin and Emperor Seimu the systems for officials and people were gradually put in order, and for the first time the Ōomi and the Ōmuraji were established to take charge of the affairs of army and state. Before this, Emperor Keikō had put to death those who would not submit to the court, and had divided and enfeoffed seventy imperial princes as Wake, Kuni-no-Miyatsuko, Inaki and Agatanushi to govern the four quarters. Emperor Seimu fixed the boundaries of the land and bestowed halberds and shields as their markers. Roughly for every eighty households one Inaki was set up, and ten Inaki were attached to one Kuni-no-Miyatsuko. That members of the imperial house and old ministers of meritorious service were interspersed like the teeth of a dog, so that inner and outer might check one another, was in every case based on the intention of broadening the ancestral undertaking and enlarging the imperial transformation, and within it too lay the way of making the trunk strong and the branches weak. The Kuni-no-Miyatsuko and Agatanushi were each granted their lands, so that they might sacrifice to their ancestors and pacify their people. If they committed faults, they were punished by having their territories reduced and their kabane lowered. Because great authority lay above and everything followed a fixed standard, the ministers too were able to preserve their ancestral offices themselves and to guard and assist the imperial house, and this was why the state grew more prosperous day by day. However, those who were Omi, Muraji and Tomo-no-Miyatsuko inherited their uji and held their offices hereditarily from generation to generation, and the Kuni-no-Miyatsuko and Agatanushi likewise held their lands generation after generation. Thereupon great houses and mighty lineages monopolized power and indulged their influence, and the momentum of that influence reached the point where it could not be checked. There appeared those who ran rampant and did not keep to the station of subjects and who eyed the altars of state, and those who were dim, cruel and arrogant and ravaged the people and their goods; the laws of the ancestors were destroyed, and the government of nurture fell into ruin. When it came to the Taika era, an enlightened sovereign and a wise minister met together, saw through to the root of the abuses, reformed the old system in its entirety, ended the hereditary offices, abolished the Kuni-no-Miyatsuko, established the government ministries within the court, and set up provincial governors (kokushi) and district magistrates (gunji) outside it, so that the general course of the realm changed completely from that time. From the Great Founder down to this point there were more than thirty generations, a span of thirteen hundred years, and the institutions of the ancestors can never be seen again. In respect of adapting to the times and setting up what was fitting, the methods by which they were put in place differed, but in respect of revering one's forebears with awe and soothing and pacifying the myriad people, the end to which they returned was one. Therefore we now take those among the Omi, Muraji, Tomo-no-Miyatsuko, Wake, Kuni-no-Miyatsuko, Agatanushi and the like whose offices and uji appear in the historical records, set them out in tables, and record their general outline. The reasons for the rise and decline of the state may be roughly discerned from these, and the traces of the successive sovereigns' administration of the heavenly undertaking may likewise be glimpsed in part. Thus we compose the Tables of the Omi, Muraji and the Two Kinds of Miyatsuko (Tomo-no-Miyatsuko and Kuni-no-Miyatsuko).

¶(Note: The table that follows in the original, listing the holders of these titles reign by reign, is not translated here. It is available in the Japanese edition.)