Go probably reached Japan in the 5th century and certainly no later than the 6th. It is likely that it was introduced from Korea by Buddhist monks or Chinese-trained scholars and ex-officials, attracted by the warm welcome they received from Japanese eager to assimilate the culture of the mainland.

The earliest known mention in any surviving historical document of go in Japan is contained in The Records of the Sui, the chronicle of a short-lived Chinese dynasty, which collapsed in 618. A Japanese ambassador was posted to Ch'ang-an, the capital, in 607, and the Chinese must have jumped at the chance to learn about the distant Japanese homeland from the ambassador and his entourage:

For music they [the Japanese] have the 5-string koto and flute . . . They have acquired the Buddhist teaching and for the first time have a written literature. On New Year's Day they always have archery contests, feasting, and drinking of wine . . . They enjoy the pastimes of go, backgammon [`sugoroku' as it was called in Japan], and gambling.

This description would seem fairly accurate even today.

At the beginning of the 8th century, go was popular among Japanese Buddhist monks and nuns. In the year 738, as a Court chronicle records, an officer of the Imperial Household Guards fell to quarreling over a game of go and killed his opponent, a man from Azuma, in the Eastern part of the country (see Print 11-3). In short, the game must have been fairly widely known in what we might call the middle level of society, if not yet accepted by the aristocratic class. In spite of all this, however, the Japanese for most of their history have accepted it as a truism that go was introduced into the country by a certain Kibi no Makibi, known as Kibi Daijin, or `Grand Minister Kibi'. This following statement, made by a learned essayist in 1671, is typical:

This same Kibi was also credited with introducing into Japan the art of embroidery, the biwa (Chinese lute), and the `secrets of the calendar.' The real story behind the legend is as interesting as the legend itself.

Kibi was born into a family of provincial aristocrats in 695 and died, full of honors, in 775. While still a youth he won favor at the Imperial Court, then situated in Nara. At the age of 22, he was sent, like many other promising young men of his class at the time, to study at Ch'ang-an, the capital of the T'ang dynasty. He was given special instructions to `bring back the fruits of T'ang learning.' One of his traveling companions was Abe no Nakamaro, later to achieve immortal fame for a single poem collected in the popular anthology Hyakunin Isshu (100 Poems by 100 Poets).

Kibi spent 19 years in Ch'ang-an, the largest and most splendid city in Asia, and the fountainhead of the flourishing culture of the T'ang Empire. His formal studies probably took place at the Hong lu si, a ministry in charge of taking care of foreign dignitaries, but he also seems to have been a welcome guest at the Imperial Court. After his return to the Japanese capital he was appointed preceptor to the princess, the future Empress Koken. He made a second, shorter trip to China as Vice Ambassador in 752. Later, under the Empress Koken's patronage, he was in charge of constructing Todaiji in Nara, and, in 766, was appointed Grand Minister of the Right, the third highest position in the government.

Kibi's first visit to China is the subject of a fascinating story. When it began to circulate is not clear, but one of the earliest written versions of it is preserved in a scroll known as Kibi Daijin Nitto Ekotoba (Illustrated Narrative of Grand Minister Kibi's Entrance into T'ang), believed to date from the 11th or 12th century. The story was eventually dramatized for the kabuki theater, and one scene became popular in woodblock prints.

It seems (the story goes) that while Kibi was in Ch'ang-an the Emperor Hsuan-tsung wished to test his mental powers and invited him to play go with one of the ministers of the Court. At that time Kibi did not even know the rules of the game, but he agreed nevertheless, and even went so far as to stake his life on winning the chance to be instructed in the secrets of the calendar. Aided by the ghost of his friend Abe no Nakamaro, Kibi was on the verge of achieving a one-point victory when the minister's wife, who was standing by, secretly swallowed a stone in order to save her husband from the shame of defeat.

All the stones were counted (as is still the rule in Chinese go), and one was found to be missing. Now it happened that the Emperor owned a magic mirror. It was fetched, and with its help the missing stone was located. Hsuan-tsung was incensed and gave the order for the unfortunate woman to be executed. Kibi, however, begged the Emperor to spare her, which he did. She later repaid Kibi's generosity by warning him of a plot that jealous courtiers were hatching against his life, and helping him get safely back to Japan.

One version of this tale supplies a disarmingly intimate touch. Somehow or other Kibi retrieved the missing stone and in due course, upon his return home, presented to his wife the souvenir, wrapped in a piece of silk and encased in a jade box. This lady prudently kept the box but threw the stone into the well of her next-door neighbor, whom she disliked.

Two things may be especially noted in this romantic narrative. One is the association of go with the calendar -- that is, with the movements of the stars and planets, a theme that turns up again and again in early legends. The other is that Kibi and the Chinese minister played for stakes. This was a common practice in China and in Japan, too, until the Go Bureau established by the Tokugawa government early in the 17th century promulgated a strict etiquette for players. These traditional associations of go with gambling and astronomy are echoes, I believe, from before recorded history when the game was still evolving from its origins as a primitive form of divination.

Folk memory may have garbled the facts somewhat, but there is a sound historical basis for much of the framework of the Kibi tradition. We know, for example, that the Emperor Hsuan-tsung was devoted to the study of Taoist magic and that adepts in this art were often entertained at the T'ang Court. We know also that go was popular there and that the Emperor himself liked to play. On this point there is a colorful bit of evidence. After the death of his favorite concubine, the Precious Consort Yang Kuei Fei, one of his courtiers composed a memorial of consolation. In this the writer recalls, among other things, how

. . . on a summer day long ago, when you were playing go with the hereditary princess, you ordered this subject to play the lute alone. The Precious Consort stood before the stage and watched you. Your Majesty was losing the game and the Precious Consort let loose a cunning dog from the country of K'ang [see Print 4-6]. It completely disarranged the go game and Your Majesty was greatly pleased.

In connection with the calendar, we know that a fellow visitor to Ch'ang-an while Kibi was there was the Buddhist monk I-Hsing, one of the greatest astronomers in Chinese history. It was I-Hsing who constructed the Ta Yen calendar, published for use throughout the T'ang Empire in 729, the 12th year of Kibi's visit. This same calendar was brought to Japan and adopted there in 763, a measure in which Kibi is likely to have been involved.

I-Hsing was a skilled mathematician and perhaps a go player as well. He is said to have been the first to propound the famous problem: find the total number of combinations possible on a go board. Using counting rods and the matrix system of calculation, the best methods then available, he got as far as the number 847,288,609,443 for twenty-five intersections and an estimate of 10 to the 208th power for all 361 intersections.

As for the idea that Kibi introduced the lute and the art of embroidery, the Illustrated Narrative relates that the ship on which he returned to Japan after his studies in Ch'ang-an was laden with scrolls of Buddhist sutras and Chinese classics, paintings, medicines, tools for divination, gifts and artifacts of various kinds. No doubt musical instruments and fine textiles made up part of the cargo. This, then, together with a head full of learning, is presumably how he fulfilled the commission given him 19 years earlier. One elegantly constructed go board, presumably of Chinese manufacture, is still preserved since 756 in the Imperial Depository at Nara, where a vast quantity of art treasures are housed. They belonged to the Empress Koken and her father, and it is tempting to think that Kibi may have brought them back with him too.

Above are pictures of the board and samples from two sets of stones stored in the Imperial Depository that Kibi was supposed to have brought back with him from China. The board is thin and made of mulberry wood, highly decorated, set upon curved, delicately carved legs like pieces of Chinese household furniture. One set of stones is made of quartz and serpentine, the other of bone, dyed red and purple and engraved with designs of birds.

In the early part of the 8th century the Japanese Court and aristocracy had a boundless admiration for the culture of China. What was favored in Ch'ang-an was certain to rise in its estimation too. Go was known in Japan, but it was just one of the many pastimes of monks, soldiers, and low level officials. Very little from that stratum of society penetrated the remote and cloistered world of the nobility. But when it became known that go was popular at the T'ang Court -- the Asian equivalent of Versailles, the Vatican, Bond Street and Park Avenue together -- it would have acquired a special status.

During his 19 years at Ch'ang-an Kibi studied the classical curriculum of philosophy, history, poetry and music. We can be confident that Kibi absorbed the Chinese scholar's feeling for go and its traditions. He would not have been the only Japanese student to do so, of course, but because of his aristocratic background, his experience, his learning, his exalted academic and ministerial rank, and his position of intimacy in the Imperial Household in Nara, he was uniquely situated to supply those patents of authority that the game needed to win the favor of the nobles.

This, I believe, is the meaning of the Kibi legend: it is the record, captured in folklore, of the part he played in helping to make go esteemed at Court and in aristocratic circles. From this high point of vantage it acquired the prestige that it was never to lose as it attracted ever wider circles of admirers in the ensuing centuries. After the Grand Minister passes from the scene, references to the game begin to multiply in Court records, memoirs, and works of fiction.

When Kibi returned to Japan in 735 he brought with him a young scholar named Yuan Shin-ch'ing, skilled at reading difficult texts in the modern fashion. This person became naturalized under the name Kiyomura Sukune and played an important role in establishing the new standard. The old pronunciations remained in use, to a certain extent, among the commoners and in monastic circles, chiefly in connection with the reading of Buddhist texts, while the new were adopted by the nobles and scholars -- Kibi's circle -- for reading the Chinese classics. Thus it came about that ki became the elegant word for the game. This circumstance probably helped to establish the popular notion that Kibi brought the game itself to Japan.

The Chinese character that means go, the game (pronounced Ch'i in Chinese), in Japan is pronounced in two ways, ki and go. The reason for this is that in China there was a major shift in the pronunciation of the language between the 5th and 7th century. Go derives from the earlier pronunciation, in use in northern China from about 300 to 550 and which therefore probably reached Japan some time during that period as one among a large influx of loan-words from the mainland. We find the Chinese character for go used because of its phonic value by Chinese-trained scholars in writing a place-name in the Kojiki, compiled about the year 712. But by Kibi's day many of these pronunciations had come to be considered rustic and old-fashioned in Ch'ang-an, and `ki' is one of the new pronunciations that became fashionable. The written character remained substantially unchanged. This elegant word continues to be used today in such formal expressions as kido (the way of go, which has Taoist connotations), and kishi (go master), but go remains the popular term.