First Chinese Colony in Japan

The founding of the first Chinese colony in Japan is connected with many beautiful legends which hand about its great white mountain, Fuji-Yam. One is: "At last Izanami and Izanagi (Japanese Adam and Eve) said farewell to their children and went back to their homes among the gods. Their earthly children brought more and more splendor to the Island Kingdom until, at last, their thoughts were more of the kingdoms of the earth than of the gods. But there came a great earthquake, and the world in which they lived and felt themselves supreme was shaken to its foundations. The night was long, but when the sun rose it shone upon a beautiful mountain in their midst, white as marble, and perfect in majesty and symmetry (283 B. C.).

At first they thought it a vision, a cloud-picture that would fade away. But the new glory remained; by day it towered into the blue sky, by night it seemed lost in the Milky Way. The fame of this beautiful mountain went abroad, even across the sea. In the oldest Chinese books there is frequent mention made of Horaisan, a sacred mountain of perfect beauty and shining whiteness which was said to rise out of the Eastern Ocean. In China, wonderful stories arose about this half-mythical Horaisan. It was said to be inhabited by a number of holy hermits, and that whoever climbed to its summit would live forever, immortal, untouched by death or decay."

According to another legend, one of the wise men of Japan, Jofuku, led the first Chinese colony into Japan in the following maner:

The Emperor Shin-no-shiko, who reigned in China some two thousand years ago, had everything that this world could give,--Empire, riches, beautiful children, perfect health. But all this gave him no happiness as long as the fact remained that he must die and leave it all. So shin-no-shiko vowed that he would overcome death. He assembled all the wise men of his Empire, and offered untold treasures to any one who would discover an elixir of life. Many came at the call of the Emperor and made prescriptions. The elixir was first tried upon slaves; if they died, Shin-no-Shiko nodded his head to his green-bannerman, and each man who had fooled the Emperor was slain. But at last came a very wise man, called Jofuku. He told Shin-no-shiko that he knew those other wise men were all fools, because he, and he only, knew where the elixir of life could be obtained. Then Jofuku told the Emperor that the hermits of the Holy White Mountain in the Eastern Sea (Fuji-Yam) possessed the water of life, for, "had he not heard that none ever died there?" Then Shin-no-shiko rejoiced, thinking that immortality could now be obtained. Jofuku offered to head the mission to the hermits of Horaisan to procure the elixir of life, so that their noble Emperor might live forever. The Emperor provided him with ships and money, and all things necessary for the journey to "the holy mountain." But Jofuku said he must also take with him one thousand of the most beautiful youths and maidens of the Empire, to give importance to the Embassy and to overawe the hermits. He also ladened his ship with treasures wherewith to purchase the elixir, and, without the Emperor's consent, took with him a great number of learned and sacred books. With all this splendid plunder, Jofuku sailed away to "the land of the rising sun" and the holy mountain.

No thought of returning to China had been in his mind. He needed his five hundred couples, his treasures and books, for the founding of a colony in the land which he knew must lie around the mountain. The Emperor waited many weary months for his wise men to sail into port with the elixir of life. When he found that he had been deceived, he ordered all the wise men in China to be put to death, and, in his rage, made bonfires of all the learned books, saying, in his proclamation: "The uneducated are more easily governed." Jofuku thus founded the first Chinese colony in Japan, in the province of Kishiu, and the valuable books which he stole are to this day the envy and despair of Chinese scholars.

Mrs. Hugh Fraser, in her "Letters from Japan," gives many other beautiful legends about the great volcanic mountain which has many names.

The more learned of the Buddhists believe that their great teacher gave the mountain its perfect shape, as the symbol of Nirvana's perfect peace. "So the queen of the mountain hangs between the stars of heaven and the mists of the earth, dear to every heart that can be still and understand." The same writer says: "Fuji dominates life in Japan by its silent beauty; sorrow is hushed, longing quieted, strife forgotten in its presence, and broad rivers of peace flow down from that changeless home of peace," the Peak of the White Lotus.