Shinto. Aston William George

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      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 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. They also 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 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.

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