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THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN
FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORY
TO THE ERA OF MEIJI
BY
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D.
FORMERLY OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF TOKIO; AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'S
EMPIRE" AND "COREA, THE HERMIT NATION;" LATE LECTURER ON THE MORSE
FOUNDATION IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN NEW YORK
"I came not to destroy, but to fulfil."--THE SON OF MAN
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1895
COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
IN GLAD RECOGNITION OF THEIR SERVICES TO THE WORLD
AND
IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MY OWN GREAT DEBT TO BOTH
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK
SO UNWORTHY OF ITS GREAT SUBJECT
TO
THOSE TWO NOBLE BANDS OF SEEKERS AFTER TRUTH
THE FACULTY OF UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
OF WHOM
CHARLES A. BRIGGS AND GEORGE L. PRENTISS
ARE THE HONORED SURVIVORS
AND TO
THAT TRIO OF ENGLISH STUDENTS
ERNEST M. SATOW, WILLIAM G. ASTON AND BASIL H. CHAMBERLAIN
WHO LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN JAPAN
"IN UNCONSCIOUS BROTHERHOOD, BINDING THE SELF-SAME SHEAF"
PREFACE
This book makes no pretence of furnishing a mirror of contemporary
Japanese religion. Since 1868, Japan has been breaking the chains of her
intellectual bondage to China and India, and the end is not yet. My
purpose has been, not to take a snap-shot photograph, but to paint a
picture of the past. Seen in a lightning-flash, even a tempest-shaken
tree appears motionless. A study of the same organism from acorn to
seed-bearing oak, reveals not a phase but a life. It is something like
this--"_to_ the era of Meiji" (A.D. 1868-1894+) which I have essayed.
Hence I am perfectly willing to accept, in advance, the verdict of smart
inventors who are all ready to patent a brand-new religion for Japan,
that my presentation is "antiquated."
The subject has always been fascinating, despite its inherent
difficulties and the author's personal limitations. When in 1807, the
polite lads from Satsuma and Kiōto came to New Brunswick, N.J., they
found at least one eager questioner, a sophomore, who, while valuing
books, enjoyed at first hand contemporaneous human testimony.
When in 1869, to Rutgers College, came an application through Rev. Dr.
Guido F. Verbeck, of Tōkiō, from Fukui for a young man to organize
schools upon the American principle in the province of Echizen
(ultra-Buddhistic, yet already so liberally leavened by the ethical
teachings of Yokoi Héishiro), the Faculty made choice of the author.
Accepting the honor and privilege of being one of the "beginners of a
better time," I caught sight of peerless Fuji and set foot on Japanese
soil December 29, 1870. Amid a cannonade of new sensations and fresh
surprises, my first walk was taken in company with the American
missionary (once a marine in Perry's squadron, who later invented the
jin-riki-sha), to see a hill-temple and to study the wayside shrines
around Yokohama. Seven weeks' stay in the city of Yedo--then rising out
of the débris of feudalism to become the Imperial capital, Tōkiō,
enabled me to see some things now so utterly vanished, that by some
persons their previous existence is questioned. One of the most
interesting characters I met personally was Fukuzawa, the reformer, and
now "the intellectual father of half of the young men of ... Japan." On
the day of the battle of Uyéno, July 11, 1868, this far-seeing patriot
and inquiring spirit deliberately decided to keep out of the strife, and
with four companions of like mind, began the study of Wayland's Moral
Science. Thus were laid the foundations of his great school, now a
university.
Journeying through the interior, I saw many interesting phenomena of
popular religions which are no longer visible. At Fukui in Echizen, one
of the strongholds of Buddhism, I lived nearly a year, engaged in
educational work, having many opportunities of learning both the
scholastic and the popular forms of Shintō and of Buddhism. I was
surrounded by monasteries, temples, shrines, and a landscape richly
embroidered with myth and legend. During my four years' residence and
travel in the Empire, I perceived that in all things the people of Japan
were _too_ religious.
In seeking light upon the meaning of what I saw before me and in
penetrating to the reasons behind the phenomena, I fear I often made
myself troublesome to both priests and lay folk. While at work in
Tōkiō, though under obligation to teach only physical science, I
voluntarily gave instruction in ethics to classes in the University. I
richly enjoyed this work, which, by questioning and discussion, gave me
much insight into the minds of young men whose homes were in every
province of the Empire. In my own house I felt free to teach to all
comers the religion of Jesus, his revelation of the fatherhood of God
and the ethics based on his life and words. While, therefore, in
studying the subject, I have great indebtedness to acknowledge to
foreigners, I feel that first of all I must thank the natives who taught
me so much both by precept and practice. Among the influences that have
helped to shape my own creed and inspire my own life, have been the
beautiful lives and noble characters of Japanese officers, students and
common people who were around and before me. Though freely confessing
obligation to books, writings, and artistic and scholastic influences, I
hasten first to thank the people of Japan, whether servants, superior
officers, neighbors or friends. He who seeks to learn what religion is
from books only, will learn but half.
Gladly thanking those, who, directly or indirectly, have helped me with
light from the written or printed page, I must first of all gratefully
express my especial obligations to those native scholars who have read
to me, read for me, or read with me their native literature.
The first foreign students of Japanese religions were the Dutch, and the
German physicians who lived with them, at Déshima. Kaempfer makes
frequent references, with test and picture, in his Beschryving van
Japan. Von Siebold, who was an indefatigable collector rather than a
critical student, in Vol. V. of his invaluable _Archiv_ (Pantheon von
Nippon), devoted over forty pages to the religions of Japan. Dr. J.J.
Hoffman translated into Dutch, with notes and explanations, the
Butsu-zō-dzu-i, which, besides its 163 figures of Buddhist holy men,
gives a bibliography of the works mentioned by the native author. In
visiting the Japanese museum on the Rapenburg, Leyden, one of the
oldest, best and most intelligently arranged in Europe, I have been
interested with the great work done by the Dutchmen, during two
centuries, in leavening the old lump for that transformation which in
our day as New Japan, surprises the world. It requires the shock of
battle to awaken the western nations to that appreciation of the racial
and other differences between the Japanese and Chinese, which the
student has already learned.
The first praises, however, are to be awarded to the English scholars,
Messrs. Satow, Aston, Chamberlain, and others, whose profound researches
in Japanese history, language and literature have cleared the path for
others to tread in. I have tried to acknowledge my debt to them in both
text and appendix.
To several American missionaries, who despite their trying labors have
had the time and the taste to study critically the religions of Japan, I
owe thanks and appreciation. With rare acuteness and learning, Rev. Dr.
George Wm. Knox has opened on its philosophical, and Rev. Dr. J.H.
DeForest on its practical side, the subject of Japanese Confucianism. By
his lexicographical work, Dr. J.C. Hepburn has made debtors to him both
the native and the alien. To our knowledge of Buddhism in Japan, Dr.
J.C. Berry and Rev. J.L. Atkinson have made noteworthy contributions. I
have been content to quote as authorities and illustrations, the names
of those who have thus wrought on the soil, rather than of those, who,
even though world-famous, have been but slightly familiar with the
ethnic and the imported faith of Japan. The profound misunderstandings
of Buddhism, which some very eminent men of Europe have shown in their
writings, form one of the literary curiosities of the world.
In setting forth these Morse lectures, I have purposely robbed my pages
of all appearance of erudition, by using as few uncouth words as
possible, by breaking up the matter into paragraphs of moderate length,
by liberally introducing subject-headings in italics, and by relegating
all notes to the appendix. Since writing the lectures, and even while
reading the final proofs, I have ransacked my library to find as many
references, notes, illustrations and authorities as possible, for the
benefit of the general student. I have purposely avoided recondite and
inaccessible books and have named those easily obtainable from American
or European publishers, or from Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, of Yokohama,
Japan. In using oriental words I have followed, in the main, the
spelling of the Century Dictionary. The Japanese names are expressed
according to that uniform system of transliteration used by Hepburn,
Satow and other standard writers, wherein consonants have the same
general value as in English (except that initial g is always hard),
while the vowels are pronounced as in Italian. Double vowels must be
pronounced double, as in Méiji (mā-ē-jē); those which are long
are marked, as in ō or ū; i before o or u is short. Most of the
important Japanese, as well as Sanskrit and Chinese, terms used, are
duly expressed and defined in the Century Dictionary.
I wish also to thank especially my friends, Riu Watanabe, Ph.D., of
Cornell University, and William Nelson Noble, Esq., of Ithaca. The
former kindly assisted me with criticisms and suggestions, while to the
latter, who has taken time to read all the proofs, I am grateful for
considerable improvement in the English form of the sentences.
In closing, I trust that whatever charges may be brought against me by
competent critics, lack of sympathy will not be one. I write in sight of
beautiful Lake Cayuga, on the fertile and sloping shores of which in old
time the Iroquois Indian confessed the mysteries of life. Having planted
his corn, he made his pregnant squaw walk round the seed-bed in hope of
receiving from the Source of life increased blessing and sustenance for
body and mind. Between such a truly religious act of the savage, and
that of the Christian sage, Joseph Henry, who uncovered his head while
investigating electro-magnetism to "ask God a question," or that of
Samuel F.B. Morse, who sent as his first telegraphic message "What hath
God wrought," I see no essential difference. All three were acts of
faith and acknowledgment of a power greater than man. Religion is one,
though religions are many. As Principal Fairbairn, my honored
predecessor in the Morse lectureship, says: "What we call superstition
of the savage is not superstition _in him_. Superstition is the
perpetuation of a low form of belief along with a higher knowledge....
Between fetichism and Christian faith there is a great distance, but a
great affinity--the recognition of a supra-sensible life."
"For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing
of the sons of God.... The creation itself shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of
God."
W.E.G.
ITHACA, N.Y., October 27, 1894.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS, PAGE 1
Salutatory.--The Morse Lectureship and its provisions.--The Science of
Comparative Religion is Christianity's own child.--The Parliament of
Religions.--The Study of Religion most appropriate in a Theological
Seminary.--Shortening weapons and lengthening boundaries.--The right
missionary spirit that of the Master, who "came not to destroy but to
fulfil."--Characteristics of Japan.--Bird's-eye view of Japanese history
and religion.--Popularly, not three religions but one
religion.--Superstitions which are not organically parts of the
"book-religions."--The boundary line between the Creator and his
creation not visible to the pagan.--Shamanism: Fetichism.--Mythical
monsters, Kirin, Phoenix, Tortoise, Dragon.--Japanese mythical
zoölogy.--The erection of the stone fetich.--Insurance by amulets upon
house and person.--Phallicism.--Tree-worship.--Serpent-worship.--These
unwritten superstitions condition the "book-religions."--Removable by
science and a higher religion.