Shinto: The ancient religion of Japan. W. G. Aston

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СКАЧАТЬ were the Sun and other Heavenly objects. We ourselves speak of the ‘Most High’ and use phrases like ‘Good Heavens’ which testify to a personification of the sky by our forefathers. But though Kami corresponds in a general way to ‘God,’ it has some important limitations. The Kami are high, swift, good, rich, living, but not infinite, omnipotent, or omniscient. Most of them had a father and mother, and of some the death is recorded. Motoöri, the great Shinto theologian, writing in the latter part of the eighteenth century, says:—

      ‘The term Kami is applied in the first place to the various deities of Heaven and Earth who are mentioned in the ancient records as well as to their spirits (mi-tama) which reside in the shrines where they are worshipped. Moreover, not only human beings, but birds, beasts, plants and trees, seas and mountains, and all other things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess, are called Kami. They need not be eminent for surpassing nobleness, goodness, or serviceableness alone. Malignant and uncanny beings are also called Kami if only they are the objects of general dread. Among Kami who are human beings I need hardly mention first of all the successive Mikados—with reverence be it spoken. … Then there have been numerous examples of divine human beings both in ancient and modern times, who, although not accepted by the nation generally, are treated as gods, each of his several dignity, in a single province, village, or family. … Amongst Kami who are not human beings, I need hardly mention Thunder [in Japanese Naru Kami or the Sounding God]. There are also the Dragon, the Echo [called in Japanese Ko-dama or the Tree Spirit] and the Fox, who are Kami by reason of their uncanny and fearful natures. The term Kami is applied in the Nihongi and Manyōshiu to the tiger and the wolf. Izanagi gave to the fruit of the peach, and to the jewels round his neck names which implied that they were Kami. … There are many cases of seas and mountains being called Kami. It is not their spirits which are meant. The word was applied directly to the seas or mountains themselves as being very awful things.’

      The Kami-Beneficent.—The saying of the old Roman poet that ‘Fear first made the Gods’ does not hold good of Shinto. It is rather, as Schiller called the worship of the gods of Greece, a Wonnedienst, a religion inspired by love and gratitude more than by fear. The three greatest gods, viz. the Sun-goddess, the Food-goddess, and Ohonamochi (a god of Earth, the universal provider), are all beneficent beings, though they may send a curse when offended by the neglect of their worship or an insult to their shrines. Their worshippers come before them with gladness, addressing them as fathers, parents, or dear divine ancestors, and their festivals are occasions of rejoicing. But there are some malevolent or mischievous deities who have to be propitiated by offerings. The Fire-god, as is natural in a country where the houses are built of wood and great conflagrations are frequent, is one of these, and, in a lesser degree, the Thunder-god and the deity of the Rain-storm. The latter has, however, good points. He provides trees for the use of humanity, and rescues a maiden from being devoured by a great serpent.

      

      Lafcadio Hearn’s view that Shinto was at one time a religion of ‘perpetual fear’ is unsupported by evidence.

      Classes of Kami.—Although the Kami are deficient in several of the attributes of the Christian God, they possess two essential qualities without which it would be impossible to recognise them as deities at all, viz., sentiency and superhuman power. The union of these ideas may be accomplished in two ways, first by attributing sense and will to the great elemental objects and phenomena, and secondly by applying to human and other living beings ideas of transcendent power derived from the contemplation of the mighty forces on whose operation we are daily and hourly dependent for our existence. We have therefore two classes of deities, Nature-gods and Man-gods, the first being the result of personification, the second of deification. It has been the generally received opinion that the Shinto gods belong to the latter rather than to the former of these two categories. Nine out of ten educated Japanese will declare with perfect sincerity that Shinto is ancestor-worship. Thus Mr. Daigoro Goh, a former secretary of the Japan Society, says:—‘Shinto or ancestor-worship being the creed of the ancient inhabitants.’ The same view is held by some European scholars, notably the late Lafcadio Hearn, whose interesting and valuable work, Japan, an Interpretation, is greatly marred by this misconception. It is quite true that there is a large element of ancestor worship in modern Japanese religious practices, but a very little examination shows that all the great deities of the older Shinto are not Man, but Nature gods. Prominent among them we find the deities of the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, the Sea, the Rain-storm, Fire, Thunder, etc. And when the so-called ancestors of the Japanese race are not actually Nature-gods, they are usually the satellites or children of Nature-gods. In imitation of the Mikados who selected the Sun-goddess as their ancestral deity, the hereditary corporations or clans by whom in ancient times the Government of Japan, central and local, was carried on, chose for themselves, or perhaps invented, nature-deities, or their children or ministers, as their patron-gods, to whom special worship was paid. From this to a belief in their descent from him as an ancestor, the transition was easy. The same process has been observed in other countries. It was assisted by the habit of addressing the deity as father or parent, which, at first a metaphorical expression, came ultimately to be understood in a more literal sense. These pseudo-ancestral deities were called Ujigami, that is to say ‘surname-deities.’ In later times the Ujigami ceased to be the patron-gods of particular families and became simply the local deities of the district where one was born. Children are presented to the Ujigami shortly after birth, and other important events, such as a change of residence, are announced to him. A deity of any class may become an Ujigami, and there have been cases of a Buddha attaining to this position. The cult of one’s real forefathers, beginning with deceased parents, as in China, was hardly known in ancient Japan. Indeed there is but little trace of any religious worship of individual men in the Shinto of the Kojiki and Nihongi. Living Mikados were styled Kami, and spoken of as the ‘Heavenly Grandchild’ of the Sun-goddess. But their godship was more titular than real. It was much on a par with that of the Pope and Emperor who in the Middle Ages were called ‘Deus in terris.’ No miraculous powers were claimed for them beyond a vague general authority over the minor gods of Japan. Deceased Mikados were occasionally worshipped by their descendants, but whether there was anything in this so-called worship to distinguish it from the ordinary funeral or commemorative services there is nothing to show. They had no shrines, and no rituals in their honour are preserved in the Yengishiki collection. At a later period, the cult of deceased Mikados acquired a more definite character. They were prayed to for rain, to stay curses, to restore the Mikado’s health, etc. They had shrines erected to them, the offerings at which were assimilated to those made to Nature-deities. The Mikado Ôjin, if we may believe an oracle delivered by himself, became an important War-god under the name of Hachiman. The Empress Jingō, the legendary conqueror of Korea, also received divine honours. At the present day, solemn services are held periodically in the Imperial Palace for the worship of all the dynasty.

      Both categories of deities, Man and Nature gods, have three subdivisions according as they are deities of individuals, of classes, or of qualities. All these are exemplified in Shinto. The Sun-goddess represents an individual object; Kukuchi, the god of Trees, a class; and Musubi, the god of Growth, an abstract quality. Temmangu is a deified individual statesman, Koyane represents the Nakatomi clan or family, and Ta-jikara no wo (hand-strength-male) is a personified human quality.

      Development of the Idea of God.—The Nature-gods of Shinto, as of other religions, are in the first place the actual material objects or phenomena regarded as living beings. Sometimes the personification proceeds no further. There are Mud and Sand deities which have no sex, and no mythical record beyond a bare mention. But in the case of others the same progressive humanising process that is to be observed elsewhere has already begun. The Sun is not only the brilliant heavenly being whose retirement to a cave leaves the world to darkness, she is a queen, a child, and a mother—in a miraculous fashion. She speaks, weaves, wears armour, sows seed, and does many other things which have nothing to do with her solar quality. At a still more recent stage—though not in the old records—she becomes an СКАЧАТЬ