Shinto

"Then a decree was issued, saying: 'Henceforth these clay figures must be set up at tumuli: let not men be harmed.' The Emperor bountifully rewarded Nomi no Sukune for this service, and also bestowed on him a kneading-place, and appointed him to the official charge of the clay-workers' Be. His original title was therefore changed, and he was called Hashi no Omi. This was how it came to pass that the Hashi no Muraji superintend the burials of the Emperors."

This narrative is too much in accordance with what we know of other races in the barbaric stage of culture to allow us to doubt that we have here a genuine bit of history, though perhaps the details may be inaccurate, and the chronology is certainly wrong. In an ancient Chinese notice of Japan we read that "at this time (a. d. 247) Queen Himeko died. A great mound was raised over her, and more than a hundred of her male and female attendants followed her in death."

Funeral human sacrifice is well known to have existed among the Manchu Tartars and other races of North-Eastern Asia until modern times. The Jesuit missionary Du Halde relates that the Emperor Shunchi, of the T'sing dynasty (died 1662), inconsolable for the loss of his wife and infant child, "signified by his will that thirty men should kill themselves to appease her manes, which ceremony the Chinese look upon with horror, and was abolished by the care of his successor" – the famous Kanghi.

Another missionary, Alvarez Semedo, in his history of the Tartar invasion, says: "It is the custome of the Tartars, when any man of quality dieth, to cast into that fire which consumes the dead corpse as many Servants, Women, and Horses with Bows and Arrows as may be fit to atend and serve them in the next life."

This custom was also practised in China in the most ancient times, though long condemned as barbarous. An ode in the 'Sheking' laments the death of three brothers who were sacrificed at the funeral of Duke Muh, b. c. 621. When the Emperor She Hwang-ti died, b. c. 209, his son Urh said, "My father's palace-ladies who have no children must not leave the tomb," and compelled them all to follow him in death. Their number was very great.

A King of Kokuryö in Corea died a. d. 248. He was beloved for his virtues, and many of his household wished to die with him. His successor forbade them to do so, saying that it was not a proper custom. Many of them, however, committed suicide at the tomb. ('Tongkam,' iii. 20.)

In a. d. 502, Silla prohibited the custom of burying people alive at the funerals of the sovereigns. Before this time five men and five women were put to death at the King's tomb. ('Tongkam,' v. 5.)

Cases of suicide at the tomb of a beloved lord or sovereign have not been uncommon in Japan even in modern times. There was one in 1868.

The Japanese, like the Chinese, make no distinction between voluntary deaths and human sacrifices. Both are called jun-shi, a term which means "following in death." Indeed, as we may see by the Indian suttee, it is often hard to draw the line between these two forms of what is really the same custom.

In the case of common people, of course, no such costly form of burial could have been practised. It was called no-okuri (sending to a moor or waste place), by which simple interment, or perhaps exposure at a distance from human habitations, was probably meant. The offerings consisted of a little rice and water.

It is often assumed as too obvious to require proof that such funeral customs as these imply a belief in the continued sentient existence of the dead. It is taken for granted that it is for their personal comfort and gratification that wives and attendants are put to death and offerings of food deposited at the tomb.[36 - "Rites, performed at graves, becoming afterwards religious rites performed at altars in temples, were at first acts done for the benefit of the ghost." – Herbert Spencer's 'Sociology,' ii. 8.] 'If we reflect, however, on the reasons for our own funeral observances, which are less different in principle from those of barbarous nations than we are willing to admit, we shall see cause to doubt whether this is really the ruling motive. Most of us have laid flowers on the coffin of some dear one, or erected a tombstone to his memory, or subscribed for a monument to a statesman who in life has deserved well of his country. Were these things done for the physical gratification of the dead? We cannot divide them in principle from more barbarous rites. We do not suppose that the dead see or smell the wreaths laid upon the coffin. Why should it be thought that in a more barbarous state of society it is believed that they enjoy the society of the wife who is sacrificed at the tomb?

The ruling motives for such rites are to be sought elsewhere. In addition to the practical considerations which, as Sir Alfred Lyall has shown, are potent in the case of the Indian suttee, it is to be remembered that the memory of the great dead is a national asset of the highest value (as the memory of our parents is in the domestic circle), and that it is worth while going to great expense in order to perpetuate it. In an age before writing or epic poems existed, cruel sacrifices, pyramids, great tumuli, and other rude monuments were more necessary for this purpose than they are in our day. And if barbarians sacrificed human beings, do not we spend the financial equivalent of many human lives in statues, memorials, and otherwise useless funeral pageantry? The difference between them and us lies not so much in the motive as in the lower value placed by them on human life.

The truth is that offerings to the dead, from a flower or a few grains of rice to a human victim, are partly a symbolical language addressed to the deceased, and partly constitute an appeal for sympathy by the mourners and a response by their friends. They symbolize the union of hearts among those who have suffered by a common bereavement. We must also allow something for the despair which counts nothing that is left of any value, and prompts the survivors to beating of breasts, tearing of garments, cutting the flesh, sitting in sackcloth and ashes, lavish expenditure, and even suicide.

Yet it must be admitted that there is a broad, though secondary and lower, current of opinion, which holds that the dead benefit in some more or less obscure physical sense by the offerings at their tombs. Hirata believed that food offered to the dead loses its savour more rapidly than other food. The ghosts summoned up by Ulysses from Erebus eagerly lapped up the blood offered them. This, although poetry, no doubt represents a real belief.

Mr. Andrew Lang mentions the case of an Irish peasant woman, who, when her husband died, killed his horse, and, to some one who reproached her for her folly, replied, "Would you have my man go about on foot in the next world?" But may we not suspect that the real motive of my countrywoman's action was to express dumbly to the world the love she bore her husband by sacrificing something which she valued highly, and that the answer quoted was nothing more than a consciously frivolous reason, invented for the benefit of an unsympathetic, dull-minded intruder?

Whether or not the dead, apart from any physical benefit from funeral offerings, are grateful for the affectionate remembrance which they symbolize, it may be doubted whether the recognition of such a feeling on their part enters very largely into our motives. Was it for the gratification of Nelson's spirit that the column was erected in Trafalgar Square? Or do those who annually deposit primroses before the statue of Lord Beaconsfield think that his spirit is sensible of this observance?

Funeral ceremonies were not recognized as having anything to do with the older Shinto. It avoided everything connected with death, which was regarded as a source of pollution. Not until the revolution of 1868 was there instituted an authorized form of Shinto burial.[37 - See an article by Mr. W. H. Lay in T. A. S. J., 1891.]

Deified Classes of Men. – In the older Shinto this category of deities had more importance than it has at present. Several of the pseudo-ancestors are in reality deified types, analogous to such conceptions as Tommy Atkins or Mrs. Grundy. As a general rule they have two aspects, one as man-Gods, and another as satellites of the Sun-Goddess, a nature deity. They are more particularly described in a later chapter.

Deities of Human Qualities. – As might be expected, Shinto has comparatively few deities of this class. It is represented by the Gods of Pestilence, of Good and Ill Luck, the phallic deities, and the oni, or demons of disease. Such deified abstractions as the Fates, the Furies, Old Age, Time, Themis, Fear, Love, &c., are conspicuously absent.

It will be observed that both of the two great currents of religion-making thought are concerned in the evolution of the last two categories of man-deities. They involve not only the exaltation of human types and qualities to the rank of divinity, but the personification of these general and abstract conceptions. This complication indicates that they belong to a secondary stage of development. Ta-jikara no wo (hand-strength-male), for example, is not a primary deity of the Japanese Pantheon. He is little more than an ornamental adjunct to the myth of the Sun-Goddess. It may be gathered from the myths of the Kojiki and Nihongi that the phallic deities-personifications of lusty animal vigour-were at first mere magical appliances, which were afterwards personified and raised to divine rank. It was a personified human abstraction-namely, Psyche, who was described by Keats as

The latest born and loveliest by far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy.

Mnemosyne, Styx, and all the numerous deified abstractions of humanity in Greek mythology are obviously of later origin than Gaia and Ouranos, or even Zeus and Here.

It is on the narrow basis of these two secondary classes of conceptions that Comte strove to establish his Religion of Humanity. But it is difficult to conceive how on Positivist principles Humanity, whether we regard it as a class or as a quality, could have a sentient existence or transcendent power, without a combination of which there can be no deity and no religion, properly so called. His worship of deceased individual men is open to the same objection. Comte's recognition of nature-deities is brief and contemptuous. He allows a certain reverence to the Sun and Earth as "fetishes."[38 - "Comte ramenait toutes les religions à l'adoration de l'homme par l'homme. Comte, il est vrai, ne faisait pas de l'homme individuel l'objet du culte normal: il proposait à nos adorations l'homme en tant qu' espèce en tant qu' humanité et parvenait à deployer une véritable mysticité sur cette étroite base." – Reville, 'Prolegomena,' p. 26.]

Animals In Shinto. – Animals may be worshipped for their own sakes, as wonderful, terrible, or uncanny beings. The tiger, the serpent, and the wolf are for this reason called Kami. But there are no shrines in their honour, and they have no regular cult. A more common reason for honouring animals is their association with some deity as his servants or messengers. Thus the deer is sacred to Take-mika-tsuchi at Kasuga, the monkey is sacred at Hiyoshi, the pigeon to the God Hachiman, the white egret at the shrine of Kebi no Miya, the tortoise at Matsunoö, and the crow at Kumano. The wani, or sea-monster, belongs to the sea-God, and the dragon belongs to (or is) Taka okami (the rain-God). There is also mention of a thunder-beast. In later times the rat is sacred to Daikokusama. The pheasant is the messenger of the Gods generally. The best-known case of the worship of an associated animal is that of Inari, the rice-God, whose attendant foxes are mistaken by the ignorant for the God himself, and whose effigies have offerings of food made to them. The mythical Yatagarasu, or Sun-Crow, had formerly a shrine in its honour. The stone Koma-inu (Korean dogs), seen in front of many Shinto shrines, are meant not as Gods, but as guardians, like the Buddhist Niō. They are a later introduction.

The Gods are sometimes represented as assuming animal form. Kushiyatama no Kami changes into a cormorant, Koto-shiro-nushi into a wani (sea-monster or dragon) eight fathoms long. The God of Ohoyama takes the form of a white deer. The most usual form assumed by deities is that of a snake, serpent, or dragon. Ohonamochi, in his amours with a mortal princess, showed himself to her as a small snake. In the Yamato-dake legend, there is a mountain-deity who takes the shape of a great serpent. At the command of the Mikado Yūriaku, the God of Mimuro was brought to him by one of his courtiers. It was a serpent. Water-Gods are usually serpents or dragons.

Totemism. – I find no distinct traces of totemism in ancient Japan. Tattooing, which some have associated with this form of belief, existed as a means of distinguishing rank and occupation. The most probable derivation of the tribal name Kumaso is from kuma, bear, and oso, otter. A very few surnames are taken from names of animals. Dances, in which the performers represented various animals, were common.

The piecemeal immigration of the Japanese race from the continent of Asia must have done much to break up their original tribal system and to destroy any institutions associated with it.

The law of exogamy, with which totemism is connected, was very narrow in its operation in ancient Japan.[39 - See Index-'Incest.']

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL FEATURES

Functions of Gods. – Nature deities seldom confine themselves to their proper nature functions. Shinto exhibits an increasing tendency to recognize in them a providence that influences human affairs. Even in the older Shinto there are examples of the Gods exercising a providential care for mankind outside of their proper spheres of action. The Sun-Goddess not only bestows light on the world, but preserves the seeds of grain for her beloved human beings. She watches specially over the welfare of her descendants the Mikados. Susa no wo, the Rain-storm personified, is the provider of all kinds of useful trees. Practically, all the deities are prayed to for a good harvest, or for rain. Even man-Gods, like Temmangu, may be appealed to for this purpose. Any God may send an earthquake or a pestilence. In 853 there was a great epidemic of smallpox. An oracle from Tsukiyomi, the Moon-God, indicated the means of obtaining relief from this plague, and since then people of every class pray to him when it is prevalent. The Ujigami and Chinju, family and local protective Gods, might be chosen from any class of deities. A modern Japanese writer[40 - In 'Japan,' edited by Capt. Brinkley.] says: "No one knows what spirit of heaven or earth is venerated at the Suitengū,[41 - Dr. Florenz, in his 'Japanische Mythologie,' says that Sui-tengū is a fusion of the Sumiyoshi Sea-Gods with the Indian Sea-God Sui-ten, that is, Varuna, subsequently identified with the youthful Emperor Antoku (who lost his life by drowning in 1185).] in Tokyo. But despite the anonymity of the God, people credit him with power to protect against all perils of sea and flood, against burglary, and, by a strange juxtaposition of spheres of influence, against the pains of parturition. The deity of Inari secures efficacy for prayer and abundance of crops; the Taisha [great shrine of Idzumo] presides over wedlock; the Kompira shares with the Suitengū the privilege of guarding those that 'go down to the deep.' The rest confer prosperity, avert sickness, cure sterility, bestow literary talent, endow with warlike powers, and so on."

Polytheistic Character of Shinto. – A nature-worship, such as the older Shinto was in substance, is inevitably polytheistic. The worship of a single nature-God, as the Sun, is indeed conceivable. But in practice, the same impulse which leads to the personification of one nature object or phenomenon never rests there. The Living Universe is a possible monotheistic nature-deity. But this conception requires a greater amount of scientific knowledge than the ancient Japanese possessed. They had necessarily only imperfect and fragmentary glimpses of the vision splendid.

There is some evidence that Shinto took the place of a still grosser and more indiscriminate polytheism. We are told that Take-mika-tsuchi and Futsunushi prepared Japan for the advent of Ninigi by clearing it of savage deities who in the daytime buzzed like summer flies and at night shone like fire-pots, while even the rocks, trees, and foam of water had all power of speech.

The number of Shinto deities is very great. The Yengishiki enumerates 3,132 officially recognized shrines, and although the same Gods are reckoned more than once, as being worshipped in different places, still their name is legion. They are popularly spoken of as eighty myriads, eight hundred myriads, or fifteen hundred myriads. The number of effective deities fluctuates greatly. Oblivion disposes of many. The identification of distinct deities is another cause of depletion in their ranks. This happens very readily in a country where, to parody Pope's line, "most deities have no characters at all." On the other hand their numbers are recruited from time to time by new Gods produced by various processes. The same deity, worshipped at different places, comes to be recognized as so many different deities. Horus in ancient Egypt, the Virgin Mary in Italy, and many of the Greek and Roman deities illustrate this principle. We may be sure that the Ephesians would have resented any attempt to identify their Diana with that of other cities. This process is facilitated in Japan by the practice of speaking of the God, not by his name, but by that of his place of residence-another illustration of the impersonal habit of the Japanese mind already noticed. Indeed the Japanese care little what God it is that is worshipped at any particular place. It is enough for the average pilgrim to know that some powerful deity resides there. A poem composed at the great shrine of Ise says: "What it is that dwelleth here I know not, yet my heart is filled with gratitude and the tears trickle down." Of one of the "Greater Shrines" of the Yengishiki Murray's 'Handbook' informs us that "considerable divergence exists among scholars as to the identity of the Gods to whom this temple is dedicated." During the present reign Kompira was converted by the Japanese Government from a Buddhist to a Shinto deity, without detriment to the popularity of his shrine as a resort of pilgrims. The same God may have greater credit for efficacy in one place than another. Thus the Inari of a certain village has a high reputation for the recovery of stolen property. Such specialties were recognized even by the Government, which awarded different ranks to the same deity at different places. Distinctions of this kind, of course, facilitate the disruption of one deity into several. Another cause of multiplication is the mistake of supposing the same deity with different epithets to be different Gods. In modern times the Shinto Pantheon has been recruited pretty largely from the ranks of human beings. Trees are still deified, and we have sometimes a new deity making his appearance from nobody knows where.

The polytheistic character of Shinto is intimately connected with the weakness of the Central Government of Japan during the period of its development. Or perhaps it may be more correct to say that it is another manifestation of the same want of national cohesion.[42 - "The different peoples conceived and developed this divine hierarchy pari passu with their own approximation to political unity" (Goblet d'Alviella, Hibbert Lectures). Aristotle recognized the same principle.] The ancient Mikados were anything but autocrats. Their authority was almost always overshadowed by the influence of ministers who struggled among themselves for the direction of the power nominally vested in the sovereign. The Central Government had little effective jurisdiction beyond the capital and the five home provinces. No wonder that under these circumstances local deities retained their vitality and prestige.

Monotheism was an impossibility in ancient Japan. But we may trace certain tendencies in this direction which are not without interest. A nation may pass from polytheism to monotheism in three ways: Firstly, by singling out one deity and causing him to absorb the functions and the worship of the rest; secondly, by a fresh deification of a wider conception of the universe; and thirdly, by the dethroning of the native deities in favour of a single God of foreign origin. It is this last, the most usual fate of polytheisms, which threatens the old Gods of Japan. Weakened by the encroachments of Buddhism and the paralyzing influence of Chinese sceptical philosophy, they already begin to feel

The rays of Bethlehem blind their dusky eyne.

Our business, however, is with the past, not with the future. The first of the three paths which lead to monotheism is illustrated by the tendency to ascribe to several of the Shinto deities a certain superiority over the others. The Sun-Goddess, Kuni-toko-tachi, the first God in point of time according to the Nihongi, Ame no mi naka nushi, and in Idzumo, Ohonamochi have been in turn exalted to a unique position by their adherents. But, for reasons which will appear when we come to examine these deities more closely, none of them really deserves the title of Supreme Being. Max Müller's opinion that "the belief in a Supreme Being is inevitable" is not borne out by the facts of Shinto.

The second path, which leads to monotheism through a more comprehensive conception of the universe, is exemplified by the Creator deities, Izanagi and Izanami, personifications of the male and female principles of Nature, and still more so by Musubi, the God of Growth, which might conceivably have developed into a Pantheistic Supreme Being. But philosophic abstractions of this kind are unfitted for human nature's daily food. Musubi never acquired much hold on the people, though at one time his worship held a very prominent place at the Court of the Mikados. He eventually split up, first into two, then into a group of deities, and finally became almost wholly neglected.

The Nihongi, under the date a. d. 644, gives the following account of a blind and abortive movement towards a supreme monotheistic deity which claims from us a measure of sympathy: -

"A man of the neighbourhood of the River Fuji, in the East Country, named Ohofube no Ohoshi, urged his fellow-villagers to worship an insect, saying: 'This is the God of the Everlasting World. Those who worship this God will have long life and riches.' At length the wizards [kannagi] and witches [miko] pretending an inspiration of the Gods, said: 'Those who worship the God of the Everlasting World will, if poor, become rich, and, if old, will become young again.' So they more and more persuaded the people to cast out the valuables of their houses, and to set out by the roadside sake, vegetables, and the six domestic animals. Theyalso made them cry out: 'The new riches have come!' Both in the country and in the metropolis people took the insect of the Everlasting World and, placing it in a pure place, with song and dance invoked happiness. They threw away their treasures, but to no purpose whatever. The loss and waste was extreme. Hereupon Kahakatsu, Kadono no Hada no Miyakko, was wroth that the people should be so much deluded, and slew Ohofube no Ohoshi. The wizards and witches were intimidated, and ceased to persuade people to this worship. The men of that time made a song, saying:

Udzumasa
Has executed
The God of the Everlasting World
Who we were told
Was the very God of Gods.

"This insect is usually bred on orange trees, and sometimes on the hosoki. It is over four inches in length, and about as thick as a thumb. It is of a grass-green colour with black spots, and in appearance very much resembles the silkworm."

We may note here the popular identification of the prophet with the God whom he served, and the worship of a caterpillar, which apparently played the part of the ear of corn in the Eleusinian mysteries.

Shintai. – Concurrent with the development of the spirituality of Shinto there arose a greater necessity for some visible concrete token of the presence of the God.[43 - "The symbol or permanent object, at and through which the worshipper came into direct contact with the God, was not lacking in any Semitic place of worship, but had not always the same form, and was sometimes a natural object, sometimes an artificial erection." – Robertson Smith, 'Religion of the Semites,' p. 160.] This is known as the mitama-shiro (spirit representative, spirit-token), or more commonly as the shintai (god-body). The shintai varies much in form. It is frequently a mirror or a sword, but may also be a tablet with the God's name, a sprig of sakaki, a gohei, a bow and arrows, a pillow, a pot, a string of beads, a tree or river-bank, or even the shrine itself. A stone is a very common shintai, doubtless because it is inexpensive and imperishable. The shintai is usually enclosed in a box, which is opened so seldom that sometimes the priest himself does not know what it contains. It is not always the same for the same God worshipped in different places.

The shintai in some respects resembles the Greek άγαλμά. Both were originally offerings which became tokens of the God's presence, and by virtue of immemorial association with the deities to whom they were presented came at length to be regarded as sharing their divinity. The άγαλμα, however, developed into the statue, while the shintai, with a very few exceptions of later origin, did not take this form. Broadly speaking, Shinto has no idols. There is usually no attempt to give the shintai any resemblance to the supposed form of the God whom it represents. A few exceptions may be noted. The mirror of the Sun-Goddess, which was in reality originally an offering, is stated in one of the myths to have been made in imitation of the form of the sun. The phallic Gods, Yachimata-hiko and Yachimata-hime, were represented by human figures. The scarecrow God, Kuhe-biko, may be regarded as a rude idol. In the province of Noto there are stone idols said to be the images of the Gods Sukuna-bikona and Ohonamochi. The pictures of the Gods sold at Shinto shrines in the present day are owing to Chinese or Buddhist influence.

In the old language the word hashira, pillar, is added to the numerals for deities and Mikados. For instance, "three Gods" is Kami mi-hashira, that is to say, "three pillars of Gods." Now in Korea, a country inhabited by a race closely allied to the Japanese, there are seen by the roadsides posts carved at the top into a rude semblance of the human form.[44 - simulacra que maesta deorumArte carent, cæsis extant informia truncis.Lucan, 'Pharsalia.'] Some serve as milestones, and some are erected at the outskirts of villages to keep away the demon small-pox. These figures are called the Opang Chang-gun, or Generals of the Five Quarters. The name is Chinese, but the deities themselves may nevertheless be of Korean origin. If the ancient Japanese had rude figures of this kind it would explain the use of hashira, pillar, as a numeral for Gods. I am rather disposed, however, to surmise that the use of this term was really owing to the fact that the symbols of divinity most familiar to the ancient Japanese were the phallic emblems set up everywhere by the roadsides. The term wo-bashira, applied to the phallic end-post of the parapet of a bridge, contains the same element.[45 - See Index-Sake no kami.]