privilege of slaughter: he probably did no more than confirm by
enactment certain long established military rights. Stern rules about
the conduct of inferiors to superiors would seem to have been
pitilessly enforced long before the rise of the [176] military power.
We read that the Emperor Yuriaku, in the latter part of the fifth
century, killed a steward for the misdemeanour of remaining silent,
through fear, when spoken to: we also find it recorded that he struck
down a maid-of-honour who had brought him a cup of wine, and that he
would have cut off her head but for the extraordinary presence of
mind which enabled her to improvise a poetical appeal for mercy. Her
only fault had been that, in carrying the wine-cup, she failed to
notice that a leaf had fallen into it,--probably because court-custom
obliged her to carry the cup in such a way as not to breathe upon it;
for emperors and high nobles were served after the manner of gods. It
is true that Yuriaku was in the habit of killing people for little
mistakes; but it is evident that, in the cases cited, such mistakes
were regarded as breaches of long-established decorum.
Probably before as well as after the introduction of the Chinese
penal codes,--the so-called Ming and Tsing codes, by which the
country was ruled under the Shoguns,--the bulk of the nation was
literally under the rod. Common folk were punished by cruel whippings
for the most trifling offences. For serious offences, death by
torture was an ordinary penalty; and there were extraordinary
penalties as savage, or almost as savage, as those established during
our own medieval period,--[177] burnings and crucifixions and
quarterings and boiling alive in oil. The documents regulating the
life of village-folk do not contain any indication of the severity of
legal discipline: the Kumi-cho declarations that such and such
conduct "shall be punished" suggest nothing terrible to the reader
who has not made himself familiar with the ancient codes. As a matter
of fact the term "punishment" in a Japanese legal document might,
signify anything from a trifling fine up to burning alive.... Some
evidence of the severity used to repress quarrelling even as late as
the time of Iyeyasu, may be found in a curious letter of Captain
Saris, who visited Japan in 1613. "The first of July," wrote the
Captain, "two of our Company happened to quarrell the one with the
other, and were very likely to haue gone into the field [i.e. to have
fought a duel] to the endangering of vs all. For it is a custome here
that whosoever drawes a weapon in anger, although he do noe harme
therewith, hee is presently cut in peeces; and, doing but small hurt,
not only themselues are so executed, but their whole generation." ...
The literal meaning of "cut in peeces" he explains later on, when
recounting in the same letter an execution that came under his
observation:--
"The eighth, three Iaponians were executed, viz., two men and one
woman: the cause this,--the woman, none of the honestest (her husband
being trauelled from home) [178] had appointed these two their
several hours to repair vnto her. The latter man, not knowing of the
former, and comming in before the houre appointed, found the first
man, and enraged thereat, he whipped out his cattan [katana] and
wounded both of them very sorely,--hauing very neere hewn the chine
of the mans back in two. But as well as hee might he cleared
himselfe, and recouering his cattan, wounded the other. The street,
taking notice of the fray, forthwith seased vpon them, led them
aside, and acquainted King Foyne therewith, and sent to know his
pleasure, (for according to his will, the partie is executed), who
presently gaue order that they should cut off their heads: which
done, euery man that listed (as very many did) came to try the
sharpness of their cattans vpon the corps, so that, before they left
off, they had hewne them all three into peeces as small as a mans
hand,--and yet notwithstanding, did not then giue over, but, placing
the peeces one vpon another, would try how many of them they could
strike through at a blow; and the peeces are left to the fowles to
deuoure." ....
Evidently the execution was in this case ordered for cause more
serious than the offence of fighting; but it is true that quarrels
were strictly forbidden and rigorously punished.
Though privileged to cut down "other-than-expected" people of
inferior rank, the military class itself had to endure a discipline
even more severe than that which it maintained. The penalty for a
word or a look that displeased, or for a trifling mistake in
performance of duty, might be death. In [179] most cases the Samurai
was permitted to be his own executioner; and the right of
self-destruction was deemed a privilege; but the obligation to thrust
a dagger deeply into one's belly on the left side, and then draw the
blade slowly and steadily across to the right side, so as to sever
all the entrails, was certainly not less cruel than the vulgar
punishment of crucifixion, or rather, double-transfixion.
Just as all matters relating to the manner of the individual's life
were regulated by law, so were all matters relating to his
death,--the quality of his coffin, the expenses of his interment, the
order of his funeral, the form of his tomb. In the seventh century
laws were passed to the effect that no one should be buried with
unseemly expense; and these laws fixed the cost of funerals according
to rank and grade. Subsequent edicts decided the dimensions and
material of coffins, and the size of graves. In the eighth century
every detail of funerals, for all classes of persons from prince to
peasant, was fixed by decree. Other laws, and modifications of laws,
were made upon the subject in later centuries; but there appears to
have always been a general tendency to extravagance in the matter of
funerals,--a tendency so strong that, in spite of centuries of
sumptuary legislation, it remains to-day a social danger. This can
easily be understood if we remember the beliefs regarding duty to the
dead, and the consequent [180] desire to honour and to please the
spirit even at the risk of family impoverishment.
Most of the legislation to which reference has already been made must
appear to modern minds tyrannical; and some of the regulations seem
to us strangely cruel. There was, moreover, no way of evading or
shirking these obligations of law and custom: whoever failed to
fulfil them was doomed to perish or to become an outcast; implicit
obedience was the condition of survival. The tendency of such
regulation was necessarily to suppress all mental and moral
differentiation, to numb personality, to establish one uniform and
unchanging type of character; and such was the actual result. To this
day every Japanese mind reveals the lines of that antique mould by
which the ancestral mind was compressed and limited. It is impossible
to understand Japanese psychology without knowing something of the
laws that helped to form it,--or, rather, to crystallize it under
pressure.
Yet, on the other hand, the ethical effects of this iron discipline
were unquestionably excellent. It compelled each succeeding
generation to practise the frugality of the forefathers; and
that--compulsion was partly justified by the great poverty of the
nation. It reduced the cost of living to a figure far below our
Western comprehension of the necessary; it cultivated sobriety,
simplicity, economy; it enforced [181] cleanliness, courtesy, and
hardihood. And--strange as the fact may seem--it did not make the
people miserable: they found the world beautiful in spite of all
their trouble; and the happiness of the old life was reflected in the
old Japanese art, much as the joyousness of Greek life yet laughs to
us from the vase-designs of forgotten painters.
And the explanation is not difficult. We must remember that the
coercion was not exercised only from without: it was really
maintained from within. The discipline of the race was self-imposed.
The people had gradually created their own social conditions, and
therefore the legislation conserving those conditions; and they
believed that legislation the best possible. They believed it to be
the best possible for the excellent reason that it had been founded
upon their own moral experience; and they could greatly endure
because they had great faith. Only religion could have enabled any
people to bear such discipline without degenerating into mopes and
cowards; and the Japanese never so degenerated: the traditions that
compelled self-denial and obedience, also cultivated courage, and
insisted upon cheerfulness. The power of the ruler was unlimited
because the power of all the dead supported him. "Laws," says Herbert
Spencer, "whether written or unwritten, formulate the rule of the
dead over the living. In addition to that power which past
generations exercise over present generations, by transmitting [182]
their natures,--bodily and mental,--and in addition to the power they
exercise over them by bequeathed habits and modes of life, there is
the power they exercise through their regulations for public conduct,
handed down orally, or in writing.... I emphasize these truths,"--he
adds,--"for the purpose of showing that they imply a tacit
ancestor-worship." ... Of no other laws in the history of human
civilization are these observations more true than of the laws of Old
Japan. Most strikingly did they "formulate the rule of the dead over
the living." And the hand of the dead was heavy: it is heavy upon the
living even to-day.
[183]
THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM
The nature of the opposition which the ancient religion of Japan
could offer to the introduction of any hostile alien creed, should
now be obvious. The family being founded upon ancestor-worship, the
commune being regulated by ancestor-worship, the clan-group or tribe
being governed by ancestor-worship, and the Supreme Ruler being at
once the high-priest and deity of an ancestral cult which united all
the other cults in one common tradition, it must be evident that the
promulgation of any religion essentially opposed to Shinto would have
signified nothing less than an attack upon the whole system of
society. Considering these circumstances, it may well seem strange
that Buddhism should have succeeded, after some preliminary struggles
(which included one bloody battle), in getting itself accepted as a
second national faith. But although the original Buddhist doctrine
was essentially in disaccord with Shinto beliefs, Buddhism had
learned in India, in China, in Korea, and in divers adjacent
countries, how to meet the spiritual needs of peoples maintaining a
persistent ancestor-worship. [184] Intolerance of ancestor-worship
would have long, ago resulted in the extinction of Buddhism; for its
vast conquests have all been made among ancestor-worshipping races.
Neither in India nor in China nor in Korea,--neither in Siam nor
Burmah nor Annam,--did it attempt to extinguish ancestor-worship,
Everywhere it made itself accepted as an ally, nowhere as an enemy,
of social custom. In Japan it adopted the same policy which had
secured its progress on the continent; and in order to form any clear
conception of Japanese religious conditions, this fact must be kept
in mind.
As the oldest extant Japanese texts--with the probable exception of
some Shinto rituals--date from the eighth century, it is only
possible to surmise the social conditions of that earlier epoch in
which there was no form of religion but ancestor-worship. Only by
imagining the absence of all Chinese and Korean influences, can we
form some vague idea of the state of things which existed during the
so-called Age of the Gods,--and it is difficult to decide at what
period these influences began to operate. Confucianism appears to
have preceded Buddhism by a considerable interval; and its progress,
as an organizing power, was much more rapid. Buddhism was first
introduced from Korea, about 552 A.D.; but the mission accomplished
little. By the end of the eighth century [185] the whole fabric of
Japanese administration had been reorganized upon the Chinese plan,
under Confucian influence; but it was not until well into the ninth
century that Buddhism really began to spread throughout the country.
Eventually it over-shadowed the national life, and coloured all the
national thought. Yet the extraordinary conservatism of the ancient
ancestor-cult--its inherent power of resisting fusion--was
exemplified by the readiness with which the two religions fell apart
on the disestablishment of Buddhism in 1871. After having been
literally overlaid by Buddhism for nearly a thousand years, Shinto
immediately reassumed its archaic simplicity, and reestablished the
unaltered forms of its earliest rites.
But the attempt of Buddhism to absorb Shinto seemed at one period to
have almost succeeded. The method of the absorption is said to have
been devised, about the year 800, by the famous founder of the
Shingon sect, Kukai or "Kobodaishi" (as he is popularly called), who
first declared the higher Shinto gods to be incarnations of various
Buddhas. But in this matter, of course, Kobodaishi was merely
following precedents of Buddhist policy. Under the name of
Ryobu-Shinto,* the new compound of Shinto and Buddhism obtained
imperial approval and support. [*The term "Ryobu" signifies
"two-departments" or "two religions."] Thereafter, in hundreds of
[186] places, the two religions were domiciled within the same
precinct--sometimes even within the same building: they seemed to
have been veritably amalgamated. And nevertheless there was no real
fusion;--after ten centuries of such contact they separated again, as
lightly as if they had never touched. It was only in the domestic
form of the ancestor-cult that Buddhism really affected permanent
modifications; yet even these were neither fundamental nor universal.
In certain provinces they were not made; and almost everywhere a
considerable part of the population preferred to follow the Shinto
form of the ancestor-cult. Yet another large class of persons,
converts to Buddhism, continued to profess the older creed as well;
and, while practising their ancestor-worship according to the
Buddhist rite, maintained separately also the domestic worship of the
elder gods. In most Japanese houses to-day, the "god-shelf" and the
Buddhist shrine can both be found; both cults being maintained under
the same roof.* ... But I am mentioning these facts only as
illustrating the conservative vitality of Shinto, not as indicating
any weakness in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the influence
which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese [187] civilization was immense,
profound, multiform, incalculable; and the only wonder is that it
should not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To state, as
various writers have carelessly stated, that Buddhism became the
popular religion, while Shinto remained the official religion, is
altogether misleading. As a matter of fact Buddhism became as much an
official religion as Shinto itself, and influenced the lives of the
highest classes not less than the lives of the poor. It made monks of
Emperors, and nuns of their daughters; it decided the conduct of
rulers, the nature of decrees, and the administration of laws. In
every community the Buddhist parish-priest was a public official as
well as a spiritual teacher: he kept the parish register, and made
report to the authorities upon local matters of importance.
[*The ancestor-worship and the funeral rites are Buddhist, as a
general rule, if the family be Buddhist; but the Shinto gods are also
worshipped in most Buddhist households, except those attached to the
Shin sect. Many followers of even the Shin sect, however, appear to
follow the ancient religion likewise; and they have their Ujigami.]
By introducing the love of learning, Confucianism had partly prepared
the way for Buddhism. As early even as the first century there were
some Chinese scholars in Japan; but it was toward the close of the
third century that the study of Chinese literature first really
became fashionable among the ruling classes. Confucianism, however,
did not represent a new religion: it was a system of ethical
teachings founded upon an ancestor-worship much like that of Japan.
What it had to offer was a kind of social philosophy,--an explanation
of the [188] eternal reason of things. It reinforced and expanded the
doctrine of filial piety; it regulated and elaborated preexisting
ceremonial; and it systematized all the ethics of government. In the
education of the ruling classes it became a great power, and has so
remained down to the present day. Its doctrines were humane, in the
best meaning of the word; and striking evidence of its humanizing
effect on government policy may be found in the laws and the maxims
of that wisest of Japanese rulers--Iyeyasu.
But the religion of the Buddha brought to Japan another and a wider
humanizing influence,--a new gospel of tenderness,--together with a
multitude of new beliefs that were able to accommodate themselves to
the old, in spite of fundamental dissimilarity. In the highest
meaning of the term, it was a civilizing power. Besides teaching new
respect for life, the duty of kindness to animals as well as to all
human beings, the consequence of present acts upon the conditions of
a future existence, the duty of resignation to pain as the inevitable
result of forgotten error, it actually gave to Japan the arts and the
industries of China. Architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving,
printing, gardening--in short, every art and industry that helped to
make life beautiful--developed first in Japan under Buddhist
teaching.
There are many forms of Buddhism; and in [189] modern Japan there are
twelve principal Buddhist sects; but, for present purposes, it will
be enough to speak, in the most general way, of popular Buddhism
only, as distinguished from philosophical Buddhism, which I shall
touch upon in a subsequent chapter. The higher Buddhism could not, at
any time or in any country, have had a large popular following; and
it is a mistake to suppose that its particular doctrines--such as the
doctrine of Nirvana--were taught to the common people. Only such
forms of doctrine were preached as could be made intelligible and
attractive to very simple minds. There is a Buddhist proverb: "First
observe the person; then preach the Law,"--that is to say, Adapt your
instruction to the capacity of the listener. In Japan, as in China,
Buddhism had to adapt its instruction to the mental capacity of large
classes of people yet unaccustomed to abstract ideas. Even to this
day the masses do not know so much as the meaning of the word
"Nirvana" (Nehan): they have been taught only the simpler forms of
the religion; and in dwelling upon these, it will be needless to
consider differences of sect and dogma.
To appreciate the direct influence of Buddhist teaching upon the
minds of the common people, we must remember that in Shinto there was
no doctrine of metempsychosis. As I have said before, the spirits of
the dead, according to ancient Japanese thinking, continued to exist
in the world: they [190] mingled somehow with the viewless forces of
nature, and acted through them. Everything happened by the agency of
these spirits--evil or good. Those who had been wicked in life
remained wicked after death; those who had been good in life became
good gods after death; but all were to be propitiated. No idea of
future reward or punishment existed before the coming of Buddhism:
there was no notion of any heaven or hell. The happiness of ghosts
and gods alike was supposed to depend upon the worship and the
offerings of the living.
With these ancient beliefs Buddhism attempted to interfere only by
expanding and expounding them,--by interpreting them in a totally new
light. Modifications were effected, but no suppressions: we might
even say that Buddhism accepted the whole body of the old beliefs. It
was true, the new teaching declared, that the dead continued to exist
invisibly; and it was not wrong to suppose that they became
divinities, since all of them were destined, sooner or later, to
enter upon the way to Buddhahood--the divine condition. Buddhism
acknowledged likewise the greater gods of Shinto, with all their
attributes and dignities,--declaring them incarnations of Buddhas or
Bodhisattvas: thus the goddess of the sun was identified with
Dai-Nichi-Nyorai (the Tathagata Mahavairokana); the deity Hachiman
was identified with Amida (Amitabha). Nor did Buddhism deny the
existence of goblins [191] and evil gods: these were identified with
the Pretas and the Merakayikas; and the Japanese popular term for
goblin, Ma, to-day reminds us of this identification. As for wicked
ghosts, they were to be thought of as Pretas
only,--Gaki,--self-doomed by the errors of former lives to the Circle
of Perpetual Hunger. The ancient sacrifices to the various gods of
disease and pestilence--gods of fever, small-pox, dysentery,
consumption, coughs, and colds--were continued with Buddhist
approval; but converts were bidden to consider such maleficent beings
as Pretas, and to present them with only such food-offerings as are
bestowed upon Pretas--not for propitiation, but for the purpose of
relieving ghostly pain. In this case, as in the case of the ancestral
spirits, Buddhism prescribed that the prayers to be repeated were to
be said for the sake of the haunters, rather than to them.... The
reader may be reminded of the fact that Roman Catholicism, by making
a similar provision, still practically tolerates a continuance of the
ancient European ancestor-worship. And we cannot consider that
worship extinct in any of those Western countries where the peasants
still feast their dead upon the Night of All Souls.
Buddhism, however, did more than tolerate the old rites. It
cultivated and elaborated them. Under its teaching a new and
beautiful form of the domestic cult came into existence; and all the
[192] touching poetry of ancestor-worship in modern Japan can be
traced to the teaching of the Buddhist missionaries. Though ceasing
to regard their dead as gods in the ancient sense, the Japanese
converts were encouraged to believe in their presence, and to address
them in terms of reverence and affection. It is worthy of remark that
the doctrine of Pretas gave new force to the ancient fear of
neglecting the domestic rites. Ghosts unloved might not become "evil
gods" in the Shinto meaning of the term; but the malevolent Gaki was
even more to be dreaded than the malevolent Kami,--for Buddhism
defined in appalling ways the nature of the Gaki's power to harm. In
various Buddhist funeral-rites, the dead are actually addressed as
Gaki,--beings to be pitied but also to be feared,--much needing human
sympathy and succour, but able to recompense the food-giver by
ghostly help.