Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation

by Lafcadio Hearn

THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM

The nature of the opposition which the ancient religion of Japan could offer to the introduction of any hostile alien creed, should now be obvious. The family being founded upon ancestor-worship, the commune being regulated by ancestor-worship, the clan-group or tribe being governed by ancestor-worship, and the Supreme Ruler being at once the high-priest and deity of an ancestral cult which united all the other cults in one common tradition, it must be evident that the promulgation of any religion essentially opposed to Shinto would have signified nothing less than an attack upon the whole system of society. Considering these circumstances, it may well seem strange that Buddhism should have succeeded, after some preliminary struggles (which included one bloody battle), in getting itself accepted as a second national faith. But although the original Buddhist doctrine was essentially in disaccord with Shinto beliefs, Buddhism had learned in India, in China, in Korea, and in divers adjacent countries, how to meet the spiritual needs of peoples maintaining a persistent ancestor-worship. [184] Intolerance of ancestor-worship would have long, ago resulted in the extinction of Buddhism; for its vast conquests have all been made among ancestor-worshipping races. Neither in India nor in China nor in Korea,—neither in Siam nor Burmah nor Annam,—did it attempt to extinguish ancestor-worship, Everywhere it made itself accepted as an ally, nowhere as an enemy, of social custom. In Japan it adopted the same policy which had secured its progress on the continent; and in order to form any clear conception of Japanese religious conditions, this fact must be kept in mind.

As the oldest extant Japanese texts—with the probable exception of some Shinto rituals—date from the eighth century, it is only possible to surmise the social conditions of that earlier epoch in which there was no form of religion but ancestor-worship. Only by imagining the absence of all Chinese and Korean influences, can we form some vague idea of the state of things which existed during the so-called Age of the Gods,—and it is difficult to decide at what period these influences began to operate. Confucianism appears to have preceded Buddhism by a considerable interval; and its progress, as an organizing power, was much more rapid. Buddhism was first introduced from Korea, about 552 A.D.; but the mission accomplished little. By the end of the eighth century [185] the whole fabric of Japanese administration had been reorganized upon the Chinese plan, under Confucian influence; but it was not until well into the ninth century that Buddhism really began to spread throughout the country. Eventually it over-shadowed the national life, and coloured all the national thought. Yet the extraordinary conservatism of the ancient ancestor-cult—its inherent power of resisting fusion—was exemplified by the readiness with which the two religions fell apart on the disestablishment of Buddhism in 1871. After having been literally overlaid by Buddhism for nearly a thousand years, Shinto immediately reassumed its archaic simplicity, and reestablished the unaltered forms of its earliest rites.

But the attempt of Buddhism to absorb Shinto seemed at one period to have almost succeeded. The method of the absorption is said to have been devised, about the year 800, by the famous founder of the Shingon sect, Kukai or "Kobodaishi" (as he is popularly called), who first declared the higher Shinto gods to be incarnations of various Buddhas. But in this matter, of course, Kobodaishi was merely following precedents of Buddhist policy. Under the name of Ryobu-Shinto,* the new compound of Shinto and Buddhism obtained imperial approval and support. [*The term "Ryobu" signifies "two-departments" or "two religions.">[ Thereafter, in hundreds of [186] places, the two religions were domiciled within the same precinct—sometimes even within the same building: they seemed to have been veritably amalgamated. And nevertheless there was no real fusion;—after ten centuries of such contact they separated again, as lightly as if they had never touched. It was only in the domestic form of the ancestor-cult that Buddhism really affected permanent modifications; yet even these were neither fundamental nor universal. In certain provinces they were not made; and almost everywhere a considerable part of the population preferred to follow the Shinto form of the ancestor-cult. Yet another large class of persons, converts to Buddhism, continued to profess the older creed as well; and, while practising their ancestor-worship according to the Buddhist rite, maintained separately also the domestic worship of the elder gods. In most Japanese houses to-day, the "god-shelf" and the Buddhist shrine can both be found; both cults being maintained under the same roof.* … But I am mentioning these facts only as illustrating the conservative vitality of Shinto, not as indicating any weakness in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the influence which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese [187] civilization was immense, profound, multiform, incalculable; and the only wonder is that it should not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To state, as various writers have carelessly stated, that Buddhism became the popular religion, while Shinto remained the official religion, is altogether misleading. As a matter of fact Buddhism became as much an official religion as Shinto itself, and influenced the lives of the highest classes not less than the lives of the poor. It made monks of Emperors, and nuns of their daughters; it decided the conduct of rulers, the nature of decrees, and the administration of laws. In every community the Buddhist parish-priest was a public official as well as a spiritual teacher: he kept the parish register, and made report to the authorities upon local matters of importance.

[*The ancestor-worship and the funeral rites are Buddhist, as a general rule, if the family be Buddhist; but the Shinto gods are also worshipped in most Buddhist households, except those attached to the Shin sect. Many followers of even the Shin sect, however, appear to follow the ancient religion likewise; and they have their Ujigami.]

By introducing the love of learning, Confucianism had partly prepared the way for Buddhism. As early even as the first century there were some Chinese scholars in Japan; but it was toward the close of the third century that the study of Chinese literature first really became fashionable among the ruling classes. Confucianism, however, did not represent a new religion: it was a system of ethical teachings founded upon an ancestor-worship much like that of Japan. What it had to offer was a kind of social philosophy,—an explanation of the [188] eternal reason of things. It reinforced and expanded the doctrine of filial piety; it regulated and elaborated preexisting ceremonial; and it systematized all the ethics of government. In the education of the ruling classes it became a great power, and has so remained down to the present day. Its doctrines were humane, in the best meaning of the word; and striking evidence of its humanizing effect on government policy may be found in the laws and the maxims of that wisest of Japanese rulers—Iyeyasu.

But the religion of the Buddha brought to Japan another and a wider humanizing influence,—a new gospel of tenderness,—together with a multitude of new beliefs that were able to accommodate themselves to the old, in spite of fundamental dissimilarity. In the highest meaning of the term, it was a civilizing power. Besides teaching new respect for life, the duty of kindness to animals as well as to all human beings, the consequence of present acts upon the conditions of a future existence, the duty of resignation to pain as the inevitable result of forgotten error, it actually gave to Japan the arts and the industries of China. Architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, printing, gardening—in short, every art and industry that helped to make life beautiful—developed first in Japan under Buddhist teaching.

There are many forms of Buddhism; and in [189] modern Japan there are twelve principal Buddhist sects; but, for present purposes, it will be enough to speak, in the most general way, of popular Buddhism only, as distinguished from philosophical Buddhism, which I shall touch upon in a subsequent chapter. The higher Buddhism could not, at any time or in any country, have had a large popular following; and it is a mistake to suppose that its particular doctrines—such as the doctrine of Nirvana—were taught to the common people. Only such forms of doctrine were preached as could be made intelligible and attractive to very simple minds. There is a Buddhist proverb: "First observe the person; then preach the Law,"—that is to say, Adapt your instruction to the capacity of the listener. In Japan, as in China, Buddhism had to adapt its instruction to the mental capacity of large classes of people yet unaccustomed to abstract ideas. Even to this day the masses do not know so much as the meaning of the word "Nirvana" (Nehan): they have been taught only the simpler forms of the religion; and in dwelling upon these, it will be needless to consider differences of sect and dogma.

To appreciate the direct influence of Buddhist teaching upon the minds of the common people, we must remember that in Shinto there was no doctrine of metempsychosis. As I have said before, the spirits of the dead, according to ancient Japanese thinking, continued to exist in the world: they [190] mingled somehow with the viewless forces of nature, and acted through them. Everything happened by the agency of these spirits—evil or good. Those who had been wicked in life remained wicked after death; those who had been good in life became good gods after death; but all were to be propitiated. No idea of future reward or punishment existed before the coming of Buddhism: there was no notion of any heaven or hell. The happiness of ghosts and gods alike was supposed to depend upon the worship and the offerings of the living.

With these ancient beliefs Buddhism attempted to interfere only by expanding and expounding them,—by interpreting them in a totally new light. Modifications were effected, but no suppressions: we might even say that Buddhism accepted the whole body of the old beliefs. It was true, the new teaching declared, that the dead continued to exist invisibly; and it was not wrong to suppose that they became divinities, since all of them were destined, sooner or later, to enter upon the way to Buddhahood—the divine condition. Buddhism acknowledged likewise the greater gods of Shinto, with all their attributes and dignities,—declaring them incarnations of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas: thus the goddess of the sun was identified with Dai-Nichi-Nyorai (the Tathagata Mahavairokana); the deity Hachiman was identified with Amida (Amitabha). Nor did Buddhism deny the existence of goblins [191] and evil gods: these were identified with the Pretas and the Merakayikas; and the Japanese popular term for goblin, Ma, to-day reminds us of this identification. As for wicked ghosts, they were to be thought of as Pretas only,—Gaki,—self-doomed by the errors of former lives to the Circle of Perpetual Hunger. The ancient sacrifices to the various gods of disease and pestilence—gods of fever, small-pox, dysentery, consumption, coughs, and colds—were continued with Buddhist approval; but converts were bidden to consider such maleficent beings as Pretas, and to present them with only such food-offerings as are bestowed upon Pretas—not for propitiation, but for the purpose of relieving ghostly pain. In this case, as in the case of the ancestral spirits, Buddhism prescribed that the prayers to be repeated were to be said for the sake of the haunters, rather than to them…. The reader may be reminded of the fact that Roman Catholicism, by making a similar provision, still practically tolerates a continuance of the ancient European ancestor-worship. And we cannot consider that worship extinct in any of those Western countries where the peasants still feast their dead upon the Night of All Souls.