Shinto

“ To the Japanese eye, the universe itself took on the paternal look. Awe of their parents, which these people could comprehend, lent explanation to dread of nature, which they could not. Quite cogently, to their minds, the thunder and the typhoon, the sunshine and the earthquake, were the work not only of anthropomorphic beings, but of beings ancestrally related to themselves. In short, Shintō, their explanation of things in general, is simply the patriarchal principle projected without perspective into the past, dilating with distance into deity. ”

“ Yet although this is our opinion, it is but fair, and it is our duty, to judge every religion by its ideals and not by its failings. The ideal of Shintō is to make people pure and clean in all their personal and household arrangements; it is to help them to live simply, honestly and with mutual good will; it is to make the Japanese love their country, honor their imperial house and obey their emperor. Narrow and local as this religion is, it has had grand exemplars in noble lives and winning characters. ”

“ We must now see what the Japanese conceive this soul to be. Now Shintō philosophy is not the faith's strong point. The Japanese are artists, not scientists. And in their revelations their gods show the same simple and attractive character. If, therefore, the Shintō scheme of things seem at times incompatible with itself, the gods themselves are responsible, not I, errors and omissions on my part excepted. For I have it all from one whose authority is nothing short of the god's own words, vouchsafed to him in trance, my friend the high priest of the Shinshiu sect. ”

“ Such Buddhist temples as we pass appear small and poor; and the wayside images become rarer and rarer. But the symbols of Shinto are more numerous, and the structure of its miya larger and loftier. And the torii are visible everywhere, and tower higher, before the approaches to villages, before the entrances of courts guarded by strangely grotesque lions and foxes of stone, and before stairways of old mossed rock, upsloping, between dense growths of ancient cedar and pine, to shrines that moulder in the twilight of holy groves. ”

“ We have reason even to suppose that no dream of the invisible world has ever been dreamed,—that no hypothesis of the unseen has ever been imagined,—which future science will not prove to have contained some germ of reality.
Foremost among the moral sentiments of Shinto is that of loving gratitude to the past,—a sentiment having no real correspondence in our own emotional life. We know our past better than the Japanese know theirs;—we have myriads of books recording or considering its every incident and condition: but we cannot in any sense be said to love it or to feel grateful to it. ”

“ This movement, known as the ‘Revival of Pure Shinto,’ was first revealed to Europeans by a paper contributed by Sir E. Satow to the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1875. The principal promoters were Motoöri and his pupil Hirata, two earnest, able, and stupendously learned writers who devoted their lives to an endeavour by oral teaching and in a series of voluminous works to the dethronement of the established Chinese ethics and philosophy in favour of a Shinto purified from Buddhist and other foreign adulterations of later times. ”

“ Shinto the students all sincerely are, or very nearly all; yet not as fervent worshippers of certain Kami, but as rigid observers of what the higher Shinto signifies—loyalty, filial piety, obedience to parents, teachers, and superiors, and respect to ancestors. For Shinto means more than faith.
When, for the first time, I stood before the shrine of the Great Deity of Kitzuki, as the first Occidental to whom that privilege had been accorded, not without a sense of awe there came to me the Sec. 'This is the Shrine of the Father of a Race ”

“ The importance of Shintō here as compared with Buddhism impresses me more and more every day. Most of the kakemono in the tokonomas are Shintō rather than Buddhist. The story of the Sun-goddess is a favourite theme with local artists. Here also the gods of Good-Fortune have become after a fashion adopted by Shintō.
I expect to send you some mamori shortly from two places—Ichibata and Sakusa. The Shintō shrine at Sakusa would probably interest you. Lovers in doubt go there to pray to the kami who set the single in family, and who have decided in advance the coupling of all human creatures. ”

“ Whatever be the origin of its rites and traditions, its ethical spirit has become identified with all the deepest and best emotions of the race. Hence, in Izumo especially, the attempt to create a Buddhist Shintoism resulted only in the formation of a Shinto-Buddhism.
And the secret living force of Shinto to-day—that force which repels missionary efforts at proselytising—means something much more profound than tradition or worship or ceremonialism. Shinto may yet, without loss of real power, survive all these. ”

“ Their own unassisted efforts in the direction of religion are summed up in archaic Shintō. Modern Shintō has been profoundly influenced by Buddhism and Confucianism. On more than one occasion we have heard a Japanese asked by a European traveller what his religion was,—whether Buddhist or Shintō,—and have been amused at his look of blank perplexity. He could not, for the life of him, make out what the enquirer was driving at. It is the established custom to present infants at the Shintō family temple one month after birth. It is equally customary to be buried by the Buddhist parish priest. ”

“ Like most old Japanese cities, Kyoto is proud of its temples, Buddhist and Shinto. And perhaps I should explain just here the difference between these two faiths that were long merged into one, but have been dissociated since the restoration of the Emperor to his old-time powers forty years ago. Shinto is the ancient Japanese system of ancestor-worship, with its doctrine of the divine descent of the Mikado from the Sun-goddess and its requirement that every faithful adherent make daily offerings to the spirits of the family's ancestors. ”

“ Star-Gods are few and unimportant in Shinto.
Earth-worship.—The direct worship of the Earth is well-known in Japan. At the present day, when a new building is erected or new rice-land brought under cultivation, the ground is solemnly propitiated by a ceremony called Ji-matsuri or earth-worship. Localities were personified under names which recall Erin, Britannia, Dea Roma, etc. Such deities were called Kunidama, country or province spirit. The greatest of these, and one of the three greatest gods of Shinto, is Ohonamochi. ”

“ For in an emotional sense it is the very essence of what makes far-eastern life so fine. Mere outline of a faith as Shintō at first sight seems to be, on closer study it proves to be something little less than grand in its very simplicity. Truly it needs no formal priesthood, no elaborate service, no costly shrine, for it has as visibly about it something better than all these—its very gods. To Shintō they are always there ”

“ But throughout the length and breadth of the land the sight of a Shinto shrine will continue to prompt the passer-by to pause for a moment in his journey, to fold his hands in silent prayer, to cast a coin into the capacious moneybox, and to bow the head in submission to a higher will, no matter whether the rites of Shinto worship be for the future viewed in the light of a religion or only as a cult. ”

“ The Shinto Dō-itsu, a modern Shinto manual, frankly adopts the Chinese views of the soul. A manual of this sect has the following: "The kom-paku are in China the animal and rational souls. When a man dies, his kon goes up to Heaven and his haku returns to Earth. Man at birth derives his breath (or life) from Heaven and Earth. ”

“ Still, it is not a primitive cult. It had an organized priesthood and an elaborate ritual. The general civilization of the Japanese when Shinto assumed the form in which we know it had left the primitive stage far behind. They were already an agricultural nation, a circumstance by which Shinto has been deeply influenced. They had a settled government, and possessed the arts of brewing, making pottery, building ships and bridges, and working in metals. It is not among such surroundings that we can expect to find a primitive form of religion. ”

“ Though this is a fanciful exaggeration, Shinto is a highly polytheistic religion, and numbers its deities by hundreds, even if we do not go back to that earlier period when the rocks, the trees, and the foam of water had all power of speech. There is a constant depletion in their ranks by the mere force of oblivion, while, on the other hand, new deities come into notice. Different gods are identified with one another, or the same deities may be split up like Musubi into a pair, or a number of distinct persons. ”

“ It will be impossible to get more than merely a very superficial idea even then, particularly [Pg 71] upon the question of the two old beliefs of Shintoism and Buddhism."
"The Shinto belief is the worship of ancestors, isn't it?" asked Nan.
"It is founded upon that, as we understand it," Mrs. Craig explained. "Lafcadio Hearn probably can give you a better idea of what it means than I can, so I advise you to hunt up his books."
"We have some of them," Nan returned, "and I shall look up the subjects when we get home."
"Do all the Japanese adopt the Shinto creed?" asked Mary Lee. ”

“ Shinto is essentially a religion of gratitude and love. The great Gods, such as the Sun-Goddess and the Deity of Food, are beneficent beings. They are addressed as parents, or dear divine ancestors, and their festivals have a joyous character. [1] An eighth-century poet says, "Every living man may feast his eyes with tokens of their love." The Kogoshiui tells us that when the Sun-Goddess emerged from her cave, "Heaven above at length became clear, and all people could see each other's faces distinctly. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But I am mentioning these facts only as illustrating the conservative vitality of Shinto, not as indicating any weakness in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the influence which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese [187] civilization was immense, profound, multiform, incalculable; and the only wonder is that it should not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To state, as various writers have carelessly stated, that Buddhism became the popular religion, while Shinto remained the official religion, is altogether misleading. ”

“ Then, suddenly, like a breath of cold wind, came the thought that even my [Pg 143] saintly grandmother would not dare touch the sacred things that were used to honour the Shinto gods. She always attended to the Buddhist shrine, but it was Father's duty to care for the white Shinto shrine. During his absence, Jiya or another manservant took his place, for no woman was worthy to handle such holy things. And yet the great god of Shinto was a woman—the Sun goddess! ”

“ For an account of Japanese Buddhism, consult Murray's 'Japan,' or the more comprehensive description in Griffis's 'Religions of Japan.'
[332] See above, p. 175.
[333] The novelist Bakin, who cannot be charged with priestcraft, says: "Shinto reverences the way of the Sun; the Chinese philosophers honour Heaven; the teaching of Shaka fails not to make the Sun a deity. Among differences of doctrine the fundamental principle is the same."
[334] In the old Shinto, Ne no kuni, or Hades, is not a place of punishment for the wicked. Here it stands for the Jigoku, or Hell, of the Buddhists. ”

“ It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the primitive religion of Japan had no name, and that it did not begin to be called Shintō until Buddhism had entered the field. The two creeds remained distinct, though not implacably antagonistic, until the beginning of the 9th century, when they were welded together into a system of doctrine to which the name Ryōbu-Shintō (dual Shintō) was given. In this new creed the Shintō deities were regarded as avatars of Buddhist divinities, and thus it may be said that Shintō was absorbed into Buddhism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Shinto, a primitive nature cult, which had fallen into discredit, was taken out of its cupboard and dusted. The common people, it is true, continued to place their affections on Buddhism, the popular festivals were Buddhist; Buddhist also the temples where they buried their dead. The governing class determined to change all this. They insisted on the Shinto doctrine that the Mikado descends in direct succession from the native Goddess of the Sun, and that He himself is a living God on earth who justly claims the absolute fealty of his subjects. ”