[*The period of obligatory residence in Yedo was not the same for all daimyo. In some cases the obligation seems to have extended to six months; in others, the requirement was to pass every alternate year in the capital.]
We have seen that the history of military rule in Japan embraces nearly the whole period of authentic history, down to modern times, and closes with the second period of national integration. The first period had been reached when the clans first accepted the leadership of the chief of the greatest clan,—thereafter revered as the Heavenly Sovereign, Supreme Pontiff, Supreme Arbiter, Supreme Commander, and Supreme Magistrate. How long a time was required for this primal integration, under a patriarchal monarchy, we cannot know; but we have learned that the later integration, under a duarchy, occupied considerably more than a thousand years…. Now the extraordinary fact to note is that, during all those centuries, the imperial [280] cult was carefully maintained by even the enemies of the Mikado; the only legitimate ruler being, in national belief, the Tenshi, "Son of Heaven,"—the Tenno, "Heavenly King." Through every period of disorder the Offspring of the Sun was the object of national worship, and his palace the temple of the national faith. Great captains might coerce the imperial will; but they styled themselves, none the less, the worshippers and slaves of the incarnate deity; and they would no more have thought of trying to occupy his throne, than they would have thought of trying to abolish all religion by decree. Once only, by the arbitrary folly of the Ashikaga shogun, the imperial cult had been seriously interfered with; and the social earthquake consequent upon that division of the imperial house, apprised the usurpers of the enormity of their blunder…. Only the integrity of the imperial succession, the uninterrupted maintenance of the imperial worship, made it possible even for Iyeyasu to clamp together the indissoluble units of society.
Herbert Spencer has taught the student of sociology to recognize that religious dynasties have extraordinary powers of longevity, because they possess extraordinary power to resist change; whereas military dynasties, depending for their perpetuity upon the individual character of their sovereigns, are particularly liable to disintegration. The immense duration of the Japanese imperial dynasty, as contrasted [281] with the history of the various shogunates and regencies representing a merely military domination, illustrates this teaching in a most remarkable way. Back through twenty-five hundred years we can follow the line of the imperial succession, till it vanishes out of sight into the mystery of the past. Here we have evidence of that extreme power of resisting all changes which is inherently characteristic of religious conservatism; on the other hand, the history of shogunates and regencies proves the tendency to disintegration of institutions having no religious foundation, and therefore no religious power of cohesion. The remarkable duration of the Fujiwara rule, as compared with others, may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that the Fujiwara represented a religious, rather than a military, aristocracy. Even the marvellous military structure devised by Iyeyasu had begun to decay before alien aggression precipitated its inevitable collapse.
[283]
THE RELIGION OF LOYALTY
"Militant societies," says the author of the Principles of Sociology, "must have a patriotism which regards the triumph of their society as the supreme end of action; they must possess the loyalty whence flows obedience to authority,—and, that they may be obedient, they must have abundant faith." The history of the Japanese people strongly exemplifies these truths. Among no other people has loyalty ever assumed more impressive and extraordinary forms; and among no other people has obedience ever been nourished by a more abundant faith,—that faith derived from the cult of the ancestors.
The reader will understand how filial piety—the domestic religion of obedience—widens in range with social evolution, and eventually differentiates both into that political obedience required by the community, and that military obedience exacted by the war-lord,—obedience implying not only submission, but affectionate submission,—not merely the sense of obligation, but the sentiment of duty. In its origin such dutiful obedience is essentially religious; and, as expressed in loyalty, it retains the [284] religious character,—becomes the constant manifestation of a religion of self-sacrifice. Loyalty is developed early in the history of a militant people; and we find touching examples of it in the earliest Japanese chronicles. We find also terrible ones,—stories of self-immolation.
To his divinely descended lord, the retainer owed everything—in fact, not less than in theory: goods, household, liberty, and life. Any or all of these he was expected to yield up without a murmur, on demand, for the sake of the lord. And duty to the lord, like the duty to the family ancestor, did not cease with death. As the ghosts of parents were to be supplied with food by their living children, so the spirit of the lord was to be worshipfully served by those who, during his lifetime, owed him direct obedience. It could not be permitted that the spirit of—the ruler should enter unattended into the world of shadows: some, at least, of those who served him living were bound to follow him in death. Thus in early societies arose the custom of human sacrifices,—sacrifices at first obligatory, afterwards voluntary. In Japan, as stated in a former chapter, they remained an indispensable feature of great funerals, up to the first century, when images of baked clay were first substituted for the official victims. I have already mentioned how, after this abolition of obligatory [285] junshi, or following of one's lord in death, the practice of voluntary junshi continued up to the sixteenth century, when it actually became a military fashion. At the death of a daimyo it was then common for fifteen or twenty of his retainers to disembowel themselves. Iyeyasu determined to put an end to this custom of suicide, which is thus considered in the 76th article of his celebrated Legacy:—
"Although it is undoubtedly the ancient custom for a vassal to follow his Lord in death, there is not the slightest reason in the practice. Confucius has ridiculed the making of Yo [effigies buried with the dead]. These practices are strictly forbidden, more especially to primary retainers, but to secondary retainers likewise, even of the lowest rank. He is the reverse of a faithful servant who disregards this prohibition. His posterity shall be impoverished by the confiscation of his property, as a warning for those who disobey the laws."
Iyeyasu's command ended the practice of junshi among his own vassals; but it continued, or revived again, after his death. In 1664 the shogunate issued an edict proclaiming that the family of any person performing junshi should be punished; and the shogunate was in earnest. When this edict was disobeyed by one Uyemon no Hyoge, who disembowelled himself at the death of his lord, Okudaira Tadamasa, the government promptly confiscated the lands of the family of the suicide, executed two of [286] his sons, and sent the rest of the household into exile. Though cases of junshi have occurred even within this present era of Meiji, the determined attitude of the Tokugawa government so far checked the practice that even the most fervid loyalty latterly made its sacrifices through religion, as a rule. Instead of performing harakiri, the retainer shaved his head at the death of his lord, and became a Buddhist monk.