Shinto. Aston William George
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.
The shintai in some respects resembles the Greek άγαλμά. Both were originally offerings which became tokens of the God's presence, and by virtue of immemorial association with the deities to whom they were presented came at length to be regarded as sharing their divinity. The άγαλμα, however, developed into the statue, while the shintai, with a very few exceptions of later origin, did not take this form. Broadly speaking, Shinto has no idols. There is usually no attempt to give the shintai any resemblance to the supposed form of the God whom it represents. A few exceptions may be noted. The mirror of the Sun-Goddess, which was in reality originally an offering, is stated in one of the myths to have been made in imitation of the form of the sun. The phallic Gods, Yachimata-hiko and Yachimata-hime, were represented by human figures. The scarecrow God, Kuhe-biko, may be regarded as a rude idol. In the province of Noto there are stone idols said to be the images of the Gods Sukuna-bikona and Ohonamochi. The pictures of the Gods sold at Shinto shrines in the present day are owing to Chinese or Buddhist influence.
In the old language the word hashira, pillar, is added to the numerals for deities and Mikados. For instance, "three Gods" is Kami mi-hashira, that is to say, "three pillars of Gods." Now in Korea, a country inhabited by a race closely allied to the Japanese, there are seen by the roadsides posts carved at the top into a rude semblance of the human form.44 Some serve as milestones, and some are erected at the outskirts of villages to keep away the demon small-pox. These figures are called the Opang Chang-gun, or Generals of the Five Quarters. The name is Chinese, but the deities themselves may nevertheless be of Korean origin. If the ancient Japanese had rude figures of this kind it would explain the use of hashira, pillar, as a numeral for Gods. I am rather disposed, however, to surmise that the use of this term was really owing to the fact that the symbols of divinity most familiar to the ancient Japanese were the phallic emblems set up everywhere by the roadsides. The term wo-bashira, applied to the phallic end-post of the parapet of a bridge, contains the same element.45
There is a tendency in Japan, as in other countries, for the token of the God to become regarded, firstly, as the seat of his real presence, and, secondly, as the God himself. Many persons do not distinguish between the mitama and the shintai, and some go so far as to confound the latter with the God's utsushi-mi, or real body. This is a form of idolatry. The shintai may even be erected into an independent deity. The mirror, which is the shintai of the Sun-Goddess, is the object of a separate worship, under the name of Ame kakasu no kami. Even at the present day religious honours are paid to this mirror or its representative.46 The sword Futsu no mitama has shrines dedicated to it. Another sword, called Kusanagi, has been worshipped for centuries at Atsuta, near Nagoya. It was this sword which Susa no wo found in the tail of the great serpent slain by him to rescue the Japanese Andromeda, and sent as an offering to his sister the Sun-Goddess. Fetish worship of this kind is a later and degenerate form of religion; and must not be confounded with the worship of the great nature-deities.
Some artificial inanimate objects of worship are not shintai, but are worshipped for their own sakes as helpers of humanity. The fire-place is honoured as a deity. Potters at the present day pay respect to their bellows, which are allowed one day of rest annually, and have offerings made them. The superstitious Japanese housewife still, on the 12th day of the 2nd month, gives her needles a holiday, laying them down on their side and making them little offerings of cakes, &c.47
The absence of idols from Shinto is not owing, as in Judaism and Islam, to a reaction against the evils caused by the use of anthropomorphic pictures and images, but to the low artistic development of the Japanese nation before the awakening impulse was received from China. It indicated weakness rather than strength. Much of the vagueness which characterizes the Japanese conceptions of their Gods would have been avoided by a freer use of images. In principle the image and the metaphor are the same. There is no more harm in representing a God, pictorially or in sculpture, as an old man than there is in addressing him as Father, though practically a wide experience shows that the common people do not stop here in either case. There is a strong tendency to debase religion by attributing special virtue to the particular physical object of devotion, or even to forget that there is a God of which it is only a very imperfect
"The symbol or permanent object, at and through which the worshipper came into direct contact with the God, was not lacking in any Semitic place of worship, but had not always the same form, and was sometimes a natural object, sometimes an artificial erection." – Robertson Smith, 'Religion of the Semites,' p. 160.
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See Index-
In an official report by Mr. H. Risley he says that at the time of the spring equinox there is a festival (in India) called Sri Panchami, when it is incumbent on every religious-minded person to worship the implements or insignia of the vocation by which he lives.