William George Aston

“ Who shall estimate the value to their respective races, and, indeed, to humanity, of such men as Shakespeare, Confucius, Mahomet, or Buddha? Nor are they dead. They live in their works, and subjectively in the hearts and minds of their countrymen. And may we not go a step further? Our actions, even the most insignificant, do not remain locked up in ourselves. As by sensation the whole universe affects us, so does every impulse of our ego react upon the universe, leaving an impression which is indelible. ”

“ There is no summer and winter myth in the old Japanese books, no deluge myth, and no eclipse myth. There is, strange to say, no earthquake myth, and but one solitary mention of a God of Earthquakes. There are no astral myths, no "Returning Saviour" myth, and no "Journey of the Dead" beyond the bare mention of an "Even Pass of Yomi," or Hades. The creation of mankind is not accounted for. ”

“ When devout men are few, my powers dwindle, my heart is distressed and the demon powers gain vigour while the divine power is weakened.
Oracle of the God of Atsuta:—
All ye men who dwell under Heaven. Receive the just commands of the Gods. Regard Heaven as your father, Earth as your mother, and all things as your brothers and sisters. You will then enjoy this divine country which excels all others, free from hate and sorrow. Obey the instructions of the Heaven-shining Deity and honour the Mikado. If any are rebellious, come before me and name their names. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He is much more the Father of Gods and men than a Sky or Weather-God. In Japan it is only the scholar who recognizes in Susa no wo the deity of the Rain-storm. To the people even Tenshōdaijin (the Sun Goddess) is nothing more than the great providential deity who resides at Ise. Her solar quality is practically forgotten. Men, on the other hand, may be exalted to such a height by the ascription to them of nature-powers that their original humanity is much obscured. ”

“ Izanagi and Izanami stood on the floating bridge of Heaven, and held counsel together, saying 'Is there not a country beneath?' Thereupon they thrust down the Jewel-Spear of Heaven' (Ame no tama-boko) and groping about with it, found the ocean. The brine which dripped from the point of the spear coagulated and formed an island which received the name of Onogoro-jima or the 'Self-Coagulating Island.' The two deities thereupon descended and dwelt there. Accordingly they wished to be united as husband and wife, and to produce countries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He says: 'I humbly declare in the presence of the Gods who dwell in the water-partings, and, naming your august names, to wit— Yoshinu, Uda, Tsuge, and Katsuraki, fulfil your praises. If you, the Sovran Gods, will bestow in ears many a handsbreadth long, and ears abundant the latter harvest which you will bestow, I will fulfil your praises by offering first-fruits in ear and in juice, raising up the tops of the sake-jars and filling and setting in a row the bellies of the sake-jars. ”

“ The offerings I furnish in your honour are bright cloth, shining cloth, soft cloth, and rough cloth. Of sake I raise up the tops of the jars and fill and range in order the bellies of the jars. [Grain] in juice and in ear I offer you. Of things that dwell in the mountains and on the moors I offer the soft of hair and the coarse of hair. Of things that dwell in the blue sea-plain, the broad of fin and the narrow of fin, even to the weeds of the offing and the weeds of the shore. ”

“ GENERAL FEATURES.—PERSONIFICATION.
Religion.—Religion, a general term which includes all our relations to the Divine, is a cord of three strands, namely, Emotion, Thought, and Conduct. Emotion comprises gratitude, hope, and fear. Thought yields conceptions and beliefs. Religious conduct consists in doing that which is pleasing to the superior powers, and in refraining from acts which are thought to be offensive to them. It includes worship, purity, and morality. ”

“ The mere exaggeration of the human faculties may produce an inferior sort of deity, but no really great man-God can be produced without borrowing some of the transcendent powers of Nature, or in some way identifying him with that increasing cosmic purpose, which from one point of view is tendency and evolution, and from another is a loving Providence. Until this is done a deified king, ancestor, or ghost (if there be such a thing) is a poor specimen of a God. ”

“ Finding that the bare assertion that they are alive produces little impression, the poet or seer goes a step further; and boldly ascribes to them human form, passions, actions, and character. Myth and metaphor are his instruments. The God has bodily parts, parents, sex, and children. He eats, drinks, is angry or alarmed, loves, fights, weaves, cultivates the ground, fishes, hunts, and dies. With the advance of social organization he is a chief or a king. Sometimes in these metaphors we can trace a special application to the deity's natural functions. ”

“ Whether individually or collectively, a man loves his parents before he loves God. The outward signs of divine worship are almost exclusively in the first place acts of reverence towards men. A man bows his head or makes presents to his superiors before he worships or sacrifices to a deity.
There is a tendency to restrict the word worship to the adoration of deity. Thus, when we speak of ancestor-worship, we are apt to think of it as implying deification. But there is much worship of living and dead men which is perfectly rational, and implies no ascription to them of superhuman powers. ”

“ When Ohonamochi went out to the moor, Susa no wo set fire to it all round. Ohonamochi could find no way of escape until a rat appeared, and said, 'Within 'tis hollow-hollow, without 'tis narrow-narrow.' Hearing this, Ohonamochi stamped upon the place, and fell in, and hid himself until the fire had burnt past. Then the rat came with the whizzing arrow in its mouth and presented it to him. The feathers of the arrow had all been gnawed by the rat's children. Hereupon his wife Suseri-hime came weeping and bringing the funeral things. ”

“ Izanagi and Izanami belong to that stage of religious progress in which the conception has been reached of powerful sentient beings separate from external nature. Untrue in itself, it has served a useful purpose. It is obviously easier for nations with little scientific knowledge to conceive of the same being as a ruler or parent of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, with all its human concerns, than to recognize in these phenomena a harmonious living whole. ”

“ When they are told that the Sun is a goddess, who walks, weaves, wears armour, sows rice, and so on, they take these statements literally, combining an implicit belief in them with the worship of the Sun itself. Even Motoöri says that it is the actual Sun in Heaven which we worship as Amaterasu no Oho-Kami (the Heaven-shining-great Deity) , while he believes at the same time that the Sun-myth of the Kojiki is real history. A time comes when it is objected that the Sun has no arms or legs necessary for the performance of the actions attributed to her. ”

“ He sees the sun move across the heavens, diffusing light and warmth, and says to himself, "He is alive." With the intellectual perception there is associated emotion. He feels that the sun is kind to him, and bows his head as he would to his chief, partly to express his thanks and partly in order that others may share his thoughts and feelings. This is religion. It comprises the three elements of thought, emotion, and action. Religion is at first exceptional. Every primitive man is not a seer or maker of religious myth. ”

“ It is sometimes difficult to determine to which of the two currents of religious thought a particular deity belongs. For example, we find a sword worshipped as a deity. Is it on account of its wonderful cutting property, or because it was once an offering to a nature or a man-deity, and had therefore at length absorbed to itself a portion of his divinity? ”

“ Hear all men! If you desire to obtain help from the Gods, put away pride. Even a hair of pride shuts you off from the Gods as it were by a great cloud.
Hear all men! The good Kami find their strength and their support in piety. Therefore they love not the offerings of those who practise tedious ceremonies. ”

“ For the offences of the nation generally, which it was the main object of the Ohoharahi to absolve, no punishment was practicable, or indeed dreamt of. The Ohoharahi fines of purificatory offerings may have contributed to a system of criminal law, but they were certainly not its main source. The case of Japan seems to prove that, in many cases at least, altruistic morality, even in the crystallized form of law, is in advance of religion. And may we not point to cases in our own country where religion withholds its sanction until the law has become well established? ”

“ Nearly everything in the worship of the Gods is borrowed from the forms of social respect. It is sometimes maintained that these forms, before they become a part of religious ritual, pass through an intermediate stage, namely, the worship of the dead, whether as ghosts or dead ancestors. This view is based on the hypothesis that Gods were originally deceased men. It cannot well apply to Shinto, where all the Great Gods are nature-deities. When a Japanese greets the rising Sun by bowing his head, he does so because that is already with him an habitual form of respect. ”

“ If there be any who, having studied the books of China or practised the teachings of India, despise the instructions of the Gods of our own Japan, I will go to their houses and either slay their infant children or visit them with, sore disease, or turn away from them their followers, or by the God of Fire destroy their dwellings. ”

“ Naming your honoured names, to wit, Yachimata-hiko, Yachimata-hime, and Kunado, I fulfil your praises. Whenever from the Root-country the Bottom-country there may come savage and unfriendly beings, consort not and parley not with them, but if they go below, keep watch below, if they go above, keep watch above, protecting us against pollution with a night guarding and with a day guarding. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Deity of Matsunowo says:—
Any one who makes a single obeisance to one Kami will receive infinite help: much more so any one who makes pure his heart and enters the great way of single-minded uprightness. ”

“ The manner of creation is variously represented. In no case is anything made out of nothing. The first act of creation was the formation of an island out of the drippings of the brine of the chaos-ocean from a spear. The other parts of Japan and many of the deities were produced by the ordinary process of generation. The functions of Izanagi and Izanami are elsewhere described as "putting in order and fully consolidating" the floating land beneath. This is precisely what Ohonamochi is represented as doing several generations of Gods later. ”

“ Motoöri thought that moral codes were good for Chinese, whose inferior natures required such artificial means of restraint. His pupil Hirata denounced systems of morality as a disgrace to the country which produced them. In 'Japan,' a recent work published in English by Japanese authors, we are told that "Shinto provides no moral code, and relies solely on the promptings of conscience for ethical guidance. If man derives the first principles of his duties from intuition, a schedule of rules and regulations for the direction of every-day conduct becomes not only superfluous but illogical." ”