Shinto. Aston William George
of China.51 It runs as follows: -
"Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and Yo 52 not yet divided. They formed a chaotic mass like an egg, which was of obscurely defined limits, and contained germs. The purer and clearer part was thinly diffused and formed Heaven, while the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. The finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty. Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth established subsequently. Thereafter divine beings were produced between them."
Pfleiderer says:53 "There is not unfrequently found in the mythology of the nature-religions a combination of Theogony and a Divine formation of matter in such a way that the Gods-whether one or all of them-are the first products of chaos, but then they form the rest of the world out of it. In the Indian mythology Prajapati proceeded out of the golden world-egg and then became the creative former of the world. Likewise in the Chaldæan mythology the great Gods arose at first out of chaos, and they then created the other Gods and the living beings of heaven and earth."
But are not such speculations later accretions on the original myth? In Japan, at any rate, formation out of chaos is undoubtedly an afterthought.
First Gods. – We have next what is called "the seven generations of Gods," ending with the creator-deities, Izanagi and Izanami. Of the first six of these generations the most confused and contradictory accounts are given in the various authorities. There is no agreement as to the name of the first God on the list. The Nihongi tells us that the first deity produced between Heaven and Earth while still in a state of chaos sprang up like a reed-shoot, which then changed into a God,54 and was called Kuni-toko-tachi no Mikoto,55 or "Earth-eternal-stand augustness." The Kojiki calls the first God Ame no mi-naka nushi no Kami, that is to say, "Heaven-august-centre-master-deity," identified by some with the Polar Star, a hypothesis for which there is no other ground than the name itself. The same authority gives Kuni-toko-tachi a place lower down in the genealogical table. The Kiujiki has a first God called Ame yudzuru hi ame no sagiri kuni yudzuru tsuki kuni no sagiri, and describes him (or her, for there is no indication of sex) as the "Heavenly Parent." It is impossible to translate this rigmarole; but as it contains the words "earth," "sun," "moon," and "mist," a nature-deity is evidently intended. Both the Kojiki and Kiujiki first Gods disappear at once from the mythical record. There is little trace of their worship in later times, and they must be pronounced mere abortive attempts at deity-making. Two other first deities are mentioned in the various myths quoted in the Nihongi, namely, Umashi-ashi-kabi-hiko-ji (sweet-reed-shoot-prince-father) and Ama-toko-tachi (Heaven-eternal-stand). The latter forms, along with Kuni-toko-tachi, one of those pairs of deities, not necessarily male and female, which are common in Japanese mythology. An enumeration of the Gods of the five generations which follow would be tedious and unprofitable. Some of them had probably no existence outside 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
See 'Rig-veda,' x. 129, for a similar rationalistic dissertation on the origin of the universe. Here and below the italics indicate translations.
In Chinese,
'Philosophy of Religion,' i. 269.
"Into human shape" is another version.
I shall usually omit this purely honorific addition to the names of Japanese Gods and sovereigns.
Hirata says that "the five generations of deities which in the
There is a close association in Hebrew between the ideas of creation and begetting.
See Index.
See Index.
It was deprived of this character soon after by order of the Mikado's Government, the only monument of the old cult left standing being Nantai (male form), a mountain which towers above Nikko to the height of 8,500 feet.
'Sociology,' ii. 177.