Shinto. Aston William George

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СКАЧАТЬ Deification of Mikados. – The misunderstanding of metaphorical language is a fertile source of apotheosis. The deification of the Mikados is a case in point. The Mikado is called "the Heavenly Grandchild," his courtiers are "men above the clouds," rural districts are spoken of as "distant from Heaven," that is, from the Imperial Palace. The heir to the throne was styled hi no miko, or "august child of the Sun," and his residence hi no miya, "the august house of the Sun." The native names of many of the Mikados contain the element hiko, or "Sun-child." The appearance in Court of the Empress Suiko (a. d. 612) is compared to the sun issuing from the clouds. Tenshi, or "Son of Heaven," a Chinese term freely applied to the Mikado in later times, is a variant of the same idea, which, it need hardly be said, is known in other countries besides Japan. The Chinese Emperor is said to call the sun his elder brother, and the moon his sister. Images of the sun and moon were depicted on the banners which were borne before him on State occasions. The same practice had been adopted in Japan as early as a. d. 700, and there is a relic of it at the present day in the Japanese national flag, which is a red sun on a white ground.20 The ancient kings of Egypt called themselves earthly suns. Our own poet Waller, addressing James II., says: -

      To your great merrit given,

      A title to be called the sonne of Heaven.

      Let us not pass by these metaphors with a disdainful smile, as mere unsubstantial poetic fancies. They are more or less rude attempts to give expression to the very important truth that the benefits which a nation derives from the rule of a wise and good sovereign are comparable to the blessings of the sun's warmth and light. As Browning, in 'Saul,' has well said: -

      Each deed thou hast done

      Dies, revives, goes to work in the world, and is as the sun

      Looking down on the earth, though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface,

      Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace

      The results of his past summer prime-so each ray of thy will,

      Every flash of thy passion and prowess long over, shall thrill

      Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour till they too give forth

      A like cheer to their sons, who in turn fill the south and the north

      With the radiance thy deed was the germ of-.

      It may be objected that it is contrary to the general law of human development to make the higher metaphorical conception precede the lower physical one. It is no doubt true that the physical idea of fatherhood must come before the metaphorical use of this relationship. But it does not follow that when once the metaphor is arrived at, it may not relapse into its original physical acceptation. The forces which produce religious progress act by waves, with intervals of stagnation or retrogression. Even when the general religious condition of a country is advancing it will be found that the lower popular stratum of thought consists less of undeveloped germs of future progress than of a breccia of the debased or imperfectly assimilated ideas of the wise men of preceding generations. In this retrograde movement a large part is played by the invincible tendency of the vulgar to give metaphors their literal signification. This, I take it, is the source of the numerous actual children or descendants of the Sun and other deities who are found all over the world, in Greece, Peru, Japan, and elsewhere. The sequence of ideas may be thus represented: -

      I. The King or sage is like the Sun.

      II. He is (rhetorically) a Sun, or the Sun's brother or offspring.

      III. He is actually descended from the Sun in the nth generation, the intermediate links of the genealogy being a, b, c, d, &c., and he is therefore himself a divinity.

      Herbert Spencer, in his 'Sociology,' says: -

      "There are proofs that like confusion of metaphor with fact leads to Sun-worship. Complimentary naming after the sun occurs everywhere, and where it is associated with power, becomes inherited. The chiefs of the Hurons bore the name of the Sun; and Humboldt remarks that 'the "Sun-Kings" among the Natches recall to mind the Heliades of the first eastern colony of Rhodes.' Out of numerous illustrations from Egypt may be quoted an inscription from Silsilis-'Hail to thee! King of Egypt! Sun of the foreign peoples … Life, salvation, health to him! he is a shining Sun.' In such cases, then, worship of the ancestor readily becomes worship of the Sun… Personalization of the wind had an origin of this kind."

"Nature-worship, then, is but an aberrant form of ghost-worship."

      Surely this is an inversion of the true order of things. Why do kings bear the name of Sun, or child of the Sun? Is it not because the Sun is already looked upon as a glorious being (a God?) with whom it is an honour to be associated? Herbert Spencer himself speaks of "complimentary naming after the Sun." The Chinese call deification hai-ten, or "matching with Heaven," showing that with them at least it is the man who acquires his divinity by being placed on a level with Heaven, not vice versâ. Worship of the Sun must be anterior to the very existence of Mikados, and there are certainly more substantial reasons for it than the transfer to him, suggested by metaphorical language, of the reverence paid to human sovereigns or ancestors.

      The deification of living Mikados was titular rather than real. I am not aware that any specific so-called miraculous powers21 were authoritatively claimed for them. In 645 a Japanese minister, addressing some envoys from Korea, described his sovereign as "the Emperor of Japan, who rules the world as a manifest deity." The same official recognized the Korean princes as "Sons of the Gods." The Mikado Keikō, admiring the strength and courage of his son Yamatodake, says to him: "Whereas in outward form thou art our child, in reality thou art a God." The Mikados called themselves, in notifications and elsewhere, Akitsu Kami, that is, manifest or incarnate deities, and claimed a general authority over the Gods of Japan. Yūriaku conversed on equal terms with the God Hito-koto-nushi. He expected obedience from the Thunder-God, but speedily had cause to repent his audacity.22

      The honours paid to deceased Mikados stand on a somewhat different footing. There is little, however, in the earlier period of Shinto to distinguish the respect shown to deceased Mikados from the customary observances towards the undeified dead. The Kojiki and Nihongi have hardly a trace of any practical recognition of their divinity. We are told in the Nihongi (a. d. 679) that the Mikado Temmu did reverence to the tomb of his mother who had died eighteen years before. In 681 worship was paid (no doubt by the Mikado) to the august spirit of the Mikado's grandfather (or ancestor). There is nothing in these notices to show that divine worship is intended. An oath made by Yemishi or Ainus, when tendering their submission in 581, is more to the point. They pray that "if we break this oath, may all the Gods of Heaven and Earth, and also the spirits of the Mikados destroy our race." Still it must be remembered that the author of the Nihongi was a profound Chinese scholar, and that his work is deeply tinctured with Chinese ideas. I should not be surprised to find that the above oath was simply copied from some Chinese book.

      In the time of the Yengishiki (tenth century) the honours paid to deceased Mikados had become regularized, and offerings similar to those made to nature-deities were tendered to them periodically. It is, however, a significant circumstance that of the twenty-seven norito contained in that work not one relates to their worship, and that the care of their tombs did not belong to the Department of Shinto. Hirata protests vigorously against a modern practice of using a Chinese word meaning Imperial Mausoleum for the shrines of Ise and Kamo.

      As early as the ninth century there are several cases of prayers addressed to deceased Mikados for rain, to stay a curse sent by them for disrespect to their tombs, for the restoration of the Mikado's health, for preservation from calamity, &c. In more recent times shrines were erected to them, and prayers put up for blessings which it is far beyond the power of man to grant. Under the name of Hachiman, СКАЧАТЬ