GENERAL CHARACTER OF SHINTO
=Kami= is the ordinary Japanese word for God. It means primarily above,
superior, and is applied to many other things besides deities, such as
nobles, the authorities, the ‘missus,’ the hair of the head, the upper
waters of a river, the part of Japan near Kiōto, etc. Height is in
every country associated with excellence and divinity, no doubt because
the first deities were the Sun and other Heavenly objects. We ourselves
speak of the ‘Most High’ and use phrases like ‘Good Heavens’ which
testify to a personification of the sky by our forefathers. But though
Kami corresponds in a general way to ‘God,’ it has some important
limitations. The Kami are high, swift, good, rich, living, but not
infinite, omnipotent, or omniscient. Most of them had a father and
mother, and of some the death is recorded. Motoöri, the great Shinto
theologian, writing in the latter part of the eighteenth century,
says:—
‘The term _Kami_ is applied in the first place to the various
deities of Heaven and Earth who are mentioned in the ancient records
as well as to their spirits (_mi-tama_) which reside in the shrines
where they are worshipped. Moreover, not only human beings, but
birds, beasts, plants and trees, seas and mountains, and all other
things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the
extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess, are called
_Kami_. They need not be eminent for surpassing nobleness, goodness,
or serviceableness alone. Malignant and uncanny beings are also called
_Kami_ if only they are the objects of general dread. Among _Kami_ who
are human beings I need hardly mention first of all the successive
Mikados—with reverence be it spoken.... Then there have been numerous
examples of divine human beings both in ancient and modern times,
who, although not accepted by the nation generally, are treated as
gods, each of his several dignity, in a single province, village, or
family.... Amongst _Kami_ who are not human beings, I need hardly
mention Thunder [in Japanese _Naru Kami_ or the Sounding God]. There
are also the Dragon, the Echo [called in Japanese _Ko-dama_ or the
Tree Spirit] and the Fox, who are _Kami_ by reason of their uncanny
and fearful natures. The term _Kami_ is applied in the _Nihongi_ and
_Manyōshiu_ to the tiger and the wolf. Izanagi gave to the fruit of
the peach, and to the jewels round his neck names which implied that
they were _Kami_.... There are many cases of seas and mountains being
called _Kami_. It is not their spirits which are meant. The word was
applied directly to the seas or mountains themselves as being very
awful things.’
=The Kami-Beneficent.=—The saying of the old Roman poet that ‘Fear
first made the Gods’ does not hold good of Shinto. It is rather, as
Schiller called the worship of the gods of Greece, a _Wonnedienst_, a
religion inspired by love and gratitude more than by fear. The three
greatest gods, viz. the Sun-goddess, the Food-goddess, and Ohonamochi
(a god of Earth, the universal provider), are all beneficent beings,
though they may send a curse when offended by the neglect of their
worship or an insult to their shrines. Their worshippers come before
them with gladness, addressing them as fathers, parents, or dear divine
ancestors, and their festivals are occasions of rejoicing. But there
are some malevolent or mischievous deities who have to be propitiated
by offerings. The Fire-god, as is natural in a country where the houses
are built of wood and great conflagrations are frequent, is one of
these, and, in a lesser degree, the Thunder-god and the deity of the
Rain-storm. The latter has, however, good points. He provides trees
for the use of humanity, and rescues a maiden from being devoured by a
great serpent.
Lafcadio Hearn’s view that Shinto was at one time a religion of
‘perpetual fear’ is unsupported by evidence.
=Classes of Kami.=—Although the Kami are deficient in several of the
attributes of the Christian God, they possess two essential qualities
without which it would be impossible to recognise them as deities at
all, viz., sentiency and superhuman power. The union of these ideas
may be accomplished in two ways, first by attributing sense and will
to the great elemental objects and phenomena, and secondly by applying
to human and other living beings ideas of transcendent power derived
from the contemplation of the mighty forces on whose operation we are
daily and hourly dependent for our existence. We have therefore two
classes of deities, Nature-gods and Man-gods, the first being the
result of personification, the second of deification. It has been
the generally received opinion that the Shinto gods belong to the
latter rather than to the former of these two categories. Nine out
of ten educated Japanese will declare with perfect sincerity that
Shinto is ancestor-worship. Thus Mr. Daigoro Goh, a former secretary
of the Japan Society, says:—‘Shinto or ancestor-worship being the
creed of the ancient inhabitants.’ The same view is held by some
European scholars, notably the late Lafcadio Hearn, whose interesting
and valuable work, _Japan, an Interpretation_, is greatly marred by
this misconception. It is quite true that there is a large element
of ancestor worship in modern Japanese religious practices, but a
very little examination shows that all the great deities of the older
Shinto are not Man, but Nature gods. Prominent among them we find the
deities of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Sea, the Rain-storm,
Fire, Thunder, etc. And when the so-called ancestors of the Japanese
race are not actually Nature-gods, they are usually the satellites
or children of Nature-gods. In imitation of the Mikados who selected
the Sun-goddess as their ancestral deity, the hereditary corporations
or clans by whom in ancient times the Government of Japan, central
and local, was carried on, chose for themselves, or perhaps invented,
nature-deities, or their children or ministers, as their patron-gods,
to whom special worship was paid. From this to a belief in their
descent from him as an ancestor, the transition was easy. The same
process has been observed in other countries. It was assisted by the
habit of addressing the deity as father or parent, which, at first a
metaphorical expression, came ultimately to be understood in a more
literal sense. These pseudo-ancestral deities were called Ujigami,
that is to say ‘surname-deities.’ In later times the Ujigami ceased to
be the patron-gods of particular families and became simply the local
deities of the district where one was born. Children are presented to
the Ujigami shortly after birth, and other important events, such as
a change of residence, are announced to him. A deity of any class may
become an Ujigami, and there have been cases of a Buddha attaining
to this position. The cult of one’s real forefathers, beginning with
deceased parents, as in China, was hardly known in ancient Japan.
Indeed there is but little trace of any religious worship of individual
men in the Shinto of the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_. Living Mikados
were styled Kami, and spoken of as the ‘Heavenly Grandchild’ of the
Sun-goddess. But their godship was more titular than real. It was much
on a par with that of the Pope and Emperor who in the Middle Ages were
called ‘Deus in terris.’ No miraculous powers were claimed for them
beyond a vague general authority over the minor gods of Japan. Deceased
Mikados were occasionally worshipped by their descendants, but whether
there was anything in this so-called worship to distinguish it from
the ordinary funeral or commemorative services there is nothing to
show. They had no shrines, and no rituals in their honour are preserved
in the Yengishiki collection. At a later period, the cult of deceased
Mikados acquired a more definite character. They were prayed to for
rain, to stay curses, to restore the Mikado’s health, etc. They had
shrines erected to them, the offerings at which were assimilated to
those made to Nature-deities. The Mikado Ôjin, if we may believe an
oracle delivered by himself, became an important War-god under the name
of Hachiman. The Empress Jingō, the legendary conqueror of Korea, also
received divine honours. At the present day, solemn services are held
periodically in the Imperial Palace for the worship of all the dynasty.
Both categories of deities, Man and Nature gods, have three
subdivisions according as they are deities of individuals, of classes,
or of qualities. All these are exemplified in Shinto. The Sun-goddess
represents an individual object; Kukuchi, the god of Trees, a class;
and Musubi, the god of Growth, an abstract quality. Temmangu is a
deified individual statesman, Koyane represents the Nakatomi clan or
family, and Ta-jikara no wo (hand-strength-male) is a personified human
quality.
=Development of the Idea of God.=—The Nature-gods of Shinto, as of
other religions, are in the first place the actual material objects
or phenomena regarded as living beings. Sometimes the personification
proceeds no further. There are Mud and Sand deities which have no
sex, and no mythical record beyond a bare mention. But in the case of
others the same progressive humanising process that is to be observed
elsewhere has already begun. The Sun is not only the brilliant heavenly
being whose retirement to a cave leaves the world to darkness, she is
a queen, a child, and a mother—in a miraculous fashion. She speaks,
weaves, wears armour, sows seed, and does many other things which
have nothing to do with her solar quality. At a still more recent
stage—though not in the old records—she becomes an independent
personage who rules the Sun, while with many worshippers at the present
day her solar character is forgotten altogether, and she is considered
merely as a great divine ancestor who dwells at Ise and exercises a
providential guardianship over Japan. This line of development is
familiar to us in other mythologies, the two stages of thought being
often confounded. In Shakespeare’s _Tempest_, Iris is at once the
rainbow and an anthropomorphic messenger of the gods. Phoebus is not
only the sun but a deity distinct from that luminary, though associated
with it, as in the story of Phaeton. As the god of music and poetry,
his solar function is not obvious. The same is true of the gods of the
Vedas.
=Impersonality of Shinto.=—The faculty of imagination was not powerful
with the ancient Japanese. It was active, and produced many deities
of all classes. But they are very feebly characterised. Indeed, most
of them may be said to have no characters at all. They are popularly
reckoned at eighty myriads, or eight hundred myriads. Though this is a
fanciful exaggeration, Shinto is a highly polytheistic religion, and
numbers its deities by hundreds, even if we do not go back to that
earlier period when the rocks, the trees, and the foam of water had
all power of speech. There is a constant depletion in their ranks by
the mere force of oblivion, while, on the other hand, new deities come
into notice. Different gods are identified with one another, or the
same deities may be split up like Musubi into a pair, or a number of
distinct persons. The same deity at different places may have different
ranks and attributes.
=Spiritism.=—The gods of ancient Shinto are, on the whole, as
unspiritual beings as the gods of Olympus. Their doings are modelled
on those of living men and women, not on those of ghosts. When Izanagi
followed his wife Izanami to the land of the dead he found there not a
spirit, but a putrefying corpse. Ghosts are as absent from the _Kojiki_
and _Nihongi_ as they are from the Old Testament Scriptures. Herbert
Spencer’s ghost-theory of the origin of religion derives no support
from the Japanese evidence. There is, however, a spiritual element in
Shinto which demands notice. Some of the gods are represented as having
_mitama_ (august jewels or souls) which reside invisibly in their
temples and are the means of communication between Heaven and this
world. The Earth or Kosmos deity Ohonamochi had a _mitama_ (double)
which appeared to him in a divine radiance illuminating the sea, and
obtained from him a promise that, in consideration of the assistance
the latter had rendered in reducing the world to order, he should
have a shrine consecrated to him at Mimoro. Susa no wo’s _mitama_ was
‘settled’ at Susa in Idzumo. The element _tama_ (soul) enters into
the names of several deities. This implies a more or less spiritual
conception of their nature. Sometimes we hear of two _mitama_, one of a
gentle, the other of a violent nature.
There are only one or two cases of deceased men having mitama. In
one of these the mitama takes the shape of a bird. Metamorphoses are
frequently mentioned in the old legends.
=Shekinah.=—As in the analogous case of the Shekinah of Judaism, the
doctrine of the mitama of gods apparently does not arise from that of
the separability of the human soul and body. It seems rather to have
been invented in order to smooth over the difficulty of conceiving
how the gods of Heaven can exercise their power and hear and answer
prayer in their shrines on earth. It may, however, owe something to the
notion of separate human souls, which, though we do not find it in the
older Japanese records, is familiar to races of a much lower degree of
civilisation.
=Immortality of the Soul.=—This doctrine is nowhere directly taught
in the Shinto books. There is a land of Yomi to which we are told that
some of the gods retired at death. It is represented as inhabited by
various personifications of death and disease, but not by human beings
or their ghosts, though the phrase ‘even pass of Yomi,’ like the
_facilis descensus Averni_, seems intended to express the facility with
which all we mortal men find our way thither. In one passage of the
_Nihongi_, Yomi is clearly no more than a metaphor for the grave. A
brother of Jimmu Tenno, the first Mikado, is said to have gone to the
‘Eternal Land’ at his death, and in a poem of the Manyōshiu, a deceased
Mikado is said to have ascended into heaven. The prehistoric custom of
sacrificing wives and attendants at the tombs of dead sovereigns may be
thought to imply a belief in their continued existence. But there are
other motives for this practice than the wish to gratify the deceased
by providing him with companions in the other world. The _norito_ or
rituals contain no reference to the immortality of the soul.
=Shintai.=—The mitama is represented in the shrine by a concrete
object termed the Shintai or ‘God-body.’ It may be a mirror, a sword,
a tablet with the god’s name, a pillow, a spear, etc. A round stone,
which is cheap and durable, is a very common Shintai. The god is
sometimes represented as attaching himself to the Shintai, and may
be even considered identical with it by the ignorant. The _mitama_
and _shintai_ are frequently confounded. The latter was in many cases
originally an offering which, by long association, came ultimately to
be looked upon as partaking in some measure of the divine nature.
=Idols.=—With a few unimportant exceptions, Shinto has no idols.
The Shintai is not in the least anthropomorphic. The pictures of the
gods sold at shrines at the present day are due to Chinese or Buddhist
influence.
=Functions of Gods.=—The two great classes of deities, Nature-gods
and Man-gods, have a tendency mutually to encroach on each other’s
functions, so that ultimately they become assimilated under the one
general term Kami. As we have seen above, the Sun-goddess does not
confine herself to her function as a giver of light and heat, but does
many things characteristic of a magnified human being. Susa no wo, the
Rain-storm, provides mankind with useful trees. He and his wife are
regarded as gods of wedlock. Inari, the Grain-god, is a comprehensive
answerer of prayer from a petition for a good harvest to one for the
restoration of stolen property. On the other hand, a genuine deified
man like Temmangu may send rain in time of drought. An obscure deity,
known as Suitengu, is worshipped in Tokio at the present day as a
protector against the perils of the sea, burglary, and the pains of
parturition. Almost any Kami, whatever his origin, may send rain,
bestow prosperity in trade, avert sickness, cure sickness or sterility,
and so on, without much discrimination of function.