Shinto. Aston William George

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СКАЧАТЬ of the imagination of individual writers. They were doubtless invented or collected in order to provide a genealogy for Izanagi and Izanami. With one exception, they have left no trace in myth or in ceremonial. There are no shrines in their honour. Little is to be learnt from their names, the derivation of which is often doubtful. Several of them, however, show that the divinely mysterious process of growth, so all-important to an agricultural nation, had attracted attention.56

      Musubi no Kami (the God of Growth), who forms the sixth generation of deities, is a genuine divinity, of whom more remains to be said hereafter.

       Izanagi and Izanami. – The seventh generation consisted of two deities, Izanagi and Izanami. It is with them that Japanese myth really begins, all that precedes being merely introductory and for the most part of comparatively recent origin.

      The Nihongi tells us that-

      "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. So they made Onogoro-jima the pillar of the centre of the land."

      The Kojiki says that Izanagi and Izanami were commanded by all the heavenly deities "to regulate and fully consolidate" the floating land beneath. But all the accounts, the Kojiki included, proceed to represent the islands of Japan as having been generated by them in the ordinary manner. We have therefore three distinct conceptions of creation in Japanese myth-first as generation in the most literal sense, second, as reducing to order, and third, as growth (Musubi).57

      The "floating bridge of Heaven" is no doubt the rainbow. It is represented on earth by the Sori-bashi or Taiko-bashi (drum-bridge) a semi-circular bridge over a pond before some Shinto shrines. It has too steep a slope for ordinary use, and is reserved for the Deity and for the priest on solemn occasions, the custom having been in this instance probably suggested by the myth.

      The Ame no tama-boko or Jewel-Spear of Heaven has been the subject of much dissertation. Hirata, whose view is endorsed by several eminent scholars, native and foreign, thinks that it is a phallus. Its use in creating, which in Japanese myth is the same thing as begetting, the first island, countenances this idea. The derivation of tama-boko also lends itself to it. Tama may be rendered ball or knob as well as jewel, and the tama-boko might therefore be a shaft surmounted by a knob representing the glans, reminding us of the spears tipped with pine cones which were carried by the Bacchantes in the Dionysia. We have another Japanese case of a conventionalized phallus in the wo-bashira.58 Moreover, on the theory that the tama-boko is a phallus, we have a satisfactory explanation of the circumstance that tama-boko no is used as a standing epithet of michi, road, which has puzzled Japanese scholars. The tama-boko no michi would then mean "the road where phallic symbols are set up." There is abundant evidence that objects of this kind were a familiar sight by the roadsides near the capital in ancient times. The poet Tsura-yuki (tenth century) has left a short poem in which he expresses his intention of praying to the Tamaboko no chiburi no kami when starting on a journey. The Chiburi no kami were the phallic road deities, protectors of travellers. Notwithstanding the Japanese poets' habit of using stock epithets without much regard to their proper meaning, this juxtaposition is highly suggestive. Another name for the phallic Sahe no kami59 was Chimata no kami, or road-fork-gods, because they had no temples and were worshipped by the road-sides and at cross-ways. The road between Utsu-nomiya and Nikkô, when I travelled along it in 1870, was still a tama-boko no michi-in the phallic sense.60 Another link between the hoko and the phallus is suggested by a statement in the Shiki Monogatari that the weapon which formed, and still forms, the central object in the great Goriōye festival procession at Kioto is known as the Sai no hoko. Now the Goriōye is a survival of the old festival in honour of the phallic Sahe no kami.

      But in mythology one explanation does not necessarily exclude another and apparently contradictory one. Whether the myth-makers had in their minds the phallus conception of the tama-boko-and I am persuaded that they had-it is impossible in this connexion to ignore the function of the hoko, or spear, as a symbol of authority. Herbert Spencer61 has shown how universally the spear has this meaning. Britannia's trident is a familiar example. Theseus, in the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides, speaks of "the land ruled by my spear." Lances or arrows are emblems of authority in Korea. In Japan itself there is an abundance of similar evidence. In the Nihongi we hear of local governors being granted shields and spears in token of authority. When Ohonamochi abdicates in favour of Ninigi he delivers over the Kuni-muke no hiro-boko, or land-subduing-broad-spear. The epithet Ya-chi-boko no kami, or God of eight thousand spears, applied to the same deity, has a similar symbolical meaning. The Empress Jingō set up her spear at the palace gate of the King of Silla, in Korea, as a token of conquest. A holly spear, eight fathoms long, was given to Prince Yamatodake when he was despatched on his expedition to subdue Eastern Japan.

      It will be observed that the tama-boko as a phallus belongs to the generative conception of creation, and as a spear to the idea of it as a cosmic or regulating process: -

       "The two deities having descended on Onogoro-jima erected there an eight fathom house with an august central pillar. Then Izanagi addressed Izanami, saying: 'How is thy body formed?' Izanami replied, 'My body is completely formed except one part which is incomplete.' Then Izanagi said, 'My body is completely formed and there is one part which is superfluous. Suppose that we supplement that which is incomplete in thee with that which is superfluous in me, and thereby procreate lands.' Izanami replied, 'It is well.' Then Izanagi said, 'Let me and thee go round the heavenly august pillar, and having met at the other side, let us become united in wedlock.' This being agreed to, he said, 'Do thou go round from the left, and I will go round from the right.' When they had gone round, Izanami spoke first and exclaimed, 'How delightful! I have met a lovely youth.' Izanagi then said, 'How delightful! I have met a lovely maiden.' Afterwards he said, 'It was unlucky for the woman to speak first.' The child which was the first offspring of their union was the Hiruko (leech-child), which at the age of three was still unable to stand upright, and was therefore placed in a reed-boat and sent adrift."

      The "eight fathom house" built by Izanagi and Izanami as a preliminary to their marriage is the fuseya, or nuptial hut, several times referred to in the old records. It was erected less for practical purposes than to avoid the ceremonial contamination of the ordinary dwelling-house by the consummation of a marriage within it.

      The number eight is often met with in Japanese myth. It would be a mistake, however, to regard it as in any way sacred. The primary meaning of yatsu is "many," and it might be better to translate it so in this passage.

      The central pillar of a house (corresponding to our king-post) is at the present day an object of honour in Japan as in many other countries. In the case of Shinto shrines, it is called the Nakago no mibashira (central august pillar), and in ordinary houses the Daikoku-bashira. The circumambulation of the central post by Izanagi and Izanami reminds us of the Hindu pradakchina.62 Hirata's conjecture that we have here an ancient marriage rite is very plausible. The circumambulation of the dwelling, the fire, a tree, or an altar by the bride and bridegroom is a familiar feature of marriage ritual. It does not follow that the Japanese rite had a religious character. Nothing in the mythical record suggests that this is the case, and at no time in Japanese history СКАЧАТЬ