Comparative Religion

by J. Estlin Carpenter

The ritual of the dead belongs, as we have seen (p. [20]), to the earliest-known activities of European man. It is found in some form or other in every country under the sun. Sometimes it is prompted by fear, and has for its object to keep the dead imprisoned in the grave, or to prevent their spirits from returning to their old haunts (p. [228]). Sometimes it is warmed by affection, as the departed are recalled to the homes where they were loved. In ancient Egypt it was developed with the utmost elaboration, and created a literature describing a kind of "pilgrim's progress" through the scenes of the next world (p. [237]); while in Greece and Rome the cultus of the dead acquired, as in India and China, immense social significance. The question that arises in the study of religion in the lower culture is concerned with the probable connection between the two groups of spirits, which may be broadly distinguished as spirits of nature and spirits of the dead. That the latter are constantly propitiated in various forms is well known. They are to be found everywhere, lurking in the trees, flying through the air, sojourning in caves, haunting the promontories on the rivers or hidden in the forest-depths. With them lie the causes of disease and madness; they are malevolent and hurtful, as well as kindly and good. What differences are to be discerned between them and the powers of nature? Are we to suppose, with some students, that all the higher forms of religion have been developed out of the worship of the dead, and that for gods we must everywhere read originally ghosts?

Consider, for example, the ancient religion of Japan, which we know by an adaptation of two Chinese words as Shin-To, the "spirits' way," or in its native form kami-no-michi.[[2]] Who are the kami, or "spirits"? The title of "religion" has sometimes been denied to their cultus on the ground that it contains "no set of dogmas, no sacred book, and no moral code." Greece and Rome might, on the same plea, be described as having no religion. The term kami has for its root-idea the significance of "that which is above." It may be applied in the widest range of relations from the hair which is on the top of the head to the government which rules the people. The kami are, as it were, the "highnesses"; the word is used of big things by land and sea, great rivers, mighty mountains, roaring winds and rolling thunder; then of rocks and trees, of animals like the tiger and the wolf, of metals, and so of innumerable objects in earth and sky. It is not always clear whether these were originally conceived as themselves living, or whether they had been resolved into material body and controlling spirit. The functions of the kami, however, are extended and distributed by a kind of fission; the kami of food split into the produce of trees and the parent of grasses; they preside over guilds and crafts, the weavers, the potters, the carpenters, the swordsmen, the boatbuilders; they guide the operations of agriculture; they superintend the household, and watch over the kitchen range, the saucepan, the ricepot, the well, the pond, the garden, and the scarecrow.

[[2]] Chinese culture has probably exerted considerable influence on the exponents of the Shinto revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Very different aspects are reflected in the ancient chronicles.

But in this vast assembly are included also the spirits of the dead. They likewise become kami of varying rank and power. Some dwell in temples built in their honour; some hover near their tombs; some are kindly, and some malevolent. They mingle in the immense multiplicity of agencies which makes every event in the universe, in the language of the Shinto writer Motowori (1730-1801), "the act of the Kami." They direct the changing seasons, the wind and the rain; and the good and bad fortunes of individuals, families, and States, are due to them. From birth to death the entire life of man is encompassed and guided by the Kami.

Hence came the duty of worship on which Hirata (1776-1843) lays great stress. The heaven-descended Ninigi, progenitor of the imperial line, was taught by his divine forefathers that "everything in the world depends on the spirits of the kami of heaven and earth, and therefore the worship of the kami is a matter of primary importance. The kami who do harm are to be appeased, so that they may not punish those who have offended them; and all the kami are to be worshipped so that they may be induced to increase their favours." Accordingly Hirata's morning prayer before the kami-dana, the wooden shelf fixed against the wall in a Shinto home about six feet from the floor, bearing a small model of a temple or "august spirit-house," ran thus—

"Reverently adoring the great God of the two palaces of Isé (the Sun-goddess) in the first place, the 800 myriads of celestial kami, the 800 myriads of ancestral kami, all the 1500 myriads to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands and all places in the great land of 8 islands, the 1500 myriads of kami whom they cause to serve them.... I pray with awe that they will deign to correct the unwitting faults which, heard and seen by them, I have committed, and, blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the way."

Here, the spirits of the dead are blended with those of nature, without any definite attempt to assign them to different ranks or functions. Among the dead themselves there are such distinctions, which do not, however, concern us here; there are "spirits of crookedness," and there are spirits of the clans and of the imperial line. But above the multitudinous groups of nameless kami, whether once human or attached to the physical scene, rise certain great powers which it seems very difficult to identify with departed ghosts. The earliest traditions of the divine evolution in the ancient chronicles contain no hint pointing in that direction; and the comparison of the Japanese deities of earth, fire, wind, sea, and similar great elemental forces elsewhere, is not favourable to their derivation from the hosts of the dead.

The student of the hymns to Fire in the Rig-Veda (Agni = Latin ignis) cannot fail to notice the emphasis laid upon the birth of the god out of the wood, as the fire-drill kindles the first sparks, and the flame leaps forth. Here is something quick-moving, vital; the fire is the god; he may rise into cosmic significance as a pervading energy sustaining the whole world; but he never loses his physical character, any more than the solid earth or the encompassing sky. These are again and again the chief co-ordinating powers of the higher animism. Their separation out of the primeval mass of obscure and indiscriminate chaos has been the theme of myth from Egypt to New Zealand; just as their "bridal" has served to express the union and co-operation of the forces of nature all around the world.

Of this the ancient Chinese religion, still the formal basis of the national worship as performed by the Emperor, supplies perhaps the best example. The cultus of the dead is practised in every home, and around the incidents of life and death have gathered various Buddhist and Taoist rites. Moreover, a rampant demonology environs the entire field of existence; but this disordered multitude of noxious spirits has no recognition in the imperial homage. From immemorial generations the Chinese practice made religion a department of the State, and the venerable book of the Rites of the great dynasty of Chow requires the Grand Superior of Sacrifices to superintend the worship due to three orders of Shin or spirits, celestial, terrestrial, and human. Under the sovereignty of the sky the first includes the spirits of the sun, moon, stars, clouds, wind, rain, thunder, and the changes of the atmosphere. In the sphere of earth are reckoned the spirits of the mountains, rivers, plains, seas, lakes, woods, fields, and grains.

Taken together Heaven and Earth thus include all the energies of the universe. The world, as we see it, is, indeed, full of opposing powers, one group (yang) representing light and warmth and life, the contrary (yin) manifesting themselves in cold and darkness and death.[[3]] But these are both encompassed by the "Path" or Tao, the daily course of the universe, the abiding guarantee of justice in the distribution of good and evil in the human lot. Heaven and earth are thus regarded as themselves active or living; they constantly maintain the order of nature for the welfare of man. In the ancient Odes (which Confucius was supposed to have edited) "heaven" is called great and wide and blue. This is plainly the visible firmament; it is addressed as parent, and sky and earth together are father and mother of the world. They are not spirits, but are themselves animate. "Why," laments Dr. Edkins of his Chinese hearers, "they have been often asked, should you speak of these things which are dead matter, fashioned from nothing by the hand of God, as living beings?" "And why not?" they have replied. "The sky pours down rain and sunshine, the earth produces corn and grass, we see them in perpetual movement, and we therefore say they are living."