Baruch Adonai-sama banzai...?
Feb. 23rd, 2008 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wombat1138(adapted from email to a querist at omniglot.com/puzzles.htm , about a mysterious inscription attributed to Amaterasu's mirror and claimed to be a form of Hebrew)
The diagram of this inscription is generally attributed (e.g., at http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam4.htm ) to Yano Yuutarou, as transmitted within the Shinsei-Ryuujinkai sect which Yano founded.
There's a bit more info about Yano and Shinsei-Ryuujkinkai in http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/newreligions/tsushima.html , which appears to be an academic article from 1991 (publication/translation info at http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/newreligions/index.html ).
Based on this latter article, I suspect that the inscription does not originate from the Imperial mirror enshrined at Ise Jingu. Apparently one of Yano's major influences was Takeuchi Kiyomaro, the founder of another religious movement; Takeuchi claimed to have another set of "sacred treasures" as family heirlooms (the article does not specifically mention a mirror, but its presence in the set seems likely).
In 1930, Yano examined the Takeuchi "treasures" with Sakai Katsutoki, "promoter of a Japanistic Christianity based on the hypothesis of a common ancestry to the Japanese and Jews." Sakai's company would surely have predisposed Yano to stretch for a Hebrew connection, and there appears to be no indication that Yano ever had access to the Ise mirror. Yano officially founded Shinsei-Ryuujinkai in 1934, but he was arrested for treason/heresy in 1936 and died in prison in 1938. According to this article, the sect did not outlive him.
Of course, some of his private writings might have been passed on within the family, but I can find no further English-language info about them. http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/tribesjapan.htm says that Yano's diagram was published in a book by "Wadoh Kohsaka" (or "Kousaka Wadou" etc. depending on transliteration variants), but similarly, I don't know anything else about Kousaka's book.
The diagram of this inscription is generally attributed (e.g., at http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracam4.htm ) to Yano Yuutarou, as transmitted within the Shinsei-Ryuujinkai sect which Yano founded.
There's a bit more info about Yano and Shinsei-Ryuujkinkai in http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/newreligions/tsushima.html , which appears to be an academic article from 1991 (publication/translation info at http://www2.kokugakuin.ac.jp/ijcc/wp/cpjr/newreligions/index.html ).
Based on this latter article, I suspect that the inscription does not originate from the Imperial mirror enshrined at Ise Jingu. Apparently one of Yano's major influences was Takeuchi Kiyomaro, the founder of another religious movement; Takeuchi claimed to have another set of "sacred treasures" as family heirlooms (the article does not specifically mention a mirror, but its presence in the set seems likely).
In 1930, Yano examined the Takeuchi "treasures" with Sakai Katsutoki, "promoter of a Japanistic Christianity based on the hypothesis of a common ancestry to the Japanese and Jews." Sakai's company would surely have predisposed Yano to stretch for a Hebrew connection, and there appears to be no indication that Yano ever had access to the Ise mirror. Yano officially founded Shinsei-Ryuujinkai in 1934, but he was arrested for treason/heresy in 1936 and died in prison in 1938. According to this article, the sect did not outlive him.
Of course, some of his private writings might have been passed on within the family, but I can find no further English-language info about them. http://www.biblemysteries.com/library/tribesjapan.htm says that Yano's diagram was published in a book by "Wadoh Kohsaka" (or "Kousaka Wadou" etc. depending on transliteration variants), but similarly, I don't know anything else about Kousaka's book.