Shinto. Aston William George
cases where we should expect to find mitama spoken of, but where a more material conception-namely, that of metamorphosis-takes its place. Among several instances of this kind may be quoted that of Yamato-dake. He died, and was buried, upon which he took the form of a white bird, which flew away leaving the tomb empty. The modern name for ghost testifies to the prevalence of this conception in Japan. It is bake-mono, or "transformation," and is applied to foxes which change into human form as well as to the ghosts of the dead and to hobgoblins of uncertain origin. Bake-mono are not worshipped in Japan, any more than ghosts are with ourselves, but there is a beginning of reverence to them in the honorific particle o which is frequently prefixed to the word, especially by women. There are no proper ghosts in the Kojiki or Nihongi, although the writers of these works were fond of recording strange and miraculous occurrences. The metamorphosed appearances mentioned in them are never phantoms with a resemblance to the human form, and possess no spiritual qualities. Even now the bakemono, though differing little from our ghost, is quite distinct from the human mitama or tamashiï (soul).
Tama, as we have seen above,28 may mean either a jewel, a round object, or the effluence of a deity or a spirit. Here literal-minded Dullness, with whom the Gods themselves contend in vain, leaps to the conclusion that the physical globular tama is not merely a symbol of the soul, but the soul itself. By the ignorant in modern times it is conceived of as a small round black object, which has the power of leaving the body during sleep. The popular name for the will-of-the-wisp, namely, hito-dama (man-ball-soul) enshrines a like superstition.29 It is asserted that the souls of the newly dead have been seen to float away over the eaves and roof as a transparent globe of impalpable essence.
We may compare with these Japanese notions the following cases, which I quote from Herbert Spencer's 'Sociology': "According to Ximenes, when a lord died in Vera Cruz, the first thing they did after his death was to put a precious stone in his mouth. The object of it was that the stone should receive his soul. The Mexicans along with a man's remains put a gem of more or less value, which they said would serve him in place of a heart in the other world." Such material conceptions of the soul are to be found everywhere. Mr. Hartland, in his 'Legend of Perseus,' observes: "To the savage, as to our own forefathers, and to the folk of all civilized countries still, the idea of an incorporeal soul is incomprehensible. It is everywhere in the lower culture conceived of as material, though capable of changing its form and appearance without losing its identity."30 Hirata, after pointing out correctly that the mitama (jewel or spirit) is so called because there is nothing in the body so precious as the soul, immediately relapses into a more material conception when he proceeds to explain that, although we cannot discern its shape, seen from the Gods it must have the shape of a jewel (that is, spherical).31
The history of the mitama suggests that the material, or partially material, conceptions of the soul are a comparatively recent development. Though religion is on the whole progressive, it by no means follows that all movements of religious thought are in a forward direction. The spiritual edifice which poets and seers build up is being constantly reduced to ruin by the inept handling of the material-minded vulgar, to be reared anew by others more splendid than before. But let us not mistake the ruin for the first courses of a new building, the dead husk for the living germ. Ghosts and ball-souls are aberrant conceptions which belong to the former category. The dullards to whom such notions are due are quite incapable of originating the pregnant, though artificial, conception of body and soul as two distinct entities.
Let me add a few more etymological facts which bear on the question of spirituality.
Mi-kage, or "august shadow," is an ancient synonym for mi-tama. It is unnecessary to suppose that anything but a metaphorical meaning was originally intended. There is, however, a modern superstition that when a man is near his death his shadow becomes thinner.
The ordinary Japanese word for "to die" is shinuru, that is to say, "breath-depart." Death is also called concealment, long concealment, body-concealment, rock-concealment (in allusion to the practice of burial in dolmens), change, and ending. In the case of the Gods, death is called divine departure or divine ascent.
Iki, "breath," one of the vital functions, is put by metonymy for their sum, that is, life. It has not, like our word "spirit" and the Greek "psyche," taken the further step of coming to mean the human soul, except we identify it with the ke of hotoke, which has been plausibly derived from hito, "man," and ke, "spirit." It is now the common Buddhist term for Buddha and his saints, and also for the spirits of the sainted dead. The material-minded man, as usual, drags it down to his own level. To him the corpse at a funeral is the hotoke. It is not certain, however, that the element ke of this word is not of Chinese origin, China, always far in advance of Japan in spirituality, has exercised a profound influence on the development of Japanese ideas regarding spiritual matters.
Another material conception of the life or soul is contained in a poem of the Manyôshiu, in which a fisherman named Urashima is related to have found his way to the Toko yo no kuni, or "Eternal Land." When about to return to earth he received from his wife a casket, with the injunction that he must not open it. He does open it, upon which his life or soul comes out and flies away like a white cloud to the "Eternal Land." He dies soon after. But this is a poetic fancy, open to strong suspicions of Chinese inspiration.
There is a ceremony called iki-mitama (living soul), which consists in paying respect to an absent parent, &c., as if he were present. Another similar practice is that of kage-zen (shadow-food), in which a meal is set out for an absent member of the family, especially when it is not known whether he is dead or alive. The term iki-su-dama (living spirit) is applied to the angry spirit (double?) of a living person, which is supposed to work a curse, sometimes unknown even to himself. Su-dama are defined as the essences of woods or mountains, which assume a metamorphosed form-elves, as we should say. All these are comparatively modern ideas.
The Shinto Do-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. Therefore when he dies it returns to Heaven and Earth. The kon is the yang or male, positive spirit; the haku is the yin or female, negative spirit (tama). In everything there is the yin and the yang heart. All men have ki (breath), kei (form), and sei (life). The kon rules the ki and the sei. The haku rules the form and the body. Ki means literally breath, on which man's life depends. From the Buddhist point of view there are two functions of the material body, namely, life and death, each of which has its soul. The saki-dama (spirit of luck) is the kon; the kushi-dama (wondrous spirit) is the haku.32 Again the five viscera have each a God in shape like a man."
State of the Dead. – Like the Old Testament, the ancient Japanese records afford but few and uncertain glimpses of the condition of the dead. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is nowhere taught explicitly. There are no prayers for the dead or for happiness in a future life. There is a land of yomi (darkness) which corresponds to the Greek Hades and the Hebrew Sheöl. It is also termed Ne no kuni (root-land), Soko no kuni (bottom-land), Shita-tsu-kuni (lower-land), or the Yaso-kumade, that is to say, the eighty road-windings, a euphemistic phrase resembling our "going on a long journey." Yomi, however, does not seem to be peopled by human beings or ghosts. Nor do we find any actual cases of their descending thither at death, although the conception was no doubt originally a metaphor for the grave. In the Nihongi myth we find that where one version speaks of Izanami in Yomi, another uses the expression "temporary burying-place." The same work mentions an opinion that the "Even Pass of Yomi" is not any place in particular, but means only the space of time when the breath fails on the approach of death. The Kojiki, after relating the death and burial of Izanami on Mount Hiba, at the
See p. 27.
In Teutonic mythology the will-of-the-wisps are souls which have not attained heavenly peace.
See also Mr. Frazer's 'Golden Bough,' ii. 297.
The Stoics held that the world was not only animated and immortal, but likewise happy and round, because Plato says that that is the most perfect form.
Hirata denies this.