144 



had not yet vanished. Further, in the same night one of the 

 three stone gods, about 4 jo high, which from olden times had 

 stood on the mountain peak of Hirae-g'arai (the "Female Deity"), 

 was broken. The officials of the Dazaifu, having practised tortoise 

 divination, positively declared that these occurrences were omens 

 of (litt. corresponded with) calamity of water [^fC^, sui-eki, 

 litt. "water-pestilence"; in the following text, however, hei-eki, 

 "war-pestilence", is said to have been predicted by the diviners]" '. 



On the tenth day of the second month of the following year 

 (865 A. D.) the Emperor issued a proclamation ^, in which he 

 said that the aforesaid evil omens were due to his own bad 

 reign and that he therefore thenceforth would earnestly pray to 

 the gods and reign better than before. He said that the water 

 of the sacred pond spoken of by the Dazaifu never increased 

 even if it rained excessively, nor decreased even in times of 

 drought (litt. excessive sunshine) ^ and that divination had made 

 out that the sudden throwing up of its water was an omen of 

 war *. He was much grieved, he said, but hoped to stop these 

 bad influences by reigning better than before. And seven days 

 later ^ he despatched two messengers to the Imperial mausolea 

 at Tamashina and made them read there a written message to 

 his ancestor Tenji Tenno, by which he communicated the whole 

 matter to him and besought him to ward off this calamity. 



Of so much importance were the "Dragon-god of the strong 

 Eock" and his sacred pond. It is the first time that we meet 

 the word tatsu used separately] in the sense of dragon (in the 

 Nihongi only to be found in the name Tatsuta, "Dragon-field"), 

 and we may be sure that we meet here with a very old Japanese 

 dragon-divinity. The same pond is mentioned in the Nihon koki'^, 

 but without the name of the god to whom it belonged. We 

 read there in a proclamation of the Emperor Kwammu in the 

 year 796 A. D. the following: "The Dazaifii has reported that in 



2 Ch. X, p. 173. 



* ^^^jf ^o ^^%n. 5 Ch.X,p.l74. 



6 H 2J5: # IE' written in 841; Ch. V, K. T. K. Vol. Ill, p. 2: -j^^ ^ 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



