Shinto

When Ninigi was about to descend to earth, the Sun-Goddess addressed him, saying:

"'This Reed-plain-1500-autumns-fair-ears Land is the region which my descendants shall be lords of. Do thou, my August Grandchild, proceed thither and govern it. Go! and may prosperity attend thy dynasty, and may it, like Heaven and Earth, endure for ever.' When he was about to descend, one who had been sent in advance to clear the way, returned and said: 'There is one God who dwells at the eight-crossroads of Heaven, the length of whose nose is seven hands, and whose stature is more than seven fathoms. Moreover, a light shines from his mouth and from his posteriors. His eye-balls are like an eight-hand mirror, and have a ruddy glow like the physalis.' Thereupon he sent one of his attendant Deities to go and make inquiry. Now among all the eighty myriads of Deities, there was not one who could confront him and make inquiry. Therefore he specially commanded Ame no Uzume, saying: 'Thou art superior to others in the power of thy looks. Thou hadst better go and question him.' So Ame no Uzume forthwith bared her breasts, and, pushing down the band of her garment below her navel, confronted him with a mocking laugh. Then the God of the crossways asked her saying: 'Ame no Uzume! What meanest thou by this behaviour?' She answered and said: 'I make bold to ask who art thou, that dost thus remain in the road by which the child of Ama-terasu no Oho-kami is to make his progress?' The God of the crossways answered and said: 'I have heard that the child of Ama-terasu no Oho-kami is now about to descend, and therefore I have come respectfully to meet and attend upon him. My name is Saruta-hiko no Oho-kami.' Then Ame no Uzume again inquired of him, saying: 'Wilt thou go before me, or shall I go before thee?' He answered and said: 'I will go before and be his harbinger.' Ame no Uzume returned and reported these circumstances. Thereupon the August Grandchild, leaving the heavenly rock-seat, and thrusting apart the eight-piled clouds of Heaven, clove his way with an awful way-cleaving, and descended to earth."

He alighted on a mountain in the western island of Kiushiu. He was attended by the ancestors of the five be, or hereditary government corporations, viz.: the Nakatomi, the Imbe, the Sarume, the mirror-makers be, and the jewellers be, to which some accounts add several others.

Ninigi took to wife Konohana-sakuyahime (the lady blooming like the flowers of the trees). Her father Oho-yamatsu mi (great-mountain person) had offered him both his daughters, but the elder was rejected by Ninigi as being too ugly. Her name was Iha-naga-hime (rock-long-lady). The consequences of this choice were disastrous to his descendants. Iha-naga-hime, in her shame and resentment, uttered a curse and said: "The race of visible men shall change swiftly like the flowers of the trees and shall decay and pass away." This is the reason why the life of man is so short.

When the time came for the younger sister's delivery, she shut herself up in a doorless shed, which, on the birth of her three children, she set fire to, with the object of clearing herself from certain suspicions which her husband had entertained of her fidelity. "If," said she, "the children are really the offspring of the Heavenly Grandchild, the fire cannot harm them." The children and their mother came forth unhurt, and were thereupon recognized by Ninigi as his true offspring and wife.

The "doorless shed" here mentioned, is a "parturition house."85 It was the custom in ancient Japan for women, when the time drew near for their delivery, to retire to a shed specially constructed to receive them, so that contamination to the dwelling-house might be avoided. This was still the practice in the island of Hachijō in 1878, and even in Japan no longer than a century ago.

The burning of the parturition house represents the ordeal by fire, which, with the ordeal by boiling water or mud, is well known in Japan.

Ho no Susori and Hohodemi. – The story concerns itself no further with the youngest of these three children. Of the others, the elder, named Ho no Susori, became a fisherman, and the younger, Hohodemi, a hunter.

Ho no Susori once proposed to his brother to exchange their respective callings. Hohodemi accordingly gave over to his elder brother his bow and arrows and received a fishhook in return. But neither of them profited by the exchange, so Ho no Susori gave back to his brother the bow and arrows and demanded from him the fish-hook.

Hohodemi, however, had in the meantime lost it in the sea. He took his sword and forged from it a number of new fish-hooks which he piled up in a winnowing tray and offered to his brother by way of compensation. But the latter would have none but his own, and demanded it so vehemently of Hohodemi as to grieve him bitterly. Hohodemi went down to the sea-shore and stood there lamenting, when there appeared to him the Old Man of the Sea, by whose advice he descended into the sea depths to the abode of the God of the Sea, a stately palace with lofty towers and battlements. Before the gate there was a well, and over the well grew a thick-branching cassia tree, into which Hohodemi climbed. The Sea-God's daughter Toyo-tama-hime (rich jewel maiden) then came out from the palace to draw water. She saw Hohodemi's face reflected in the well, and returning within reported to her father that she had seen a beautiful youth in the tree which grew by the well. Hohodemi was courteously received by the Sea-God, Toyo-tama-hiko (rich jewel prince) who when he heard his errand, summoned before him all the fishes of the sea and made inquiry of them for the lost fish hook, which was eventually discovered in the mouth of the Tai. Toyo-tama-hiko delivered it to Hohodemi, telling him when he gave it back to his brother to say "a hook of poverty, a hook of ruin, a hook of downfall," to spit twice and to hand it over with averted face.

Hohodemi married the Sea-God's daughter Toyo-tama-hime and remained with her for three years. He then became home-sick and returned to the upper world. On the beach where he came to land, he built for his wife, who was soon to follow, a parturition house which he thatched with cormorant's feathers. The roofing was still unfinished when she arrived, riding on a great tortoise. She went straight into the hut, begging her husband not to look at her. But Hohodemi's curiosity was too strong for him. He peeped in, and behold! his wife had become changed into a wani (sea-monster or dragon), eight fathoms long. Deeply indignant at the disgrace put upon her, Toyo-tama-hime abandoned her new-born child to the care of her sister, and barring behind her the sea-path in such a way that from that day to this all communication between the realms of land and sea has been cut off, returned hastily to her father's palace.

The child thus born was the father of Jimmu Tenno, the first human sovereign of Japan.

Hohodemi's troubles with his elder brother were renewed on his arrival home. He was obliged to use against him two talismans given him by his father-in-law. One of these had the virtue of making the tide flow and submerge Ho no Susori and thus compel him to sue for mercy (another account says that Hohodemi whistled and thereby raised the wind and the sea). Then by a second talisman the tide was made to recede and Ho no Susori's life was spared. He yielded complete submission to his younger brother, and promised that he and his descendants to all generations would serve Hohodemi and his successors as mimes and bondservants. The Nihongi adds that in that day it was still customary for the Hayato (or Imperial guards), who were descended from Ho no Susori, to perform a mimic dance before the Mikados, the descendants and successors of Hohodemi, in which the drowning struggles of their ancestor were represented.

The castle-gate and the tree before it, at the bottom of which is a well which serves as a mirror, form a combination not unknown to European folk-lore. We may also note the partiality evinced for the younger of two brothers, the virtue of spitting and of set forms of speech to bring good or ill luck, and of whistling to raise the wind.

There are several features in this story which betray a recent origin and foreign influences. A comparatively advanced civilization is indicated by the sword and fish-hooks forged of iron (the Homeric fish-hook was of horn). The institution of the Hayato as Imperial Guards belongs to a period not very long antecedent to the date of the Nihongi and Kojiki. The palace of the sea-depths and its Dragon-king are of Chinese, and therefore of recent, origin. The comparatively modern character of this important link in the genealogy which traces back the descent of the Mikados to the Sun-Goddess confirms the view that the so-called ancestor-worship of the ancient Japanese is a later accretion upon what was in its origin a worship of the powers of Nature.

Jimmu Tennô. – Though it is difficult to draw clearly a line which shall divide religious myth from legend with an historical kernel, we may conveniently assume that in Japan the latter begins with the story of Jimmu, as it has in all probability a foundation in actual fact, namely, the conquest of Central Japan by an invading army from the western island of Kiushiu some centuries before the Christian epoch.

Jimmu Tennô is said to have been the youngest of four brothers, who lived in the province of Hiuga.

When he reached the age of forty-five, he addressed his elder brothers and his children, saying: "Of old, our Heavenly Deities, Taka-mi-musubi, and Oho-hiru-me, gave this land of fair rice-ears of the fertile reed-plain to our Heavenly ancestor, Hiko-ho no ninigi. Now I have heard from the old sea-father that in the east there is a fair land encircled by blue mountains. Let us make our capital there." So on the fifth day of the tenth month of the year corresponding to b. c. 60786 they sailed northwards, and passing through the Bungo Channel arrived at Usa,87 near the Strait of Shimonoseki.

At this time there appeared the ancestors of the local chieftains of Usa, named Usa-tsu-hiko and Usa-tsu-hime, who built a palace raised on one pillar on the bank of the River Usa, and offered them a banquet. Then, by imperial command, Usa-tsu-hime was given in marriage to the Emperor's attendant minister Ama no tane, the remote ancestor of the Nakatomi House.

Proceeding on their voyage eastwards through the inland sea, Jimmu and his brothers arrived at the entrance of the river which falls into the sea near Ôsaka. Here they encountered a swift current, for which reason that place was called Nami-haya (wave-swift) or Nami-hana (wave-flower) of which Nani-ha (a later poetical name of Ôsaka) was thought a corruption.88

The first encounter of Jimmu's forces with the inhabitants of this part of Japan was not to their advantage: -

"The Emperor was vexed, and said: 'I am the descendant of the Sun-Goddess, and if I proceed against the Sun to attack the enemy, I shall act contrary to the way of Heaven. Better to retreat and make a show of weakness. Then sacrificing to the Gods of Heaven and Earth, and bringing on our backs the might of the Sun-Goddess, let us follow her rays and trample them down.'"

Subsequently he proceeded southwards to Kumano, in the province of Kiï, where he embarked with his army in the "Rock-boat of Heaven." In the midst of the sea they suddenly met with a violent wind, and Jimmu's ship was tossed about. Then Ina-ihi, one of Jimmu's elder brothers, exclaimed, "Alas! my ancestors were Heavenly Deities and my mother was a Goddess of the Sea. Why do they harass me by land, and why, moreover, do they harass me by sea." So he drew his sword and plunged into the sea, where he became changed into the God Sabimochi.89 Another brother of the Emperor, Mike Irino, also indignant at this, said: "My mother and my aunt are both Sea-Goddesses: why do they raise great billows to overwhelm us?" So treading upon the waves, he went to the Eternal Land.

At this time the Gods belched up a poisonous vapour, which paralyzed the energies of Jimmu's troops.

"Then there was there a man by name Kumano no Takakuraji, who had a dream, in which Ama-terasu no Ohokami spoke to Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami, saying: 'I still hear a sound of disturbance from the Central Land of Reed-Plains. Do thou again go and chastise it.' Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami answered and said: 'Even if I go not, I can send down my sword, with which I subdued the land, upon which the country will of its own accord become peaceful.' To this Ama-terasu no Kami assented. Thereupon Take-mika-tsuchi no Kami addressed Takakuraji, saying: 'My sword, which is called Futsu no Mitama, I will now place in thy storehouse. Do thou take it and present it to the Heavenly Grandchild.' Takakuraji said: 'Yes,' and thereupon awoke. The next morning, as instructed in his dream, he opened the storehouse, and on looking in there was indeed there a sword which had fallen down (from Heaven), and was standing point upwards on the plank floor of the storehouse. So he took it and offered it to the Emperor. Then Ama-terasu no Oho-kami instructed the Emperor in a dream of the night, saying: 'I will now send thee the Yata-garasu,90 make it thy guide through the land.' Upon which the Yata-garasu came flying down from the Void, and served as a guide to the army."

The progress of the Imperial troops being again obstructed by the enemy, the Emperor prayed and then fell asleep. The Heavenly Deity appeared to him in a dream, and instructed him to take earth from within the shrine of the Heavenly Mount Kagu, and of it to make eighty heavenly platters. Moreover, he was to make sacred jars, and therewith sacrifice to the Gods of Heaven and Earth, pronouncing at the same time a solemn imprecation. This had the desired effect of dispersing the enemy. The Emperor proceeded to utter a vow, saying: "I will now make ame91 in the eighty platters, using no water. If the ame forms, then shall I assuredly, without effort and without recourse to arms, reduce the Empire to peace." The ame became formed of itself.

Again he made a vow, saying: -

"'I will now take the sacred jars and sink them in the River Nifu. If the fishes, great or small, become every one drunken and are carried down the stream like floating leaves, then shall I assuredly succeed in establishing the land.' So he sank the jars in the river, with their mouths turned downward, and after a while the fish all came to the surface, gaping and gasping as they floated down the stream."

The Emperor then commanded Michi no Omi, saying:

"'We are now in person92 about to celebrate a festival to Taka-mi-musubi. I appoint thee Ruler of the festival, and grant thee the title of Idzu-hime.93 The earthen jars which are set up shall be called the Idzube, or sacred jars; the fire shall be called Idzu no Kagu-tsuchi, or sacred-fire-father; the water shall be called Idzu no Midzu-ha no me, or sacred-water-female; the food shall be called Idzu-uka no me, or sacred-food-female; the firewood shall be called Idzu no Yama-tsuchi, or sacred-mountain-father; and the grass shall be called Idzu no No-tsuchi, or sacred-moor-father.'"

"In Winter, the 10th month, on the 1st day,94 the Emperor tasted the food of the Idzube, and arraying his troops set forth upon his march."

Among those who made submission to Jimmu was Nigi-haya-hi, of whom it is told that he was a child of the Heavenly Deity, who had come down from Heaven riding in the "Rock-boat of Heaven," and married the sister of a local chieftain named Naga-sune-hiko (Prince Long-shanks). His name and that of his son appear very frequently in the Shôjiroku genealogies.

Jimmu took to wife a daughter of the God Koto-shiro-nushi, or, according to the Kojiki, Oho-mono-nushi, by a mortal woman, and having established his capital at Kashi-habara, in Yamato, b. c. 660,95 reigned there until his death, b. c. 585, at the age of 127.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PANTHEON-NATURE DEITIES

1. GODS OF INDIVIDUALS AND GODS OF CLASSES

The neglect of indications of number in the Japanese language often renders it impossible to say whether a God belongs to an individual natural object or phenomenon or to a class. I therefore take these two classes of deities together, noting the distinction wherever it is possible or desirable.

The Sun-Goddess. – The most eminent of the Shinto deities is the Sun-Goddess. Nor is this surprising. If, as Scotus Erigena has well said, "every visible and invisible creature is a theophany or appearance of God," what more striking aspect of Him can there be to the uncultured mind than the Sun? In a later stage of intellectual development men find a fuller revelation of Him in the moral order of the world, in the laws of human progress, and in the spiritual experiences of saints and sages, culminating in a synthesis of all the divine aspects of the universe in one harmonious whole. But, naturally enough, there is little of this in Shinto. The ancient Japanese recognized the divinity of the universe in a very imperfect, piecemeal fashion, and almost exclusively in those physical aspects by which they were more directly affected. Among these the light and warmth of the Sun and the sources of their daily food held the chief place. Sun-worship is specially natural to the Japanese as an agricultural people. Almost all the peasant's doings are in some way dependent on, or regulated by, the Sun.

The application of the term "fetish" to the Sun considered as an object of adoration is to be deprecated. It implies a stigma which is altogether out of place. Socrates prayed to the Sun; Æschylus's Prometheus appeals to him against the tyranny of Zeus; in Sophocles's' Œdipus Tyrannus' the Chorus swears by "the Sun, chief of all the Gods"; Plato says that "the soul of the Sun should be deemed a God by every one who has the least particle of sense"; Goethe admitted his claims to worship; Don Quixote swears by God and by the Sun in the same breath, and Tristram Shandy "by the great God of Day." Milton, in the character of Satan, it is true, addresses the Sun in terms of awe and wonder, and Swinburne calls him "the living and visible God." The name of the first day of the week still remains to show what an important place he held in the religion of our forefathers. The association of the ideas of light, splendour, and brightness with divinity has its origin in a primæval sun-worship. William the Conqueror swore "by the splendour of God." Divine contains the root div, brightness. Milton calls light "of the eternal co-eternal beam." No doubt so long as a nation is hesitating between sun-worship and a higher form of religion there is a reason for treating the former with contempt and aversion. No form of faith is so odious-because of the danger of relapse-as that from which we have emerged with painful effort to something higher. But such intolerance is no longer needed. It is now unnecessary to punish with death the worship of the sun, moon, and stars,96 or even to stigmatize it as fetish-worship.

The meaning of the word fetish has become so blurred by indiscriminate use that there is a temptation to discard it altogether. It is frequently applied to all concrete objects of devotion, including not only great nature-gods, like the earth and sun, but their symbols, images, and seats of their real presence, which have no intrinsic divinity of their own, and are only worshipped by reason of their association with genuine deities. The same objects, after their association with the God has been forgotten and they are blindly adored as if they were themselves Gods, form a third class of fetishes. The sword of the shrine of Atsuta is an example. Probably originally an offering and then a shintai, it is still worshipped, for no known reason except, perhaps, an empiric belief in the efficacy of prayers addressed to it. Implements of trade, honoured for the help which they render to man, are a fourth class. To these we may add a fifth, consisting of stones, sticks, feathers, &c., worshipped for their imaginary virtues or for no definite reason at all.

The indiscriminate application of the term fetish to objects of all these five classes is highly inconvenient, especially when we come to discuss the question whether fetishism is a primitive form of religion. The answer depends entirely on the kind of fetish which is intended. If the word is used at all, it would be better to confine it to the last three of these classes.

The Sun-Goddess is described as the Ruler of Heaven and as "unrivalled in dignity." She wears royal insignia, is surrounded by ministers, of whom the Court of the Mikado is the obvious prototype, and is spoken of in terms appropriate to personages of sovereign rank. She is selected as the ancestor from whom the Mikados derive their descent and authority. Yet she is hardly what we understand by a Supreme Being. Her power does not extend to the sea or to the Land of Yomi. Her charge as Ruler even of Heaven was conferred on her by her parents, and did not by any means involve absolute control. When grossly insulted by her younger brother, instead of inflicting on him condign punishment, she hid in a cave, from which she was partly enticed, partly dragged, by the other deities. This is not the behaviour of a Supreme Being. The punishment of the culprit and other important celestial matters are determined, not by the fiat of the so-called Ruler of Heaven, but by a Council of the Gods. The celestial constitution, like its earthly counterpart, was far from being an absolute monarchy. The epithet sumera, translated "sovran," and derived from a verb sumeru, which means "to hold general rule," is applied not only to the Sun-Goddess but to many other deities-the Wind-Gods, for example-and also to the Mikados. The same is the case with Mikoto, which corresponds roughly to our "majesty." Of course Japan is not the only country which attributes royalty to the Sun. Milton speaks of the Sun's "sovran vital lamp."

In some parts of the Shinto mythical narrative it is the actual Sun that the author has in view, as when he speaks of her radiance illuminating the universe, or of the world being left to darkness when she entered the Rock-cave. Elsewhere she is an anthropomorphic being, with no specially solar characteristics. She wears armour, celebrates the feast of first-fruits, cultivates rice, &c. Inconsistencies of this kind are inherent in all nature myths, and trouble their authors not a whit. Some of the modern theologians, however, are much perplexed by them. Motoöri concludes that "this great deity actually is the Sun in Heaven, which even now illuminates the world before our eyes, a fact which is extremely clear from the divine writings." His pupil Hirata, on the other hand, holds that the Sun-Goddess is not the Ruler of Heaven but the Ruler of the Sun, a distinction which never occurred to the myth-makers. Another modern writer attempts to smooth over difficulties by the explanation that the Sun-Goddess is actually a female goddess, but, owing to the radiance which flows from her, seen from a distance she appears round.

The transparent character of the names by which the Sun-Goddess is known is a formidable obstacle to the tendency to neglect her solar quality and to give prominence to the anthropomorphic side of her character. Her most usual appellation is Ama terasu no Oho-kami, or the Heaven-shining-great-deity. She is also called Ama-terasu hiru-me, or Heaven-shining sun-female-more briefly Hiru-me, Ama terasu mi oya, or Heaven-shining august parent, and other variants. Of these names European writers have generally adopted Ama-terasu, which, like Phoibos, is in reality a mere epithet, and is applied to other deities. Hirume, or sun-female, is more expressive, and probably older.

In modern times the appellation Ama-terasu no Oho-kami is little used, its Chinese equivalent Tenshōdaijin being substituted. Partly under cover of a name which is less clearly intelligible to the multitude, the tendency has become accentuated to throw her solar functions into the background and to conceive of her simply as a general Providence, at the expense of other deities. In other words, she has made a distinct advance towards the position of a supreme monotheistic deity.