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THE SHINTO CULT
A Christian Study of the Ancient Religion of Japan
by
MILTON S. TERRY, D.D.,
Lecturer on Comparative Religion in Garrett Biblical Institute.
[Illustration]
Cincinnati: Jennings and Graham
New York: Eaton and Mains
Copyright, 1910,
By Jennings and Graham.
NOTE.
The following pages are the substance of a course of lectures on the
old Shinto cult which the author has been giving for a number of
years to his classes in Comparative Religion. They are here condensed
and adapted to the purpose of a little manual which, it is believed,
may interest many readers, and bring together within a small space
information gathered from many sources not easily accessible to
ordinary students. At the same time it is hoped that this little
volume may serve to suggest some valuable hints to the Christian
missionary who is to come face to face with the Japanese people in
their "beautiful land of the reed plains and the fresh ears of rice."
It is possible that some portions, if not every jot and tittle, of
this ancient cult may, like the law and the prophets of Israel, find a
glorious fulfillment in the pure gospel of Jesus Christ. The principal
authorities relied on in the preparation of this essay are named in the
Select Bibliography given at the end.
CONTENTS.
1. THE COUNTRY 7
2. IS SHINTO A RELIGION? 10
3. ORIGIN AND RELATIVE AGE OF THE PEOPLE 12
4. MEANING OF THE TERM SHINTO 14
5. SOURCES OF INFORMATION 15
6. JAPANESE COSMOGONY AND MYTHOLOGY 19
7. THE JAPANESE A SELF-CENTERED PEOPLE 29
8. ESSENCE OF THE SHINTO CULT 30
9. THE GREAT SANCTUARIES 31
10. FIVE NOTEWORTHY OBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE WORSHIP 34
11. THE ANCESTOR WORSHIP 37
12. ELEMENTS OF ANIMISM 41
13. THE DOMESTIC CULT 43
14. THE COMMUNAL CULT 45
15. THE NATIONAL CULT 49
16. THE HARVEST SERVICE 52
17. THE GREAT PURIFICATION 54
18. OTHER RITUAL SERVICES 60
19. INFLUENCE OF CHINA ON JAPANESE THOUGHT 63
20. INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM 64
21. REVIVAL OF PURE SHINTO 68
22. ESOTERIC SHINTO 70
23. MINGLING OF SHINTO, CONFUCIANISM, AND BUDDHISM 71
24. ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN JAPAN 73
25. ALLEGED PRESENT RELIGIOUS INDIFFERENCE 74
26. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 78
THE SHINTO CULT.
=1. The Country.= In taking up the study of a religion which has never
extended beyond the limits of an easily defined territory, we may
appropriately first of all take a hasty glance at the geographical
outlines of the system we call Shinto, the primitive faith of the
people of Japan. To appreciate the geographical position of Japan,
one needs to have before him a map of the world. He may then see at a
glance how remarkably the three thousand islands of that Empire stretch
for some twenty-five hundred miles along the coast of Asia, from
Kamchatka on the north to the island of Formosa on the south, which
island is crossed by the tropic of Cancer. It may be called the longest
and the narrowest country in the world. It looks like an immense
sea-serpent, with its northern tail twisting toward the Aleutian
Islands, which our Government acquired from Russia in 1867, and its
southern head pointing toward the Philippine Islands, which we acquired
from Spain in recent years. It seems to guard the whole eastern coast
of Asia, and along with China, on the mainland, is suspected and feared
by some European diplomats as embodying some sort of a "Yellow Peril."
It may be that its noteworthy contiguity to our Alaskan possessions at
one extremity and our Philippine wards at the other bodes some sort of
peril to any Western nation that may hereafter presume to enlarge its
dominions in the Orient by force of arms.
Attention has often been called to the fact that the British Isles, in
the Atlantic Ocean, just off the northwestern coast of Europe, occupy a
corresponding geographical relation to the Western world. The islands
themselves are comparatively small, but their measuring line has gone
out into all the earth, and their civilization is dominating the world.
Asia, on the east of the Eastern hemisphere, is a land of innumerable
population; Europe, on the west, is a land of new ideas and of hopeful
progress. The United States, resting her Atlantean shoulder on the
island-empire of Europe, and her Pacific shoulder on the island-empire
of the Orient, may be, in the order of God, a mighty mediator,
possessed both of a great population and of new and commanding ideas,
and destined to bring about the universal peace, the sound knowledge,
and the highest prosperity of the world.
We are told that Japan is a country of diversified beauty. Compassed
round about with the vast ocean, yet not far from the Asiatic mainland;
supplied also with a wonderful inland sea, and with lakes and rivers
and fountains of waters; a land of mountains, and valleys, and broad
meadows, and all manner of trees and shrubs and fruits and flowers,
and charming landscapes, and all varieties of climate; it is no wonder
that the people and their poets have called this group of islands "the
sun's nest," "the country of the sun-goddess," "the region between
heaven and earth," "islands of the congealed drop," "the grand land of
the eight isles," "central land of reed-plains," "land of the ears of
fresh rice," "land of a thousand autumns," and other similar names
indicative of manifold excellence.[1]
This island-empire of the Orient is the home of the religious cult
called "Shinto," a religion which has never traveled nor sought to
propagate itself beyond the dominions of Japan. It has never put itself
in a hostile attitude toward any other form of religion, either at home
or abroad, except when a foreign cult has entered its ancient home and
sought to meddle with affairs of State or to interfere with loyalty to
the Emperor.
=2. Is Shinto a Religion?= At a meeting of the Society of Science, held
at Tokyo in 1890, the president of the Imperial University expressed
the opinion that Shinto should not be regarded as a religion. He
believed it to be an essential element in the existing national thought
and feeling of Japan, but destitute of the essential qualities of a
strictly religious cult. Others have expressed a similar opinion; but
we are disposed to think that this judgment arises from an incorrect
concept of religion, and a consequent defective definition of the same.
A similar denial has been made of the religious character of other
cults and systems. Taoism, Confucianism, and even Buddhism have been
said to lack the elements essential to a real religion. But if these
systems do not constitute a religion for the peoples who accept them,
they are in every case their substitute for religion. Any religion
or any form of religion may so involve its thought and its practices
with philosophical speculation, or with social customs, or with the
political management of the State, as to have the appearance of a
philosophical or a political system, rather than a form of religion.
But, however it may, in such ways, ignore the religious ideas and
practices of other systems, if there be no other religious cult among
the people, the philosophy, the ethical policy and the customs, which
make up this important element of the civilization and the national
life, are as truly tantamount to a religious cult as any form of faith
and practice which all men agree to call religion.
=3. Origin and Relative Age of the People.= The main body of the
Japanese people are believed to have migrated in old times from the
northern central part of Asia, and to have worked their way eastward
into Korea, and thence into the islands of Japan. They expelled
or subjugated the aborigines of the country, and made themselves
masters of the great islands and the inland and surrounding seas.
But their origin and early history are involved in dense obscurity.
They doubtless brought with them from their earlier dwellings in Asia
various myths, legends, and traditions, and these grew and strengthened
amid the simple habits of life which they adopted in their new
island-world. According to a writer[2] in the _Westminster Review_ of
July, 1878, Japan is yet, in more senses than one, a young country.
Their language and their institutions "show us a people still in a very
early stage of development." W. G. Aston holds that the earliest date
of accepted Japanese chronology is A. D. 461, and he says that Japanese
history, properly so called, can not be said to exist previous to A.
D. 500. He regards Korean history more trustworthy than that of Japan
previous to that date.[3] According to Satow, "everything points to the
descent of the Japanese people in great part from a race of Turanian
origin, who crossed over from the continent by way of the islands
Tsushima and Iki, which form the natural stepping-stones from Korea to
Japan."[4]
But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a most remarkable advance
in the use of modern inventions, and more than any other nation of
the far East have the Japanese displayed both a willingness and an
ambition to improve their condition by means of the ideas and usages of
Western civilization. The war with China in 1894, and that with Russia
in 1904-1905, displayed a wisdom, tact, and energy which were a great
surprise to the world. The self-poise, the generosity, the far-sighted
statesmanship exhibited in her concluding terms of peace with her
haughty but defeated enemy, have commanded universal admiration. These
facts make the study of this people's ancient religious cult, which is
still a powerful element in the popular life, a matter of no little
interest at the present time.[5]
=4. Meaning of the Word Shinto.= The word Shinto means the "way of the
gods." It came into use when Buddhism was introduced into Japan, and
designates the old, ancestral worship as a way of the gods distinct
from the way of the Buddhists, or of any other rival way of religious
life. The Japanese name is _Kami no michi_. In its essential elements
it is a commingling of Animism and ancestor-worship. Not only are the
spirits of departed ancestors reckoned among the gods, but there are
innumerable deities of other kind and character. The mountains and
valleys, the rivers and the seas, the trees, the wind, the thunder, the
fire, all moving things and objects of sense are supposed to have each
a deity within. And these deities seem for the most part to have been
regarded as beneficent powers, and their worship is of a joyous kind.
=5. Sources of Information.= The sources of our knowledge of this
ancient cult are quite numerous, but not as accessible to English
and American students as is desirable. The oldest existing monument
of Japanese literature is known as the "Ko-ji-ki," the text of which
would make a book about the size of our four Gospels. It contains
180 short sections or chapters. The word _Ko-ji-ki_ means a "Record
of Ancient Matters," and appropriately designates this oldest known
record of the mythology, history, and customs of the people of Japan.
It is the nearest approach to a sacred scripture of the Shinto cult
which we possess. It has been translated into English, and supplied
with a learned introduction and many explanatory notes by Basil H.
Chamberlain,[6] a distinguished scholar, who has made the Japanese
language, literature, and archæology a subject of extensive and minute
research.
Another and much larger work, comprising thirty books, and containing
a record of much of the same mythology and history as the _Ko-ji-ki_,
is called the _Nihongi_, or "Chronicles of Japan."[7] It is a composite
of various elements derived from numerous different sources, and while
it reports in substance the myths and stories of the gods as they are
found in the _Ko-ji-ki_, it makes no mention of that older work and
omits some things which the older work records. It gives, however, a
number and variety of reports of the myths and traditions, informing
us how, in one ancient writing, it is so and so recorded; in another
writing, it is somewhat differently told. This feature enhances its
value for purposes of comparison among the varying traditions.
This later production lacks the simplicity and originality of the
_Ko-ji-ki_, and bears abundant evidence of the Chinese influences under
which it was composed. It is written for the most part in Chinese, and
exhibits numerous examples of the learning and philosophical cast of
thought peculiar to certain well-known Chinese writings. As a specimen
of this rationalistic type of construing the ancient myths of creation,
we here cite the opening sentences from the first book of the _Nihongi_:
"Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo
[or _Yin_ and _Yang_, female and male principles] not yet divided.
They formed a chaotic mass, like an egg, which was of obscurely
defined limits and contained germs. The purer and clearer part was
thinly drawn out and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser
element settled down and became Earth. The finer element easily became
a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element
was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first,
and Earth was established subsequently. Thereafter Divine Beings were
produced between them. Hence it is said that when the world began to
be created, the soil, of which lands were composed, floated about in
a manner which might be compared to the floating of a fish sporting
on the surface of the water. At this time a certain thing was produced
between Heaven and Earth. It was in form like a reed-shoot. Now
this became transformed into a god, and was called _Kuni-toko-tachi
no Mikoto_ ["Land-eternal-stand-of-august thing"]. Next there was
_Kuni-no-sa-tsuchi_ ["land-of-right-soil"], and next, _Toyo-kumu-nu_
["rich-form-plain"]--in all, three deities. These were pure males,
spontaneously developed by the operation of the principle of Heaven"
[the Yo, male principle].
The _Ko-ji-ki_ was written about 712 A. D., and the _Nihongi_ in
720 A. D., and they are both remarkable for the naïve and peculiar
manner in which they unite together in their narratives matters of
traditional mythology and of history without apparent consciousness of
any noteworthy differences between the two. Besides these remarkable
books there is a Code of ceremonial laws, in fifty volumes, known as
the _Yengishiki_, which was published A. D. 927. It includes a large
number of ancient Japanese rituals, called _Norito_, of which several
have been translated into English and provided with a commentary and
learned notes by Ernest Satow and Karl Florenz.[8] There is also
an interesting collection of ancient poems, called the _Manyoshu_,
"Collection of Myriad Leaves," which furnishes numerous pictures of
the life of the early Japanese, both before and after the time of the
compilation of the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_. There are also the
voluminous writings of the three famous Shinto scholars, Mabuchi,
Motowori, and Hirata, who flourished between the middle of the
eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth century, and effected an
intellectual revolution and a remarkable revival of the Shinto cult.[9]
=6. Japanese Cosmogony and Mythology.= Our study of Shinto may well
begin by a brief notice of Japanese cosmogony as presented at the very
beginning of the _Ko-ji-ki_:
"I, Yasumaro, say: Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force
and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught
done, who could know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first
parted, and the Three Deities performed the commencement of creation;
the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits
became the ancestors of all things. Therefore did he [Izanagi] enter
obscurity and emerge into light, and the Sun and Moon were revealed by
the washing of his eyes; he floated on and plunged into the sea-water,
and heavenly and earthly Deities appeared through the ablutions of his
person. So in the dimness of the great beginning, we, by relying on the
original teaching, learn the time of the conception of the earth and
of the birth of islands; in the remoteness of the original beginning,
we by trusting the former sages, perceive the era of the genesis of
Deities and of the establishment of men."
This brief fragment from the compiler's "Preface" furnishes a condensed
outline of what we read in the first part of the _Ko-ji-ki_, and
it indicates the peculiar cosmogony of the Japanese mythology. The
early sections of the book record the names of the first deities,
who are said to have been "born alone, and hid their persons;"
which seems to mean that they came into being in some exceptional
way, and then disappeared. Then followed what are termed "the
Seven Divine Generations," among which we find such names as "the
Earthly-eternally-standing-Deity," "the Mud-Earth-Lord, and his younger
sister, the Mud-Earth-Lady;" "the Germ-Integrating Deity, and his
younger sister, the Life-Integrating Deity." These seven generations of
gods end with the birth of a brother and sister, named _Izanagi_ and
_Izanami_ (_i. e._, "the male-who-invites and the female-who-invites").
These two are commanded by the higher and more ancient heavenly deities
to "make, consolidate, and give birth to this drifting land;" whereupon
they two, "standing upon the floating Bridge of Heaven, pushed down a
jewelled spear, and stirred the ocean brine till it became thick and
sticky;[10] and then, drawing the spear upward, the brine that dropped
down from the end of the spear became an island." Upon this island
Izanagi and Izanami descended from the Heaven above, and in course of
time generated all the islands of the Japanese world. When they had
finished giving birth to countries they proceeded to give birth to
deities, and so by them were begotten fourteen islands and thirty-five
deities. There is little room to doubt that Izanagi and Izanami are a
mythological representation of the generative powers of nature; but
their portraiture in the Japanese literature has probably received some
coloring from Chinese influence and thought.
But in giving birth to the deity of fire, Izanami died, and her
brother buried her, and drawing his mighty sword he proceeded
to cut off the head of his son, the deity of fire. Whereupon,
wonderful to tell, sixteen deities were born from the blood and
the different parts of the body of the fire-god. Among the names
of these we find such titles as "Rock-splitter," "Root-splitter,"
"Brave-snapping," and "Possessor-of-Mountains;" and the name of
the sword which cleft the head of the fire-god was "Heavenly," or
"Majestic-Point-Blade-Extended."
After the birth of these deities, Izanagi longed to see again his
sister and spouse, and went to seek her in the underworld. He called
to her and asked her to come back to him. She answered that such was
her desire, but she must consult the deities of Hades, and she bade him
wait, saying, "Look not at me." One can not help comparing here the
Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descended into the lower
world, charmed Pluto with his lyre, and obtained permission for his
wife Eurydice to return, following behind him, but only on condition
that Orpheus should not look back at her till they had both reached the
upper world. He grew impatient, looked back to see if she were indeed
following, and she at once vanished from his sight. According to the
Japanese myth, however, Izanagi grew tired of waiting outside, made a
light and entered, and was shocked to behold maggots swarming over her
body, and eight thunder-deities dwelling in her rotting form where they
had been born. He turned and fled back, but she pursued him with the
forces of the underworld. He succeeded in driving them all back, and
with a mighty rock blocked up the pass of Hades. Then he went to purify
himself by bathing in a stream, and from his staff, and girdle, and
bracelet, and various garments, and from the filth which he contracted
in the underworld were born a multitude of deities, bearing composite
names of strange significance. There was also born, as he washed his
left eye, a deity who was called "the Heaven-Shining-Great-August One;"
and from his right eye was born the "Moon-Night-Possessor," and as he
washed his nose there was born _Susa-no-Wo_, "Impetuous-Male-Deity."
But we need not pursue further this seemingly "endless genealogy" of
the deities. We are told in section xxx that in a divine assembly of
eight hundred myriad deities it was decided to send one of their number
to govern "the Central Land of Reed-Plains," and subdue the "savage
Earthly Deities." Various deities were sent, and at length a grandchild
of the Sun-Goddess[11] became the Ruler of the Empire, and bears the
composite name of _Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko_, but is commonly called
by his "canonical name," _Jimmu_, a title given him long after his
decease. From such heavenly origin sprang all the Emperors of Japan,
and the present Mikado, like all his predecessors, is thus conceived
as an offspring of Heaven, a direct descendant of the ancient heavenly
deities. The significance of this fact will appear conspicuously when
we come to notice more particularly the essential elements in the
Shinto cult.
On this remarkable cosmogony and mythology we do well at this point to
offer the following observations:
(1) These accounts of the origin of the Japanese Archipelago and its
rulers are regarded as _genuine traditions handed down from former
ages_. One part of the tradition is that the Emperor, who took pains to
have the old records carefully looked after, employed a person living
in his household, who was gifted with marvelous memory; "he could
repeat without mistake the contents of any document he had ever seen,
and never forgot anything that he had heard;" and from the lips of this
man of prodigious memory the scribe Yasumaro wrote down the contents
of the _Ko-ji-ki_.[12]
(2) Notice, in the next place, that the island world of _Japan is all
the world_ which these records know anything about. The universe of
this cosmogony consists of "the islands of the Central-Land of the
Reed-Plains," with their inland and surrounding seas, and "the Plain of
High Heaven," which, however, was not conceived as very far away above
them.
(3) The entire description of the beginnings of heaven, and earth,
and gods, and men accords with the idea of a continuous process of
evolution. The first three heavenly deities "were born alone, and hid
their persons," or disappeared. All the other deities are spoken of as
begotten, or born, and the deities give birth to the different islands
of the earth.[13]
(4) The world-idea of this old mythology is in notable keeping with
the ancestor worship, and the Animism which enter so largely into the
Shinto faith. In spite of all the wars and discords of the deities,
this a primordial monism, so to speak, at the basis of Japanese
cosmogony, and of all its diverse generations of the heavens and the
earth; and yet there is no one Supreme Ruler in all the Pantheon of
eight hundred myriad gods. When a great council of the gods assembles
in the bed of the Tranquil Heavenly River, no one deity is chief among
them, and we are at a loss to imagine who has authority to call them
together or to preside over the assembly. Izanagi seems for a while to
be the chief creator and ruler, but after a time he disappears, and the
Sun Goddess, his daughter Amaterasu, has her heavenly domain shaken
and ravaged by her younger brother, but is avenged by the heavenly
assembly of gods, who fine and punish the offender, "and expel him with
a divine expulsion." So the Sun Goddess maintains her dominion by the
help of the eight hundred myriad gods, no one of whom is invested with
supreme power. It appears from certain poems of the _Manyoshu_ that the
moon as well as the sun was extensively worshiped among the primitive
Japanese.[14]
(5) It accords with all these ideas that the devotees of the "pure
Shinto" faith trace all their history back to the age of the gods,
and recognize some deity in, or back of, all phenomena. Japan is the
country of the gods; every Japanese is a descendant or offspring of
the gods, and the Mikado is the direct descendant of the imperial line
which has continued in unbroken succession from the beginning of the
world. Japan is, therefore, superior to all other countries, and the
Japanese, being thus directly from the gods, are superior in every
respect to other people. Sprung from the gods, they need no codes of
moral law (like the Chinese), for they are naturally perfect, and do
the right things spontaneously.
=7. The Japanese a Self-centered People.= The Japanese people, with
such traditions and such a faith, would naturally be a self-centered
people, and they conceived their island-empire as occupying the summit
of the earth. The Mikado is the Son of Heaven, entitled and empowered
to reign perpetually over the land and the sea. But as all the people
are descendants of the gods, and the islands and all that is in them
have also been begotten of the gods, it follows that the worship of
ancestors is a worship of all the gods of whom they have knowledge, and
all the lower animate and inanimate things in the world are also in
some way instinct with the deities from whom they were born, and whose
they are.
Accordingly, the honoring of the gods is a fundamental thing in the
Shinto thought and in the Japanese civilization and government. Every
loyal subject of the Mikado's Empire is expected to be true to the
ancient faith. It is assumed that religion and worship and the proper
administration of government are all essential to each other. The
Japanese word (_Matsuri-goto_), which is used to denote the art of
government, means, literally, _worshiping_. And it is a common thought
and saying: "Everything in the world depends on the spirit of the
gods of heaven and earth, and therefore the worship of the gods is a
matter of primary importance. The gods who do harm are to be appeased,
so that they may not punish those who have offended them; and all the
gods are to be worshiped, so that they may be induced to increase their
favors."[15] One of the rules which all the ministers of the Mikado
emphasized in the old times, before the introduction of Buddhism into
Japan, was, "First serve the gods, and afterwards deliberate on matters
of government."[16]
=8. Essence of the Shinto Cult.= From what we have now stated it is to
be seen that reverence and worship of the ancestors of the Japanese,
and the recognition of the Mikado's divinity as the incarnation and
earthly representation of the celestial gods, constitute the essence
of the Shinto cult. All the Japanese are offsprings of the gods, but
the imperial "Sovran Grandchild" of _Amaterasu_, the Sun-Goddess,[17]
is pre-eminently divine and worshipful. The first Mikado, however, was
not the real son of _Amaterasu_, according to the mythic tradition of
the prehistoric time, but her nephew, the son of _Oshi-ho-mi-mi_, whom
she adopted as her son. But the title of "Sovran Grandchild," having
been applied first to the founder of the Mikado's dynasty, came in time
to be the common title of all the Mikado's successors. The imperial
worship, accordingly, represents the most conspicuous national form of
the Shinto cult.
=9. The Great Sanctuaries.= The Mikado's palace would, accordingly, be
the most holy shrine of the national worship, the private and exclusive
sanctuary of the imperial ancestors. But the most notable shrine of the
Sun-Goddess is not now the residence of the Mikado. On account of some
great calamity that occurred far back in prehistoric times, her worship
was removed to a separate temple, and was finally established in the
province of Isè, in which the temples, called the "Two great divine
Palaces," are the resort of thousands of pilgrims every year, and,
though not the most ancient, are regarded as first among all the Shinto
temples in the land.[18] These two divine palaces, or temples, called
_Geku_ and _Naiku_, are about three miles apart, and stand in the midst
of groves of aged cryptomeria trees.[19] They are approached through
archways (called _torii_, or _toriwi_) of simple construction. The
_Geku_ temple is an irregular oblong structure, 247 feet wide at the
front, but only 235 feet wide in the rear; while the side to the right
of the entrance is 339 feet, and that on the left is 335. Within this
large enclosure are others of similar structure, all made of the wood
of cryptomeria trees, and left unpainted and without ornamentation. The
various buildings of the temples are thus fashioned after the manner
of the simple huts, or dwellings of the earliest inhabitants of these
islands. Some of the buildings are covered with thatched roofs and
have their walls and doors made of rough matting. Mr. Satow, who has
visited and described the temples of Isè, says that "All the buildings
which form part of the two temples are constructed in a style that
is disappointing in its simplicity and perishable nature.... None
but those which are roofed with thatch are entitled to be considered
as being in strict conformity with the principles of genuine Shinto
temple architecture."[20] The perishable nature of these temples is
such that it becomes necessary, and is, in fact, the standing rule, to
rebuild them every twenty years. Two sites for each temple are used
alternatively; they lie close to each other, so that the new building
is constructed and ready for use before the old one is removed.
The temple which, though less venerated than those at Isè, is the
shrine-center of the more ancient Shinto cult, is the one at Kitzuki,
in the ancient province of Idzumo. These famous shrines of Isè and
Kitzuki represent the two supreme cults of Shinto; namely, that of
the Sun-Goddess, _Amaterasu_, and that of _Oho-kuni-nushi_, offspring
of the brother of the Sun-Goddess, who became the ruler of the unseen
world of the spirits of the dead. But there are many other great
temples maintained in whole or in part from the imperial revenues.
Some are of greater sanctity and renown than others, but those of Isè
and Kitzuki are the most celebrated, and every Shinto worshiper is
expected, at least once in his lifetime, to make a pilgrimage himself,
or send a deputy to one of these most famous shrines.
=10. Five Noteworthy Objects Connected with the Worship.= One
noteworthy fact is the absence of images from the pure Shinto temples;
that is, images exposed as objects of worship. But there is a number of
objects connected with these sacred places which should receive brief
notice:
(1) There is, first, the wooden archway (called _torii_, or _toriwi_)
through which one passes in approaching the temples. It consists of
two upright posts set in the ground on the tops of which is laid a
long straight beam, the two ends of which project a little beyond the
uprights. Under this top beam is another horizontal beam connecting the
two side posts after the manner of a girder. According to Satow, "The
_toriwi_ was originally a perch for the fowls offered up to the gods,
not as food, but to give warning at daybreak. It was erected on any
side of the temple indifferently. In later times, not improbably after
the introduction of Buddhism, its original meaning was forgotten, and
it was placed in front only and supposed to be a gateway."[21]
(2) Opposite the various entrances to the temples is placed a wooden
screen, or fence, called _Banpei_, which serves as in other dwellings
to guard and hide the privacy of the interior.
(3) Another object of special interest is the _Go-hei_, a slender wand,
originally a branch of the sacred tree called _sakaki_. From the Go-hei
hang two long slips of white paper notched on the opposite sides. These
wands of unpainted wood are supposed to represent offerings of white
cloth and to have the power of attracting the gods to the places where
they are kept.
(4) The offerings presented consist of cups of water and small vessels
filled with rice, vegetables, fruits, salt, fish, birds, and other
simplest products of the land and of the sea. It is noteworthy that we
find no bloody sacrificial rites in Shinto worship, in which one life,
animal or human, was made a vicarious substitute for a guilty soul.
(5) The sacred _mirror_, which figures in the mythology of the
Sun-Goddess, and is said to have been once used to entice her from a
cave into which she had hid herself in a spell of anger, is carefully
guarded in one of these temples, and also many copies of the mirror.
"Each mirror is contained in a box which is furnished with eight
handles, four on the box itself and four on the lid. The box rests on a
low stand and is covered with a piece of cloth said to be white silk.
The mirror itself is wrapped in a brocade bag, which is never opened or
renewed, but when it begins to fall to pieces from age, another bag is
put on, so that the actual covering consists of numerous layers. Over
the whole is placed a sort of cage of unpainted wood with ornaments
said to be of pure gold, and over this again is thrown a sort of
curtain of coarse silk, descending to the floor on all sides."[22]
One can not read this description of the sacred mirror thus secretly
guarded in a costly box without being reminded of the sacred ark of the
Levitical sanctuary, and its enclosed "tables of testimony."
=11. The Ancestor Worship.= We have already observed that ancestor
worship is the basis of the Shinto cult. This kind of worship is also
conspicuous among the Chinese, and is held by many writers to have been
the original cult of all civilized races and peoples. It began, they
tell us, with a belief in ghosts, and at the first there was no clear
distinction between ghosts and gods. The departed spirit was thought
of as abiding near the place where the dead body was deposited, and
the earliest shrines would therefore be the graves or tombs of the
dead. Later thought would beget the idea that the invisible spirits
were present to witness the acts, and share the joys and sorrows of the
living. And this fundamental idea would, of course, develop into many
diverse conceptions and practices among the different tribes.
Without here discussing this theory of aboriginal religious thought
and practice, as applicable to all peoples, we may note that it
accords with the facts of Japanese history and civilization so far as
we can now trace them back into the mists of prehistoric time.[23]
We have seen that Japanese history and mythology run together and
blend in remarkable artlessness as they stand recorded in the oldest
literature (_e. g._, the _Ko-ji-ki_ and the _Nihongi_). Unthinkable
monstrosities of the origin of gods and lands and men are told with
the same simplicity as the unquestionable facts of historic times. But
taking the one leading thought which runs through all these records and
appears to be fundamental in the Japanese civilization--namely, that
all their islands and emperors and chiefs and people are offspring of
the gods, the very first of whom were somehow self-evolved from the
primordial elements of the universe--we look upon the Shinto worship as
it exists in its purest form to-day, and note the most apparent facts.
Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, in his "attempt at an interpretation" of Japan,
has, more clearly than any other writer I have consulted, described
the Shinto ancestor-worship under its three forms of _Domestic_,
_Communal_, and _State_ cults. In every case it is a worship of the
dead, but the individual, whether he be the most obscure servant, the
influential citizen, the commanding chieftain, or even the Mikado, is
but a part and parcel of the body politic. There is a most remarkable
unity of popular and national life. Government and religion are
virtually identical, and there is no distinction between religion and
morality. Obedience and conformity to the rules of family life, and to
the customs of society and the requirements of the State--these are
the simple sum-total of Shinto law and gospel. The individual must
always stand ready to be sacrificed for the good of the community or
of the State. Everything is to be regarded as public, and must serve
the public weal. There is no such thing as privacy, and oddities have
no respectable standing. Tradition and custom seem to constitute the
essence of religion as well as of family, communal, and more public
life. There is no code of moral law; there is nothing in the worship
that is fairly comparable to what we understand by dogma, creed, or
Church. Strictly speaking, this system has no heaven or hell, no deep
sense of sin, and no concept of mediatorial redemption from sin and
evil. The dead--all the dead of all the ages--are conceived as somehow
living in the unseen vacancy around, above, below; they are present at
the worship; they haunt the tombs; they are interested in the life and
works of their descendants; they visit their former homes and attend
the family worship there; their happiness, in fact, depends upon the
honor and worship which their living descendants pay them; and also the
happiness and prosperity of the living is believed to depend upon their
sense of filial duty and proper reverence toward the dead. Furthermore,
all the dead are supposed to become gods and attain to supernatural
power. But there is no one Supreme Deity; no central throne of God;
no paradise of heavenly blessedness. So far as any ideas of this kind
obtain among the people, they may be regarded as later conceptions
introduced by missionaries or adherents of other religious systems.
But the cult implies beyond question a belief in some kind of future
life. The _Yomi_, or Hades, of Shinto mythology, into which Izanagi
went to seek his lost sister, was conceived as "a hideous and polluted
land," and even the realm of the unseen heavenly deities was never
longed for by the devotees of Shinto. Dooman observes that "to the
Japanese mind and imagination Japan, as a place of residence, was far
superior to heaven, and its inhabitants a far more desirable society
than those living in the transcendent regions. We see that every god
who is sent from heaven to Japan on some important business by the
divine assembly marries, and is utterly unwilling to go back once more
to the place from which he descended."[24]
=12. Elements of Animism.= The ancestor-worship of Shinto can not be
disassociated altogether from the elements of Animism which appear in
the names and titles of certain deities, and also in the fact that
there are "evil gods" and demons who are capable of working mischief
and calamity in the family, the community, and the State. How these
evil deities originated is matter of myth, legend, and speculation. Bad
men would naturally be supposed to carry their evil character with them
into the unseen world of the dead, and to have the same power to work
harm among the living as the good spirits have to bestow benefits. But
human spirits would hardly be supposed to become deities of the wind,
and the thunder, and the waves, and the mountains; of the trees, and
the fire, and the sun, and the moon, and the autumn, and the food of
men. Here the old mythology of the _Ko-ji-ki_ comes in to tell us of
a prehistoric and cosmical origin of evils. When Izanagi went to find
his sister Izanami in the hideous and polluted underworld, and found
her body swarming with maggots and eight thunder deities dwelling in
the different parts of her decaying form, he fled back in astonishment
and awe, and she in a rage of shame pursued him with all the horrid
forces of that nether sphere. He escaped, but not without contracting
much pollution on his august person, and when he sought to wash and
cleanse himself in the waters of a certain river, there were born from
the filth of his person two deities, named "the wondrous deity of
eighty evils," and "the wondrous deity of great evils." These evil gods
afterwards multiplied, and may be supposed to be the authors of all the
demons, goblins, and mischievous spirits of evil that disturb the world
and its inhabitants. But there are also good spirits innumerable that
animate all moving things. The winds and the waters, the songs of birds
and the hum of the bees, the growing plants and trees, are all instinct
with a sort of conscious life, and the spirits that live and move in
them are to be recognized and reverenced by prayers and offerings.
The spirits of dead ancestors and the powerful spirits of the winds and
the storms and the growths of nature may or may not have been supposed
to have concert of action understood between them. The Japanese mind
seems never to have elaborated any formal philosophy of this life or
any specific theories of the life to come.
=13. The Domestic Cult.= The simplest and most original form of the
Shinto worship is that of the family. In the inner chamber of every
home there is a high shelf against the wall called the "Shelf of
the August Spirits." Upon it is placed a miniature temple, in which
are deposited little tablets of white wood bearing the names of the
deceased members of the household. These are often spoken of as "spirit
sticks" and "spirit substitutes." Before these household shrines simple
offerings are offered daily and a few words of prayer are spoken. The
ceremony is a very short one, but as regular as the coming of the day.
It is usually performed by the head of the family, but it frequently
devolves upon the woman, the mother or the grandmother, rather than
the father. "No religion," says Hearn, "is more sincere, no faith
more touching than this domestic worship, which regards the dead as
continuing to form a part of the household life and needing still the
affection and the respect of their children and kindred. Originating
in those dim ages when fear was stronger than love, ... the cult at
last developed into a religion of affection; and this it yet remains.
The belief that the dead need affection, that to neglect them is a
cruelty, that their happiness depends upon duty, is a belief that has
almost cast out the primitive fear of their displeasure. They are not
thought of as dead: they are believed to remain among those who loved
them. Unseen, they guard the home and watch over the welfare of its
inmates; they hover nightly in the glow of the shrine-lamp, and the
stirring of its flame is the motion of them.... From their shrine they
observe and hear what happens in the house; they share the family joys
and sorrows. They were the givers of life; they represent the past of
the race, and all its sacrifices.... Yet, how little do they require in
return! Scarcely more than to be thanked, as founders and guardians of
the home, in simple words like these: 'For aid received, by day and by
night, accept, august ones, our reverential gratitude.'"[25]
=14. The Communal Cult.= The next phase of the Shinto worship to be
noticed is that which is represented in the temples scattered about
everywhere in the land and which are said to number over 195,000 at
the present time. In every community, village, and large city is found
the parish-temple, and in the larger towns each section or district
has its public shrine, in which the whole community honor the deified
ancestors of certain noble families of ancient time, or the spirit of
the first great patriarch of the clan. The farmers, or those who till
the fields, usually dwell in a village on the principal highway, and
go out thence to work the rural districts round about. So the villages
vary in size from fifty houses set on a single street half a mile long
to a large town of many hundred houses. In Simmons and Wigmore's "Notes
on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan,"[26] we read that
the Japanese rural population is, as a rule, "exceedingly stable.
The villagers are for the most part engaged wholly or partially as
cultivators of land, and in the vast majority of cases many generations
of cultivators have been born and have died on the same spot. From the
almost numberless replies to inquiries, the answer usually is, 'We do
not know where our ancestors came from, or when they came to live on
this spot. Our temple register may tell, but we have never thought
about the matter.'"
The deity honored at these village temples is called the _Ujigami_,
and recognized as the patriarchal and tutelary god of the community.
Just whether he were the clan-ancestor of the first settlers in
that particular parish, or the spirit of some mighty ruler of that
district at a former time, or the patron-god of some noble family
once resident there, is as uncertain as the knowledge of the common
villagers touching their earliest progenitors. But in every class these
_Ujigami_ were worshiped as the tutelar deity of the community in which
the temple stood. Also, in the larger towns there are Shinto temples
dedicated to certain patron-gods of other localities.
Each one of these parish temples naturally has a most intimate relation
to the life of the community about it. Thither every child born in the
parish is taken, when a month old, and formally named and placed under
the protection of the ancestral deity. As it grows up it is regularly
taken to observe all the festivals and the processions and ceremonies,
and the temple groves and gardens become its common playground. There
is nothing somber or solemn about this religious cult to scare a
child, but rather very much to attract and interest.[27] Every village
temple has its appointed days of public worship, and neighboring
districts vie with each other in making their great festival days
occasions of popular delight. To these joyous festivals every family
contributes according to ability, and the worship is accompanied by
public amusements of various kinds, athletic sports, and the sale of
toys for children. The temple worship consisted in the presentation
of offerings of cloth, herbs, fruits, and other of the most common
products of the country, and in a ritual prayer enumerating the various
gifts and supplicating for prosperity and success in all communal
affairs, for protection against sickness, plague, and famine, and
for the triumph of their chieftains in time of war. In this way the
_Ujigami_ was recognized as the tutelar deity of the community and the
district, the abiding friend and helper of his offspring. The communal
cult thus powerfully confirmed the family cult, and enforced the lesson
that no man could live unto himself alone.
=15. The National Cult.= But it is in the State or National observances
of the great temples that the Shinto worship is seen in its most
elaborated form. The substance and manner of this worship may be
learned from the ancient Japanese rituals, which make mention of the
chief deities, enumerate the offerings that are presented at the sacred
shrines, and furnish us the very language employed "in the presence of
the sovran gods." How early these rituals of worship were committed
to writing is an open question, but it is altogether probable that in
substance they had been transmitted orally through many generations
before they were put in written form. From these rituals, and the
practices of the worship as they may be observed at the present time,
we are able to learn the chief features of the service.[28]