Shinto

Even in ancient times there was some recognition of the Sun-Goddess as a Providence that watches over human affairs, more especially the welfare of the Mikado and his Government. She provided Jimmu with the yatagarasu, or Sun-crow, as a guide to his army. The following prayer, addressed to her in 870 by envoys despatched to Ise with offerings, illustrates this conception of her character: -

"By order of the Mikado we declare with deepest reverence in the spacious presence of (with awe be her name pronounced) the Sovran Great Heaven-shining Deity, whose praises are fulfilled in the Great Shrine, whose pillars are broad-based on the nethermost rocks, and whose cross-beams rise aloft to the Plain of High Heaven on the bank of the River Isuzu in Uji, of Watarahi in Ise, as follows: -

"Since the past sixth month reports have been received from the Dazaifu97 that two pirate-ships of Shiraki98 appeared at Aratsu, in the district of Naka, in the province of Chikuzen, and carried off as plunder the silk of a tribute-ship of the province of Buzen. Moreover, that there having been an omen of a crane which alighted on the arsenal of the Government House, the diviners declared that it presaged war with a neighbouring country. Also that there had been earthquakes with storms and floods in the province of Hizen by which all the houses had been overturned and many of the inhabitants swept away. Even the old men affirmed that no such great calamity had ever been heard of before.

"Meanwhile news was received from the province of Michinoku of an unusually disastrous earthquake, and from other provinces grave calamities were reported.

"The mutual enmity between those men of Shiraki and our Land of Yamato has existed for long ages. Their present invasion of our territory, however, and their plunder of tribute, show that they have no fear of us. When we reflect on this, it seems possible that a germ of war may spring from it. Our government has for a long time had no warlike expeditions, the provision for defence has been wholly forgotten, and we cannot but look forward to war with dread and caution. But our Japan is known as the country of the Gods. If the Gods deign to help and protect it, what foe will dare to approach it? Much more so, seeing that the Great Deity in her capacity (with awe be it spoken) as ancestress of the Mikado bestows light and protection on the Under-Heaven which he governs. How, therefore, shall she not deign to restrain and ward off outrages by strangers from foreign lands as soon as she becomes aware of them?

"Under these circumstances, we (the names of the envoys follow) present these great offerings by the hands of Komaye, Imbe no Sukune, Vice-Minister of the Bureau of Imbe, who, hanging stout straps on weak shoulders, has purely prepared and brought them hither. Be pleased graciously to hearken to this memorial. But if unfortunately such hostile acts as we have spoken of should be committed let the (with awe be it spoken) Great Deity, placing herself at the head of all the deities of the land, stay and ward off, sweep away and expel the enemy before his first arrow is shot. Should his designs ripen so far that his ships must come hither, let them not enter within our borders, but send them back to drift and founder. Suffer not the solid reasons for our country being feared as the Divine Country to be sodden and destroyed. If, apart from these, there should be danger of rebellion or riot by savages, or of disturbance by brigands at home, or again of drought, flood or storm, of pestilence or famine such as would cause great disaster to the State or deep sorrow to the people, deign to sweep away and destroy it utterly before it takes form. Be pleased to let the Under-Heaven be free from alarms and all the country enjoy peace by thy help and protection. Grant thy gracious favour to the Sovran Grandchild, guarding his august person by day and by night, firm and enduring as Heaven and Earth, as the Sun and the Moon.

"Declared with deep reverence."

The solar character of Ama-terasu or Tenshōdaijin having become obscured, the people have personified the Sun afresh under the names of Nichi-rin sama (sun-wheel-personage) and O tentō sama (august-heaven-path-personage). To the lower class of Japanese at the present day, and especially to women and children, O tentō sama is the actual sun-sexless, mythless, and unencumbered by any formal cult, but looked up to as a moral being who rewards the good, punishes the wicked, and enforces oaths made in his name. In his 'Religions of Japan,' Dr. Griffis says: "To the common people the Sun is actually a God, as none can doubt who sees them worshipping it morning and evening. The writer can never forget one of many similar scenes in Tokio, when, late one afternoon, O tentō sama, which had been hidden behind clouds for a fortnight, shone out on the muddy streets. In a moment, as with the promptness of a military drill, scores of people rushed out of their houses, and with faces westward, kneeling, squatting, began prayer and worship before the great luminary."

I reproduce a drawing by a Japanese artist of a famous spot on the coast of Ise to which pilgrims resort in order to worship the sun as he rises over distant Fujiyama. The tori-wi, which in some prints of this scene is seen in the foreground, fulfils the same function as the great trilithon at Stonehenge, viz., to mark the direction of worship. I have seen the eastern wall of a private courtyard which was pierced with a round hole for the convenience of worshipping the morning sun.

There is a modern custom, called himachi (sun-waiting), of keeping awake the whole night of the 5th day of the 10th month in order to worship the sun on his rising. The rules of religious purity must be observed from the previous day. Many persons assemble at Takanaha, Uheno, Atago, and other open places in Tokio to worship the rising Sun on the first day of the year. This is called hatsu no hi no de (the first sunrise).

The myths mention several other deities which, although not identical with Ama-terasu or Hirume, are plainly of solar origin. Such is Waka-hirume (young-sun-female), who, according to Motoöri, is the Morning Sun. The Ise shrine is sometimes called Asa-hi no Jinja, that is to say, the shrine of the Morning Sun. One version of the names of the three children of Ninigi calls them Ho no akari (fire or sun-light), Ho no susori (fire or sun-advance), and Ho no wori (fire or sun-subside), originally, it may be suspected, names for the rising, noonday, and setting sun. Such a distinction is recognized in Egyptian mythology. The mythical founder of the dynasty which preceded Jimmu in Yamato was called Nigi-haya-hi-that is, gentle-swift-sun-and he is said to have come flying down from Heaven. One myth gives him the epithet Ama-teru kuni-teru (Heaven-shining, earth-shining). I am disposed to regard this personage as the Sun-deity of the earlier Yamato Japanese, from whom their chieftains were feigned to be descended. Even in Shōjiroku times many noble families traced their descent from him, as the Mikados did from Hirume. There are a good many other names suggestive of solar deities. But here caution is necessary, in view of the habit, common to the Japanese with other nations, of borrowing solar epithets for the adornment of human beings. There is a Take-hi (brave-sun) in the Nihongi who is unquestionably a mere mortal. And what could be more solar than Takama no hara hiro nu hime (high-heaven-plain-broad-moor-princess), the last word meaning etymologically "sun-female"? Yet this is indubitably the name of an historical Empress who came to the throne a. d. 687. The Mikado Kōtoku's Japanese name was Ame-yorodzu-toyo-hi (heaven-myriad-abundant-sun).

Although Shinto contains no formal system of ethics, moral elements are not wanting in the character of the Sun-Goddess as delineated in the ancient myths. She exhibits the virtues of courage and forbearance in her dealings with her mischievous younger brother Susa no wo. She is wroth with the Moon-God when he slays the Goddess of Food, and banishes him from her presence. Her loving care for mankind is shown by her preserving for their use the seeds of grain and other useful vegetables, and by setting them the example of cultivating rice. There is a recognition of her beneficent character in the joy of Gods and men when she emerged from the Rock-cave.

The circumstance that, according to one story, the Sun-Goddess was produced from the left and the Moon-God from the right eye of Izanagi is suggestive of the influence of China, where the left takes precedence of the right. Compare the Chinese myth of P'anku: "P'anku came into being in the great waste; his beginning is unknown. In dying he gave birth to the material universe. His breath was transmuted into the wind and clouds, his voice into thunder, his left eye into the sun, and his right eye into the moon." Hirata endeavours to combat the obvious inference from this comparison by pointing out that the sun is masculine in China and feminine in Japan. How little weight is due to this objection appears from the fact that two so nearly allied nations as the English and the Germans differ in the sex which they attribute to the sun, as do also closely related tribes of Australian aborigines and Ainus of Yezo. And does not Shakespeare make the sun both masculine and feminine in the same sentence, when he says, "The blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta"? There is, moreover, unsuspected by Hirata and his fellow-theologians, an unmistakeable vestige in the old myths of an obsolete or abortive masculine Sun-deity. We are told that the first child of Izanagi and Izanami was Hiruko. Hiru-ko is written with Chinese characters, which mean "leech-child"; and it is stated that when this God had completed his third year he was still unable to stand upright. He was therefore placed in a reed-boat and sent adrift. But the original author of the Hiru-ko was never guilty of such a palpable absurdity as to make a leech the first-born of creation, preceding even the Sun and the Moon. Hiruko is in reality simply a masculine form of Hirume, the Sun-female, just as hiko, prince, is of hime, princess; musuko, boy, of musume, girl; and otoko, youth, of otome, maiden. Egypt had a Sun-God Ra and a Sun-Goddess Rât.

No doubt with the greater development of the Sun-Goddess myth it was felt that there was no room for a male Sun-God. The tag of story which is appended to the leech derivation is one of those perversions of true myth which arise from an ignorant misunderstanding or a wilful misapplication of language.

The leech-child can hardly be reckoned among the effective deities of Shinto. In modern times, however, he has, for some inscrutable reason, been identified with a widely worshipped deity of unknown origin called Ebisu. This God has to all appearance nothing in common either with the sun or the leech. He is a favourite subject of the artist, and is usually depicted with a smiling countenance (emi or ebi means to smile), in ancient Japanese costume, and holding a fishing-rod while a tahi struggles at the end of his line. He is reckoned one of the seven Gods of good fortune, and is a favourite deity to pray to for success in trade. Merchants hold a great feast in his honour on the 20th day of the 10th month.

The ascription of the female sex to the most prominent among the Shinto Gods is not owing merely to caprice. Myth-makers have often more substantial reasons for their fancies than might be supposed. In the present case there is evidence that women played a very important part in the real world of ancient Japan as well as in that of imagination. Women rulers were at this time a familiar phenomenon. Both Japanese and Chinese history give us glimpses of a female Mikado who lived about a. d. 200, and whose commanding ability and strong character have not been wholly obscured by the mists of legend. Women chieftains are frequently mentioned. Indeed the Chinese seem to have thought that feminine government was the rule in Japan, for their historians frequently refer to it as the "Queen-country." In more historical times several of the Mikados were women. In some families descent was traced by the female line. From the Kojiki we learn that in Suinin's time it was the custom for the mother to give children their names.

One might think that so obviously solar a Goddess as the Heaven-shining-great-deity, or Sun-female, whose abode is the "Plain of High Heaven," who fills the universe with her radiance and leaves it to darkness when she conceals herself, and who is even spoken of in so many words as the "Deity of the Sun," would have escaped the temerarious touch of the Euhemerist. Yet I have before me a 'History of the Empire of Japan,' compiled by doctors of the Imperial University, and published in 1893 by order of the Japanese Government, which speaks of the principles of rice-culture and the arts of weaving, mining, and of making swords, hats, and pantaloons being known in the reign of Ama-terasu. Other writers are even more precise. Much to Motoöri's indignation, they say bluntly that she was a mortal empress who reigned in a locality on earth called Takama no hara (the Plain of High Heaven).

Yatakagami. – The shintai of the Sun-Goddess is a mirror,99 sometimes called the yatakagami, or eight-hand-mirror, probably because it had a number of leaves or projections round it. It is also called the hi-kagami (sun-mirror) or hi-gata no kagami (sun-form-mirror). It appears from the Nihongi that similar mirrors were honoured in Korea. Ama no hihoko is stated to have brought a sun-mirror from that country in b. c. 27.

The mythical notices of the yatakagami represent it in various aspects. It is mentioned in the Kojiki among the offerings made to the Sun-Goddess to propitiate her after her retirement to the Rock-cave of Heaven. In the same passage Uzume calls it "a deity more illustrious than thine (the Sun-Goddess's) augustness." When the Sun-Goddess and Musubi sent down Ninigi to rule the earth they gave him the yatakagami, saying: "Regard this mirror exactly as our mitama, and reverence it as if reverencing us." The Nihongi adds: "Let it be with thee on thy couch and in thy hall, and let it be to thee a holy mirror." The yatakagami is frequently spoken of as if it were the Sun-Goddess herself, and is even called "the Great God of Ise." Another sun-mirror received an independent worship at Kumano. The Nihongi says, under the date b. c. 92: —

"Before this the two Gods Ama-terasu no Oho-kami and Yamato no Oho-kuni-dama were worshipped together within the Emperor's Great Hall. He dreaded, however, the power of these Gods, and did not feel secure in their dwelling together. Therefore he entrusted Ama-terasu no Oho-kami to Toyo-suki-iri-bime no Mikoto to be worshipped at the village of Kasanuhi, in Yamato."

Here we must understand that it was the sun-mirror which was sent away from the palace. It was subsequently (b. c. 5) enshrined at Ise, where it is to this day preserved with the greatest care and reverence.100 It is about eight inches in diameter.

In ancient Peru, the Sun-God was represented by a golden disc, the Moon-Goddess by one of silver.

We find, however, that in a. d. 507 a sacred mirror was still preserved in the Imperial palace as one of the regalia. It was destroyed by fire in the eleventh century, but its successor is to this day transmitted from sovereign to sovereign as a token of royal authority. The religious ceremony in its honour is described below.101 Associated with the mirror as regalia were a sword and a jewel. These three objects are presented to the Mikado on his accession with great ceremony. In ancient times there were probably only two regalia, the mirror and the sword. The latter was lost in the sea at the battle of Dannoüra. But such losses are not irreparable.

The Sun-Goddess in her capacity as sovereign is attended by a Court of minor deities who belong to the class of man-deities, and will be dealt with in the next chapter.

Yatagarasu. – Like the Greek Phoibos, who had his κίρκος,102 the Egyptian Ra, who was accompanied by a hawk, and the Peruvian Sun-God, who was attended by a condor, the Sun-Goddess is provided with a bird as her messenger and attendant. This bird is called in Japanese ya-ta-garasu, which means "eight-hand-crow." It is not, however, a Japanese invention, but is borrowed from China, where it is called the Sun-crow or Golden Crow, and described as a bird with three claws and of a red colour which roosts in the sun. It is mentioned in a Chinese poem written b. c. 314. Possibly it may be traced even further back. A three-legged bird was figured on coins of Pamphylia and Lycia in very ancient times. In Japan the yatagarasu, as a symbol of the Sun, was depicted on the banners set up in front of the Imperial Palace on State occasions as a mark of sovereignty. This custom is known to go back to a. d. 700, and is probably much older.

The Euhemerists have tried their hand on the yatagarasu. Mr. Takahashi Gorô informs us in his dictionary that this was the name of one of Jimmu Tennô's generals, and Klaproth thinks it probable that the "corbeau à huit pattes designe la boussole dont Zimmu s'est servi pour se guider dans son expedition." A Japanese noble family claimed descent from it, and a shrine in its honour is mentioned in the Yengishiki.103

There is a God called Ame no hi-washi (heaven-sun-eagle), which, although not to be identified with the yatagarasu, is no doubt a product of the same tendency to associate birds with the Gods. Both are inhabitants of the same celestial region.

Susa no wo. – The history of Susa no wo104 illustrates the tendency of Nature-Gods to have their original character obscured by the anthropomorphic fancies of successive myth-makers. The Kojiki and Nihongi accounts of him are extremely vague and contradictory. Later Japanese, writers have identified him with the Moon-God, with an Indian Hades deity named Godzu Tennô, and with Emma, the Rhadamanthus of the Buddhist Hell. He has also been made a God of Pestilence, of Love and Wedlock, or of War. European scholars have described him as a "rotating-heavens God" or as "evidently a human being." Dr. Buckley, of Chicago, was the first to suggest105 that he is the Rain-storm. We need not adopt every detail of this scholar's explanations, and indeed no one theory can solve all the problems presented by the mutually inconsistent stories related of this deity, but there can be no hesitation in accepting Dr. Buckley's view as substantially correct. It is as the Rain-storm that he is "continually weeping, wailing, and fuming with rage"; that he "weeps the mountains bare and the seas and rivers dry"; that he is a lover of destruction;106 that "by reason of the fierceness of his divine nature he causes a commotion in the sea and makes the hills and mountains groan aloud" when he ascends through cloud and mist to visit his elder sister the Sun-Goddess. Torrent Goddesses are born from the fragments of his sword. He breaks down the divisions between the rice-fields and defiles his sister's dwelling, disgusting her so that she hides in a cave and leaves the world to darkness. He is further represented as going down to earth at the season of continuous rains, and as wearing a broad hat and a rain-coat. When he marries, the nuptial hut to which he retires with his wife is built of thick clouds. The sword which he takes from the serpent's tail is called ama no mura-kumo, that is to say, "the gathering clouds of Heaven." Another appropriate name for the weapon of a rain-storm deity is kusa-nagi, "the herb-queller." His wife's name, Inada-hime (the rice-field lady), is probably not without significance.

But mythology is rarely consistent. An explanation which suits one episode of a story may fail altogether when applied to others. There is nothing of the rain-storm about the Susa no wo who rescues a Japanese Andromeda from the great serpent which comes to devour her, or in the provider of timber and fruit-trees for mankind, or in the names and attributes of his very numerous children. His visit to Korea can hardly have a rain-storm significance. Moreover, it is impossible to pass over the explicit statement of the Nihongi that he was appointed to rule the land of Yomi. A Kojiki myth107 gives an account of his abode here in which no trace of his rain-storm quality is perceptible.

Dr. Florenz summarily rejects Hirata's theory that Susa no wo is identical with the Moon-God Tsuki-yomi. It must be admitted that if this deity ever had a lunar quality it had become forgotten in the times of the Kojiki and Nihongi. Both these works distinguish him unmistakably from the Moon-God. Nor is the European student likely to adopt the literal-minded Hirata's notion that the land of Yomi at first situated at the bottom of the Earth, became detached after Susa no wo was made its ruler, and was placed in the sky where we now see it-as the moon. Yet there is something to be said for his contention that the two deities were originally identical. The analogy of other mythologies108 suggests that a God whose relations with the Sun are at one time marital and at another hostile must be the Moon. There is nothing strange in the darkness of night and of the grave being presided over by the same divinity. Persephone, Queen of Hades, was a Moon-Goddess. The original identity of Susa no wo and Tsukiyomi would account for both deities being severally described in different myths as the slayer of the Food-Goddess and as the Ruler of the Sea-plain. It would also explain why the diviners at Ise ascribed to a curse from Tsukiyomi a storm of wind and rain which in 772 uprooted trees and destroyed houses. In an old book quoted by Hirata, Susa no wo is called Haya-Sasura no Kami, "swift-banishment-deity." His daughter while in Yomi is called Suseri-hime, probably identical with the Sasura-hime of the norito109 who dwells in the Root-country, and whose business it is to "banish" and get rid of the pollutions of the people. A Manyōshiu poem calls the moon Sasurahe-otoko, that is to say, the banished or vagabond youth. All this establishes a presumption that Susa no wo was at one time a lunar deity. If so he would appear in three closely related aspects, the darkness of the storm, of the grave, and of night. Brinton, writing without any special reference to Japan, observes110: – "Associated with the gloom of night was the darkness of the storm, which in many mythologies is contrasted with the sunshine in some divine struggle. Endless are the tales and rites which bear upon this contest in early religions."

If we remember the attributes of our own "Prince of Darkness," we shall not be surprised to find traces of a tendency to make of Susa no wo a personification of the evil principle. He is the arch offender of Japanese myth. The crimes committed by him against the Sun-Goddess agree closely with the so-called "celestial offences" of the Great Purification Ceremony. Hence his identification with the horned Godzu Tennô, a minister of the Buddhist hell. The Shinto Miomoku, which makes of him a Trinity under the name Sampô Kwôjin (three-treasure-rough-god), consisting of Kami Susa no wo, Haya Susa no wo, and plain Susa no wo, by the epithet "rough," recognizes the sinister aspect of his character. We may note the same element ara, rough, in the name of the Moon-god's shrine at Ise, namely, Aratama no Miya.

Several of Susa no wo's acts have an unmistakably beneficent character, as his rescue of Inada hime, and his provision of useful trees for man. The modern worship of him as (with his wife) a deity of love and wedlock also recognizes a beneficent aspect of his nature. Hirata explains this contradiction by the theory that he is beneficent when his nigi-tama (gentle spirit) is in the ascendant, and malignant when his ara-tama (rough-spirit) gets the upper hand, as in the leading case of Jekyll and Hyde, reported by R. L. Stevenson. The female deity of Yomi, Sasura-hime, is called by Hirata a waki-dama (side spirit, or double) of Susa no wo, forming with him a dual divinity, as in the case of the Wind-Gods.