Comparative Studies On Chinese And Japanese Political Myths

The relation between myth and politics is an important subject in myth study which has always been focusing on history and literature study,given the theme and plot of the myth can be traced back to the ancient times.Despite the fact that many scholars have already paid attention to such relation and have produced some monographs concerning political myths,there still exists some room for improvement with regard to quantity and quality of the relevant studies.There lack,in particular,investigations into such formation mechanism of myths as methods of framing,ways of expression and hidden logic to examine political myth applied in political activities.Centering on political myth,this dissertation endeavors to probe into the formation mechanism of political myth from two general approaches---one is to distinguish political myth from the general myth by summarizing its peculiarities in God families and plots in order to analyze the possible causes for those peculiarities;the other is to conduct a comparative study between typical Chinese and Japan political myths from the perspective of comparative mythology,aiming to find out the core functioning mechanism of political myth through their similarities and differences in God families and plots.Following the above-mentioned two approaches,the dissertation specifically compares between typical Chinese and Japan political myths,namely,the Omen Myth in Chinese Han Dynasty and Japanese Myth in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki after categorization of various roles and plots in myths so as to identify the common rules through comparison and eventually to generalize a universal formation mechanism of political myths beyond the specific roles and plots in myths.On the other hand,the dissertation illustrates how history and culture background may influence the political myth by analyzing the differences and by exploring the contributing factors behind between the two typical myths.The whole dissertation is divided into four parts----the Prologue,Part A,Part B and the Final Part.In addition to the previous studies,the Prologue mainly explains the emergence of the political myth,the reason why the Omen Myth in Chinese Han Dynasty and Japanese Myth in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki are regarded as the typical political myths in China and Japan,and their general features.Political myth did not appear from the air;rather,it was reshaped or even created from the evolution of the original myth.During this process,the power discourse has been playing a leading role.In Chinese Han Dynasty,with the establishment of a unified and centralized state,centuries of mythologies were fully reshaped and utilized,among which all kinds of omen myths were the most widely-used type;in comparison,with the settlement of the Jinshin War,the emperors of Japan were aware of utilizing discourse to consolidate their power at the beginning of the 8th century AD when the Chinese characters happened to be introduced to Japan.Consequently,Japanese Myth in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki became Japan's first batch of text books with its classic and unshakable status in history.Divided into 7 chapters,Part A categorizes and compares the roles in the Omen Myth in Chinese Han Dynasty and Japanese Myth in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.The first chapter classifies the roles and the rest six chapters respectively analyze the God of Abstraction,the God of Creation,the God of the World,culture heroes,the supporters versus the opponents,and the relationship between the role and function of myth.Through the analysis,the evolution trend of the roles' families in myths can be generalized to show that Gods are gradually close to the ordinary people due to their decreasing divinity.Part B is divided into two groups of six chapters by classifying and comparing the plots of Omen Myth in Chinese Han Dynasty and Japanese Myth in Kojiki and Nihon Shoki.The first three chapters discuss the operation system of divinity,in which summarize the origin of divinity and the mechanism of the divinity's expression and transfer by analyzing the plot of creation,the auspiciousness,disasters,dream and swear,and Wudezhongshi(meaning the historical cycle of five basic elements of gold,wood,water,fire and soil),as well as Wanshiyixi(meaning all the emperors of Japan share the same pedigree forever).The last three chapters study the manifestation of divinity on the specific Gods,and discuss the plot of the divine pregnancy and Gods' marriage,the order and the gift of Gods,and different appearance of Gods,which are all matters of the acquisition and manifestation of Gods'divinity.Based on the discussions in the Prologue,Part A and Part B,the Final Part studies the formation mechanism of Gods' identity and plot in political myths from the macro point of view.It is pointed out that the establishment of the God families and the distance control of plot are the key elements in the framing of political myth.Those elements have great importance not only in the two typical myths,but also in other nationalities during other periods of political myths.On the other hand,due to the different backgrounds of the two myths,their situation and status are totally different,indicating that political myths may differ in details with the influence from historical,cultural and other factors.