THE GODS
NATURE-GODS OF INDIVIDUALS AND OF CLASSES
Some of the principal gods have already been introduced in the
preceding chapter. Let us now consider them separately, according to
the classification already indicated (p. 8). It is often difficult to
say whether a nature-god represents an individual object or phenomenon,
or a class. This is chiefly owing to the circumstance that Japanese,
like other Far-Eastern languages, habitually neglects the distinction
between the singular and the plural number. The idea of making verbs
and adjectives agree in number with the substantives to which they
belong does not seem to have occurred to these nations, and, even in
the case of nouns and pronouns, plural particles are very sparingly
used. _Yama no Kami_, for example, may mean either God of the Mountain,
God of Mountains, Gods of the Mountain, or Gods of Mountains.
=Amaterasu=, the =Sun-Goddess=.—The Sun-goddess belongs unmistakably
to the first class, viz., that of individual objects personified.
She is much the most prominent member of the Shinto Pantheon, and is
described as the Ruler of Heaven and unrivalled in dignity. She wears
royal insignia, and is surrounded by a court. The chief religious
ceremony of state was in her honour. Yet she is not what we should call
a Supreme Deity. She is by no means an autocrat. Even in heaven, which
she is supposed to govern, there is a Council of the Gods which decides
important matters. In some myths she has a formidable rival in _Taka
musubi_, a god of Growth.
The ascription of the female sex to the deity of the Sun has more
meaning than might be supposed. Women held a far more important and
independent position in ancient Japan than they did at a later time
when Chinese ideas of their subjection became prevalent. Several of
the ancient Mikados were women. Old Chinese books call Japan the
‘Queen-country.’ Women chieftains are frequently mentioned. Some of the
most important monuments of the old literature were the work of women.
Like the Sun-Gods of ancient Greece and Egypt, Amaterasu possesses
a sacred bird, the Yatagarasu, or eight-hand-crow. An old Japanese
dictionary identifies this bird, rightly in my opinion, with the Yangwu
or Sun-crow of Chinese myth. The Yangwu is a bird of a red colour with
three legs which inhabits the sun. The Yatagarasu was lent by the
Sun-goddess to Jimmu Tennō as a guide to his expedition against the
tribes who then held the province of Yamato. A noble Japanese family
claimed descent from this bird.
The Sun-goddess is represented in the shrine of Ise by her shintai
or token, which is called the Yatakagami or eight-hand mirror. It is
related that when she sent down her grandchild Ninigi to rule the
earth, she gave him this mirror with the injunction: ‘Regard this
mirror exactly as our mitama (soul) and reverence it as if reverencing
us.’ At this day the Yatakagami is held in high reverence. It is kept
in a bag of brocade which is never opened or repaired, a new one being
added on the top of its predecessor when the latter is too much worn
for further use. The _Nihongi_ calls it the ‘Great-God of Ise.’
Amaterasu is not the only Sun-deity of Japanese myth. We hear of a
Waka-hirume (young-sun-female) who is no doubt a personification of
the morning sun, and of a Nigi-haya-hi (gentle, swift-sun). The latter
is said to have come down from heaven in a heavenly rock-boat, and
to have become the chieftain of one of the tribes subdued by Jimmu
Tennō. He may, however, have been a human being named as a compliment
after the Sun. This proceeding is not unknown in Japanese history. But
I rather suspect that he is a real Sun-god. Then there is the Hiruko
mentioned at p. 22 as the first-born of all the deities. Now Hiruko,
though written with Chinese characters which mean leech-child, may also
mean Sun-male-child, and this is obviously its proper meaning. The
Hiruko was a male Sun-deity who afterwards became obsolete. For some
unknown reason Hiruko has been identified with a popular modern deity
named Yebisu, who has to all appearance nothing to do with either the
sun or the leech. He is pictured as an angler with a fish dangling
at the end of his line. He has a smiling countenance and wears old
Japanese costume. Merchants pray to him for success in trade.
At the present day the title Amaterasu no oho-kami (the great
deity who illumines heaven) is generally replaced by its Chinese
equivalent Tenshōdaijin. The meaning of the latter is less clear to
the uneducated, who forget that she has any connection with the sun.
Sun-worship, however, proceeds independently. Women and children
especially call it by the respectful name of Otentō sama, without
attribution of sex, with no formal cult, and no myth, but endowed
with moral attributes, punishing the wicked and rewarding the just.
Dr. Griffis describes a scene which he witnessed in Tokio when, late
one afternoon, Otentō sama, which had been hidden behind clouds for a
fortnight, shone out on the muddy streets. In a moment scores of people
rushed out of their houses, and with faces westward began prayer and
worship before the great luminary. Many people keep awake all night on
the last day of the year so as to worship the rising sun on the first
day of the New Year.
=Tsuki-yomi.=—The Sun being feminine, Tsuki-yomi, the moon-deity, is
naturally masculine. Though he has shrines at Ise and other places, he
occupies a far less prominent place in Japanese myth and cult than his
elder sister Amaterasu.
=Susa no wo.=—The true character of this deity had been forgotten by
the Japanese themselves until he was shown by an American scholar,
Dr. Buckley of Chicago, to be a personification of the Rain-storm.
The generally accepted etymology of his name derives it from a verb
_susamu_, to be impetuous. This accords well with his character
as described in the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_. Mr. B. H. Chamberlain
translates by ‘the Impetuous Male,’ and he may be correct. But there is
a town in Idzumo called Susa where this god had a shrine, and it seems
possible that it was from this that he took his name.
=Star-Gods= are few and unimportant in Shinto.
=Earth-worship.=—The direct worship of the Earth is well-known in
Japan. At the present day, when a new building is erected or new
rice-land brought under cultivation, the ground is solemnly propitiated
by a ceremony called Ji-matsuri or earth-worship. Localities were
personified under names which recall Erin, Britannia, Dea Roma, etc.
Such deities were called Kunidama, country or province spirit. The
greatest of these, and one of the three greatest gods of Shinto, is
Ohonamochi. His shrine at Kitsuki in Idzumo is known as the Taisha or
great shrine, and he has numerous other shrines, called Sannō or Hiye,
in all parts of the country. In his case the deification has proceeded
beyond the mere personification of the soil. Legend represents him
as the maker of the land, not the land itself, and in modern times
nobody thinks of him as an Earth-god. His various names, however, show
conclusively that he is as much an earth-deity as the Greek Gaia, who,
like him, was ‘one shape of many names.’ Lafcadio Hearn would make
him out to be the god of the dead, though there are already two other
rulers of Hades, and Dr. Buckley thinks that he is a Moon-god. With
Ohonamochi there is associated his minister, an important deity named
Kotoshiro-nushi, and a dwarf-god, Sukuna-bikona, who is credited with
the invention of medicine, magic, and the art of brewing sake.
Another Earth-god is Asuha, an obscure personage, who is supposed to be
the deity of the courtyard. Mud, sand, and clay are deified under the
names of Uhijini, Suhijini, and Hani-yasu-hime, the last name meaning
clay-easy (in the sense of plastic) lady. Clay was deified because
it supplied the material for the domestic cooking furnace, a defence
against the encroaches of that unruly power, fire.
=Mountain-Gods.=—Most mountains have their deity, which is sometimes
conceived of as the mountain itself, at others as a god of the
mountain. Mountain gods do not take high rank in the Shinto Pantheon.
They were propitiated before trees were cut for building purposes.
=Earthquake-Gods= are little heard of. But any god might cause an
earthquake if offended.
=Sea-Gods.=—The chief Sea-gods of Shinto are Sokotsu-wata-dzumi
(bottom-sea-body), Nakatsu-wata-dzumi (middle-sea-body), and
Uhatsu-wata-dzumi (upper-sea-body), three deities produced from
Izanagi’s ablutions in the sea when he returned from Hades. They
are also represented as forming one deity. So that we have here an
example—not the only one—of a Japanese Trinity. They have a famous
shrine at Sumiyoshi near Osaka, and are much prayed to for safety from
shipwreck and for fair winds.
Another Sea-god, Toyotama hiko, has been already mentioned above (p.
31).
=River-Gods= are represented as dragons or serpents. The resemblance
of a river with its winding serpentine course, and its mysterious
motion without legs, to a great serpent, has struck mankind in many
countries. The Chinese, the Mexicans, and the Semitic nations concur in
associating water with the serpent. It is mostly the maleficent aspect
of rivers that is thus symbolised. There are traditions in Japanese
legend of human sacrifices to rivers.
=Rain-Gods.=—Special Rain-gods are mentioned in the old myths, but in
practice any deity might be appealed to for aid in time of drought.
=Wells.=—There are sacred wells from which the water required in
sacrifice was drawn. The water itself was made a female deity under the
name of Midzuha no me. At the present day, the ordinary well or stream
from which water is taken for domestic purposes is propitiated early on
the morning of the New Year by small offerings.
=Wind-Gods.=—Sometimes one Wind-god is spoken of, sometimes two, one
masculine and one feminine. They were formerly much prayed to for
good harvests. One legend calls them the Ame no mihashira and Kuni no
mihashira (august pillar of heaven and august pillar of earth). The
idea that the winds support the sky is not unknown in other mythologies.
TAKE-MIKA-DZUCHI and =Futsunushi=.—The proper character of these
two deities is not quite clear. The name of the former is frequently
written with Chinese characters which imply that he is a Thunder-god,
and Futsunushi is probably a god of fire, perhaps more specifically
the lightning. They are constantly associated in legend and worship.
They were sent down from heaven together to prepare Japan for the
advent of Ninigi, the Sun-Goddess’s grandchild, and their shrines
at Kashima and Katori, on the east coast of Japan, are adjacent to
one another. At the present day they are universally recognised as
War-gods. This accounts for the choice of Kashima and Katori as the
names of recently-launched battle-ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
These deities also predict the weather. The Japanese equivalent of old
Moore’s Almanac is the Kashima no Kotofure, _i.e._ notification from
Kashima.
There is another Thunder-god called Ikadzuchi (dread father) or Naru
Kami (sounding-god).
=Fire-Gods.=—_Kagu-tsuchi_, mentioned above (p. 22), is the chief
fire-deity. He is also known as Ho-musubi (fire-growth), and his shrine
stands on the summit of the high hill of Atago near Kioto. Hence
the name Atago-Sama by which he is usually called. Hill-shrines are
dedicated to him at the chief cities of Japan; and he is believed, when
duly propitiated, to preserve them from conflagration. In the old State
religion the god and fire are regarded as identical.
The sacrificial fire was deified, and also the _Nihabi_, a fire kindled
with the object of producing sunshine. Both in ancient and modern times
the domestic cooking-furnace has been considered as a deity.
=Ukemochi=, the Food-goddess, is one of the two great gods worshipped
at Ise, the Sun-goddess being the other. There is a tendency in modern
times to identify her with Inari, a male grain-deity. Shrines of Inari
are to be seen in every village, and even in many houses. They may
be recognised by two figures of foxes which stand before them. These
animals are thought by many to be the god himself, and small offerings
of such food as is thought acceptable to foxes are placed before
them. Shinto scholars say that they are only the god’s attendants
or messengers. But grain is often represented by an animal in other
mythologies, and possibly this may be the case in Shinto also. Inari is
much invoked by the peasant to grant him good crops, but as is so often
the case, his proper agricultural character is frequently forgotten,
and he is appealed to for help in all imaginable difficulties, as for
the cure of small-pox or the discovery of a thief.
There are several harvest-gods not very clearly distinguished from the
grain-deities. One of these, as well as Ukemochi, is said to be the
child of Ohonamochi, the great Earth-god.
=Tree-Gods.=—Trees of great size and age are worshipped in almost
every village in Japan. They are girt with honorary cinctures of
straw-rope, and have tiny shrines erected before them. Other sacred
trees are not themselves gods, but only offerings to the deities
before whose shrines they are planted. Orchard trees are the object
of a quaint ceremony which has its counterpart in many other places,
Devonshire amongst the number, of cajoling or intimidating the trees
into bearing good crops. In Japan one man climbs the tree, while
another stands at the bottom with an axe, threatening to cut it down if
it does not promise to bear plentifully. The man above responds that it
will do so. Perhaps, however, the pleasure of acting a little drama has
more to do with such customs than any real belief in their efficacy.
We also meet with a Kukunochi (trees-father) and a Kaya nu hime
(reed-lady). Their worship was probably prompted by gratitude for their
providing materials for house-building and thatching.
=A House-God= named Yabune is mentioned in one of the old rituals. A
certain sanctity attaches to the Daikoku-bashira, or central pillar of
the house, corresponding to our king-post. There is also a Gate-god (or
gods), who guards the dwelling against the entrance of evil things,
and, in modern times, a God of the Privy.
GODS OF ABSTRACTIONS
=Izanagi and Izanami.=—I have little doubt that these deities (see
above, p. 21) were suggested by the Yin and Yang, or male and female
principles, of Chinese philosophy. They were probably introduced into
Japanese myth in order to account for the existence of the Sun-goddess
and other deities, and to link them together by a common parentage.
Their names are supposed to be connected with a verb, _izanafu_, to
invite, and to refer to their mutual invitation to become husband and
wife. They are not important in ritual.
=Musubi= means growth or production. In the old myths there are two
Musubi deities, viz. Taka-musubi and Kamu-musubi (high-growth and
divine-growth). It is not difficult to conjecture that ‘high’ and
‘divine’ were originally nothing more than laudatory epithets of one
and the same personage. Poetry recognises only one God. In later times
there were no fewer than eight Musubi who had shrines in the precincts
of the Imperial palace. The worship of this god is now much neglected.
=Kuni-toko-tachi.=—Nothing is really known of this deity. The name
means literally ‘land (or earth)-eternal-stand,’ and I offer as a mere
conjecture that he is a personification of the durable character of the
earth. The circumstance that he is the first god of the _Nihongi_ myth
led to his receiving a prominence in later times which is justified by
nothing in the older religion. There was an abortive attempt to make of
him a sort of Supreme Deity, and to substitute his worship for that of
the Food-goddess at Ise.
DEIFIED INDIVIDUAL MEN
Though all the greater gods of the old Shinto were Nature-gods, we
cannot affirm that none of the numerous obscure deities mentioned in
the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_ were deified individual men. The impulse to
exalt human beings to the rank of deity has always existed, and may
have left traces in the older Shinto, though the evidence that this was
so in any particular case is not forthcoming.
=Take-minakata=, the god of Suha, in the province of Shinano, _may_
be a deity of this class. He was a son of Ohonamochi, who refused
allegiance to the Sun-goddess and fled to Suha, where he was obliged to
surrender. Tradition says that the present high priests of his shrine
are his direct descendants. They are held to be his incarnation, and
are called Ikigami or ‘live deities.’ There are at the present day
shrines to Suha Sama in many parts of Japan.
=Hachiman= is not mentioned in the _Kojiki_ or _Nihongi_. His history
is a curious one. The original place of his worship was Usa in Kiushiu,
near the Straits of Shimonoseki, an old, perhaps the oldest, Shinto
centre of Japan. He first came into notice in 720, when he helped
to repel a piratical descent by Koreans. At a somewhat later period
he became associated with the great Minamoto family, and attained
to popularity as a War-god. But his cult is deeply tinctured with
Buddhism. In his oracles he calls himself by the Buddhist title of
Bosatsu (Boddhisattwa), something like our ‘saint,’ and ordains
humanitarian festivals for the release of living things, a thoroughly
Buddhist institution, and quite incongruous with his character as a
Japanese Mars. It is explained that the reason for his deification as a
War-god is that he was an unborn child in his mother Jingo’s womb when
she achieved her famous conquest of Korea. His identification with the
Emperor Ôjin, however, dates from long after he became popular.
=Temmangu=, the God of Learning and Caligraphy. If we pass over the
honours paid to living and dead Mikados as of doubtful religious
quality, the first genuine deified human being on the Shinto record
is Sugahara Michizane, who was raised to divine rank under the name
of Temmangu. Michizane was born in 845. His family had a hereditary
reputation for learning, and traced its descent from the Sun-goddess
herself. His erudition gained him high rank in the government, and a
system of national education which he established acquired for him the
gratitude of the people, who called him the ‘Father of letters.’ But
owing to the calumnies of a rival he was banished to Kiushiu, where he
died in exile. Great calamities followed, which were attributed to the
wrath of Michizane’s ghost, and it was not until his sentence had been
formally cancelled, shrines erected, and other honours paid him that it
ceased to plague his enemies and the nation. The story has come down to
us enriched with a profuse embroidery of legendary details drawn from
Buddhist and Chinese sources.
Temmangu is, or was until recently, one of the most widely worshipped
of Shinto deities, especially by pedagogues and school-boys. In 1820,
there were twenty-five shrines to him in Yedo and its neighbourhood.
His cult was probably suggested, and was certainly promoted, by the
corresponding Chinese honours to Confucius.
=Later Deifications.=—In the Kojiki and Nihongi, a sort of titular
divinity is ascribed to some of the Mikados. It was not until a later
period that they had shrines or regular offerings. Chief among deified
Mikados are Jimmu, Jingo, and Kwammu, the founder of Kioto. Takechi
no Sukune, Jingo’s chief counsellor; Prince Yamatodake, the legendary
hero who, in the second century of our era, subdued the eastern parts
of Japan to the Mikado’s rule; Nomi no Sukune, the patron deity of
wrestlers; Hitomaro, the poet and Sotoörihime, the poetess, though
treated as ordinary human beings in the old records, were deified in
subsequent times. Quasi-divine honours are paid to Iyeyasu, the founder
of the Tokugawa dynasty of Shōguns, and to many other distinguished
men. Strange to say, a kind of religious cult is rendered to remarkable
criminals, such as the famous robber Kumazaka Chōhan, and to Nishi no
Buntaro, who in our own day assassinated the Minister of Education,
Mori Arinori, because he raised with his walking-stick a curtain which
screened off part of the shrine of Ise from vulgar gaze.
GODS OF CLASSES OF MEN
In the older Shinto, gods of types or classes occupy a fairly prominent
position. They represent the hereditary corporations by which the
government of Japan was carried on in early times. The officials of the
Mikado’s Court had their mythical counterparts in the ministers of the
Sun-goddess, who were supposed to be their ancestors. Thus the Nakatomi
family, who besides holding other high offices, were the recognised
vicars of the Mikado in the discharge of his priestly functions, traced
their descent from Koyane, a deity who, by reading a liturgy in honour
of the Sun-goddess, helped to entice her from the dark Rock-cave of
heaven. The Imbe, who provided the offerings for the state Shinto
ceremonies, recognised as their ancestor a god called Futo-dama (great
offering), who fulfilled the same office in heaven. Uzume, the Dread
Female of heaven, had descendants in the female officials of the
palace. There is a _norito_ in her honour, in which she is besought to
preserve order among the courtiers of all ranks. May we not trace a
relationship between her and our own ‘Dread Female’ deity, Mrs. Grundy?
The mirror-makers of the palace had their prototype in Ishikoridome,
the jewellers in Toyotama (rich-jewel), and so on.
GODS OF HUMAN QUALITIES
Students of Far-Eastern mythology and literature have observed the
feeble grasp of personality which distinguishes them from the similar
products of the Western mind.[1] They are characterised by a certain
poverty of imagination which is manifested in various directions, and
more especially by the almost total absence of personified abstractions
of human qualities. We look in vain for such conceptions as Age, Youth,
Love, Fear, Patience, Hope, Charity, and a host of other personified
qualities. Ta-jikara no wo (hand-strength-male) is one of the few
examples of this class. He it was who, when the Sun-goddess partly
opened the door of the Rock-cave to which she had retired, took her by
the hand and dragged her out. But he is little worshipped, and indeed
is only a poetical adjunct to the mythical narrative. In this respect
he greatly resembles the Kratos and Bia of Hesiod and Æschylus.
[1] See Percival Lowell’s _Soul of the Far East_.
=Phallic Gods.=—Far more important are the Sahe no Kami, or phallic
deities. Their symbols were a familiar sight by the roadsides
and at crossings in ancient Japan. They might be seen even in the
busy thoroughfares of the capital itself. At first representatives
of the procreative, life-giving power, they were used as magical
appliances for promoting fertility. But they became symbolical of life
generally—the enemy of death and disease—and, on the well-known
principle of magic that the symbol possesses something of the actual
physical virtue of the thing which it represents, were employed as
prophylactics against death and pestilence. For their services in this
capacity they were deified. Their cult has long ago disappeared from
the state religion, but it still lingers in the out-of-the-way parts of
Eastern Japan.