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Created page with "*''Japanese'': 天孫 ''(Tenson)'' Tenson (lit. "Heaven-descended") was the mythical first ruler of Okinawa. The ''Chûzan seikan'', comp..."
*''Japanese'': 天孫 ''(Tenson)''
Tenson (lit. "Heaven-descended") was the mythical first ruler of [[Okinawa Island|Okinawa]]. The ''[[Chuzan seikan|Chûzan seikan]]'', compiled in [[1650]], describes him in a manner largely similar to mythical Chinese [[sage-kings]], attributing to him the bestowal onto the people of practices or technologies such as agriculture, the brewing of alcohol, telling time by the moon, living indoors, and cooking with fire.
Tenson is also attributed with the establishment of [[Shuri]] as the royal capital and the division of the island into the [[Sanzan period|three regions]] of Chûzan, Nanzan, and Hokuzan; historians today generally place the establishment of Shuri as the capital sometime in the 14th or early 15th centuries, and while the division of the island into the regions of Kunigami, Nakagami, and Shimajiri retains prominence, the idea of it being ruled at any time by three well-defined territorial states (i.e. the kingdoms of Chûzan, Hokuzan, and Nanzan) has come under heavy critique.
The existence of Tenson and his many descendants/successors (the [[Tenson dynasty]] of rulers) in records such as the ''Chûzan seikan'' is believed to have been part of a strategy on the part of the 17th-18th c. [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]] to legitimate itself by crafting a lengthy, ancient, history akin to those of Chinese dynasties.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 87.
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Royalty]]
Tenson (lit. "Heaven-descended") was the mythical first ruler of [[Okinawa Island|Okinawa]]. The ''[[Chuzan seikan|Chûzan seikan]]'', compiled in [[1650]], describes him in a manner largely similar to mythical Chinese [[sage-kings]], attributing to him the bestowal onto the people of practices or technologies such as agriculture, the brewing of alcohol, telling time by the moon, living indoors, and cooking with fire.
Tenson is also attributed with the establishment of [[Shuri]] as the royal capital and the division of the island into the [[Sanzan period|three regions]] of Chûzan, Nanzan, and Hokuzan; historians today generally place the establishment of Shuri as the capital sometime in the 14th or early 15th centuries, and while the division of the island into the regions of Kunigami, Nakagami, and Shimajiri retains prominence, the idea of it being ruled at any time by three well-defined territorial states (i.e. the kingdoms of Chûzan, Hokuzan, and Nanzan) has come under heavy critique.
The existence of Tenson and his many descendants/successors (the [[Tenson dynasty]] of rulers) in records such as the ''Chûzan seikan'' is believed to have been part of a strategy on the part of the 17th-18th c. [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]] to legitimate itself by crafting a lengthy, ancient, history akin to those of Chinese dynasties.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Gregory Smits, ''Maritime Ryukyu'', University of Hawaii Press (2019), 87.
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Royalty]]