Terminology used in Ningen-Sengen (Emporer's Declaration of Being Human)

[Mikawa Ossan]

Links to Wikipedia.

English:
Humanity Declaration - Wikipedia

Japanese:
人間宣言 - Wikipedia

This is a discussion that really consists of three parts.

1) What is the wording in the Japanese and what does it mean?

2) What is the wording in the English and what does it mean?

3) What is to be taken of the possible discrepancies between the two?

Here is PART ONE of my response:

1) Japanese wording

朕ト爾等國民トノ間ノ紐帯ハ、終始相互ノ信頼ト敬愛トニ依リテ結バレ、單ナル神話ト傳説トニ依リテ生ゼルモノニ非ズ。天皇ヲ以テ現御神トシ、且日本國民ヲ以テ他ノ民族ニ優越セル民族ニシテ、延テ世界ヲ支配スベキ運命ヲ有ストノ架空ナル觀念ニ基クモノニモ非ズ。

Above is the Japanese wording taken from Wikipedia as my source.

2) English wording

The ties between Us and Our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.

Above is the official translation, according to Wikipedia.

1) What does this Japanese mean?

Specifically, what does the phrase 天皇ヲ以テ現御神トシ mean within this context?

The operative word in this phrase is 現御神 as this is what is being denied in therein.

According to Koujien,

現御神（あきつかみ）
人の姿を備えた神。天皇を尊んでいう。あらひとがみ。

In English this would mean, "A god having/prepared with/furnished with a person's figure/shape/appearance. Used in reverence of the emporer. A living god."

According to Daijirin, it means the following:

あきつかみ 【現つ神】
現実に姿を現している神。天皇の尊称。あきつみかみ。あらひとがみ。

Which is essentially the same as above.

Here is another definition from this web page, using Shinto Jiten as it's source:

あきつかみ 明神ｱｷﾂﾐｶﾐ･現神、また現人神とも
宣明ｾﾝﾐｮｳにのみ用いられた特殊の語で、天皇の統治の御行為は、神格を有する方としての尊い統治である事を称え、且つ宣示し、詔勅の権威を示すために用いたものである。

This definition states: "A special word used only in Imperial declarations, it was used to express the authority of an Imperial order/edict, while praising the actions of the emporer's reign as the noble reign of a person with the standing of a god." (The translation is my own.)

2) What does the English mean?

Specifically, what does the word "divine" mean?

Does it refer to "divine right" as the Japanese Wikipedia source above suggests?

Or does it refer more literally to one of the following:

divine/ adj.
1 [usually before noun] coming from or connected with God or a god
2 (old-fashioned) wonderful; beautiful

Main Entry:
1di·vine Listen to the pronunciation of 1divine
Pronunciation:
\də-ˈvīn\
Function:
adjective
Inflected Form(s):
di·vin·er; di·vin·est
Etymology:
Middle English divin, from Anglo-French, from Latin divinus, from divus god ― more at deity
Date:
14th century

1 a: of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god <divine love> b: being a deity <the divine Savior> c: directed to a deity <divine worship>2 a: supremely good : superb <the pie was divine> b: heavenly, godlike
― di·vine·ly adverb

 

[Hiroyuki Nagashima]

ﾅｽ窶倪?板ｿ窶堙娯?凖ｱ窶ｹﾅｸ
窶怒窶｢ﾂｶ
http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~tamura/nenntounosyousyo.pdf
窶ｰﾃｰﾂ静?
http://www.cc.matsuyama-u.ac.jp/~tamura/ninngennsenngenn.htm

After I read, and having untied the whole text,
You should think about a difference of a meaning when you assumed a part of ARAHITO-GAMI decoding partially.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

Thank you for the links, Hiroyuki Nagashima! I must admit that I was hoping to find the entire text someplace to see the context in which that excerpt is in. At this particular point in time, I have read the text of the original document (the top link), but I have not read the analysis of it in the bottom link.

Here is PART TWO of my response:

1) On the Japanese wording

Based on the definitions that I have found thus far, I conclude that the Japanese wording ﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神 does refer to a god in mortal form, or at the very least, a mortal man fulfilling the requirements for being a deity, and therefore equivalent in the practical sense.

2) On the English wording

Upon reading the entire document, I have concluded that whatever ﾂ"divineﾂ" means in the English version, that is not where the significant possible difference lies. However, for argument's sake, I shall take the stance that ﾂ"divineﾂ" refers to ﾂ"being a deityﾂ", and therefore mostly equivalent to the Japanese text.

The reason that I have focused so much so far on the meaning ofﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神 is that the Japanese Wikipedia page gives it a lot of attention. According to that page, during the original drafting, a major point of contention was whether to deny ﾂ"being a godﾂ" (ﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神) or ﾂ"being of god/deity ancestryﾂ" (ﾂ神窶堙娯?凪?禿･ﾃ｡). MacArthur wanted the emporer to deny being of god/deity ancestry, while the emporer himself opposed this. He did not oppose denying that he was a god, however. Wikipedia states that the emporer conceded to MacArthur's wishes on December 31st of that year. However, the document in Japanese never once directly refers to whether the emporer is descended from gods/deities.

However, as I mentioned earlier, I think that the major possible difference between the two lies elsewhere. I think it lies in the interpretation of the sentence structure of the Japanese original, which can yeild a completely different result from the English. In fact, after reading the document as a whole, my first reaction was that the English translation is indeed not accurate to the Japanese (or vice versa as the case may be).

I will address this in my next response.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

For everyone's benefit in following along, I have found a link with the English translation juxtaposed with the Japanese.
Home - JapaneseHistory.de

PART THREE

The crux of the matter as I see it is how to interpret the structure of the Japanese sentence, but before I pursue this, I will briefly interpret the English translation.

ENGLISH:

They are not predicated on the false conception that the Emperor is divine, and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.

In this sentence, both ﾂ"the Emporer is divineﾂ" and ﾂ"the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the worldﾂ" refer to ﾂ"conceptionﾂ" as in {the A (that X), and (that Y)}. ﾂ"Conceptionﾂ" is modified by the word ﾂ"falseﾂ" and therefore both ﾂ"the Emporer is divineﾂ" and ﾂ"the Japanese people...worldﾂ" are false.

Note also that ﾂ"the Japanese people are superior to other racesﾂ" is directly linked to ﾂ"fated to rule the worldﾂ" in the same phrase, {A are X and Y}.

 

[Mikawa Ossan]

窶弖ﾂ皇ﾆ停?厖?鞍弾ﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神ﾆ暖ﾆ歎ﾂ、ﾅ?ﾅｽ窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ｡ﾂ?窶督ｯﾆ停?厖?鞍弾窶伉ｼﾆ知窶督ｯ窶伉ｰﾆ男窶妊窶ｰzﾆ短ﾆ停?ｹ窶督ｯ窶伉ｰﾆ男ﾆ歎ﾆ弾ﾂ、窶ｰ窶榿弾ﾂ青｢ﾅ?Eﾆ停?卩ｽx窶掏ﾆ湛ﾆ遅ﾆ鱈窶ｰ^ 窶督ｽﾆ停?吮?猫ﾆ湛ﾆ暖ﾆ知窶ｰﾃ銀?ｹﾃｳﾆ段ﾆ停?ｹﾃｦV窶抂ﾆ男ﾅ?ﾃｮﾆ誰ﾆ停?堡知ﾆ男ﾆ停?壺?敕ｱﾆ炭ﾂ。

This sentence consists of several clauses, and the question is how they relate to one another.

For the sake of those who can not read Japanese, I will break down the sentence into its component clauses and supply approximate translations to facilitate understanding.

窶弖ﾂ皇ﾆ停?厖?鞍弾ﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神ﾆ暖ﾆ歎
The emporer is a living-god

ﾅ?ﾅｽ窶愿ｺ窶怒ﾅ｡ﾂ?窶督ｯﾆ停?厖?鞍弾窶伉ｼﾆ知窶督ｯ窶伉ｰﾆ男窶妊窶ｰzﾆ短ﾆ停?ｹ窶督ｯ窶伉ｰﾆ男ﾆ歎ﾆ弾
Also the Japanese are a race which excels (is superior to) other races

窶ｰ窶榿弾ﾂ青｢ﾅ?Eﾆ停?卩ｽx窶掏ﾆ湛ﾆ遅ﾆ鱈窶ｰ^ 窶督ｽﾆ停?吮?猫ﾆ湛
By extension, possessing the fate of ruling the world

ﾆ暖ﾆ知窶ｰﾃ銀?ｹﾃｳﾆ段ﾆ停?ｹﾃｦV窶抂
ficticious concept

ﾆ男ﾅ?ﾃｮﾆ誰ﾆ停?堡知
things based on

ﾆ男ﾆ停?壺?敕ｱﾆ炭
(it) is not in

The subject (or more precisely, topic) of the main verb窶敕ｱﾆ炭 (not be) is窶卍ｽﾆ暖ﾅｽﾂ｢窶懌┐ﾅ｡ﾂ?窶督ｯﾆ暖ﾆ知ﾅ?ﾃ犯知窶｢R窶佚?the bonds between the Me (the emporer) and the People), which comes from the previous sentence. The subject is not explicitly stated in the sentence in question, but this is common in Japanese. The closest equivalent in English would be the pronoun ﾂ"itﾂ". In other words, this sentence and the sentence immediately preceding it have parallel sentence structure:

The bond between Me and the People..is not in A. It is not in B, either.

The ﾂ"itﾂ" in the second English sentence has merely been omitted in the Japanese, as that is the natural convention.

The main question as I see it is what links directly to the phrase

ﾆ暖ﾆ知窶ｰﾃ銀?ｹﾃｳﾆ段ﾆ停?ｹﾃｦV窶抂
ficticious concept

as only what is directly linked to that phrase is being called ﾂ"ficticiousﾂ" or denied, in other words.

Does

窶弖ﾂ皇ﾆ停?厖?鞍弾ﾅ陳ｻﾅ津､ﾂ神ﾆ暖ﾆ歎
The emporer is a living-god

link to

ﾆ暖ﾆ知窶ｰﾃ銀?ｹﾃｳﾆ段ﾆ停?ｹﾃｦV窶抂
ficticious concept

or not?

If not, then what does it link to?

Does it link to

ﾆ男ﾅ?ﾃｮﾆ誰ﾆ停?堡知
things based on
?

Does it link to
ﾆ男ﾆ停?壺?敕ｱﾆ炭
(it) is not in
?

 

[Chi65]

Although I cannot say much to the translations, I wish to thank you for bringing this up again and in this way!