l arts came in rapid succession the elements of a
higher civilization. Books on almanac-making, astronomy, geography and
divination were brought to Japan from Korea and China. The Chinese
calendar(88) was first used in the reign of the Empress Suiko under the
regency of Shotoku Taishi. This almanac was based on the lunar periods and
the civil year began with the new moon occurring about the beginning of
February. But as the length of the civil year is not an exact multiple of
the number of days contained in a lunation, the twelve lunar months used
by the Chinese and Japanese will be about eleven days shorter than the
solar year. Hence to prevent the discrepancy from increasing and throwing
the seasons entirely out of their place in the calendar, an intercalary
month was inserted nearly every third year. It was inserted not at the end
of the year but whenever the discrepancy had reached the number of days in
a lunation. The month thus inserted was called by the same name as the
preceding with an explanatory prefix. From this period therefore the dates
of Japanese events may be relied upon with some degree of certainty. For
events occurring before this period, a knowledge of which must have been
transmitted by oral tradition, the dates assigned to them in the _Nihongi_
must have been computed by counting back to the supposed time according to
the calendar in use at the time of the writing.

The astronomy and geography introduced into Japan along with
almanac-making in the fifth century were without question very primitive
sciences. At this time even in Europe the knowledge of these sciences was
not advanced beyond the imperfect notions of the Greeks. It was not until
the sixteenth century, when the discoveries of the Portuguese and the
Spaniards and the English had revealed the shape and the divisions of the
earth, and the Jesuits had carried this knowledge to China and Japan, that
anything like a correct astronomy or geography was possible. By
divination, which is mentioned as one of the sciences brought over from
Korea, was meant the determination of future events or of lucky or unlucky
conditions.

The most important civilizing force introduced from China at this period
was the formal institutions of education. Although the first establishment
of a school dates from the reign of the Emperor Tenji (A.D. 668-671), yet
it was not till the reign of the Emperor Mommu (A.D. 697-707) that the
university was regularly organize