- +CHIPANGU represents the Chinese Jih-pen-kwe, the kingdom of
Japan, the name Jih-pen being the Chinese pronunciation, of which the term
Nippon, Niphon or Nihon, used in Japan, is a dialectic variation,
both meaning "the origin of the sun," or sun-rising, the place the sun
comes from. The name Chipangu is used also by Rashiduddin. Our Japan
was probably taken from the Malay Japun or Japang.
["The name Nihon ('Japan') seems to have been first officially employed
by the Japanese Government in A.D. 670. Before that time, the usual native
designation of the country was Yamato, properly the name of one of the
central provinces. Yamato and O-mi-kuni, that is, 'the Great August
Country,' are the names still preferred in poetry and belles-lettres.
Japan has other ancient names, some of which are of learned length and
thundering sound, for instance, Toyo-ashi-wara-no-chi-aki-no-naga-i-ho-
aki-no-mizu-ho-no-kuni, that is 'the Luxuriant-Reed-Plains-the-Land-of-
Fresh-Rice-Ears-of-a-Thousand-Autumns-of-Long-Five-Hundred-Autumns.'"
(B.H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, 3rd ed. p. 222.) - H.C.]
It is remarkable that the name Nipon occurs, in the form of Al-Nafun,
in the Ikhwan-al-Safa, supposed to date from the 10th century. (See
J.A.S.B. XVII. Pt. I. 502.)
[I shall merely mention the strange theory of Mr. George Collingridge that
Zipangu is Java and not Japan in his paper on The Early Cartography of
Japan. (Geog. Jour. May, 1894, pp. 403-409.) Mr. F.G. Kramp (Japan or
Java?), in the Tijdschrift v. het K. Nederl. Aardrijkskundig
Genootschap, 1894, and Mr. H. Yule Oldham (Geog. Jour., September,
1894, pp. 276-279), have fully replied to this paper. - H.C.]
NOTE 2. - The causes briefly mentioned in the text maintained the abundance
and low price of gold in Japan till the recent opening of the trade. (See
Bk. II. ch. 1. note 5.) Edrisi had heard that gold in the isles of Sila
(or Japan) was so abundant that dog-collars were made of it.
NOTE 3. - This was doubtless an old "yarn," repeated from generation to
generation. We find in a Chinese work quoted by Amyot: "The palace of the
king (of Japan) is remarkable for its singular construction. It is a vast
edifice, of extraordinary height; it has nine stories, and presents on all
sides an exterior shining with the purest gold." (Mem. conc. les
Chinois, XIV. 55.) See also a like story in Kaempfer. (H. du Japon, I.
139.)
[Illustration: Ancient Japanese Archer. (From a Native Drawing.)]
NOTE 4. - Kaempfer speaks of pearls being found in considerable numbers,
chiefly about Satsuma, and in the Gulf of Omura, in Kiusiu. From what
Alcock says they do not seem now to be abundant.
