The Shinto Cult: A Christian Study of the Ancient Religion of Japan

by Milton Spenser Terry

But in giving birth to the deity of fire, Izanami died, and her brother buried her, and drawing his mighty sword he proceeded to cut off the head of his son, the deity of fire. Whereupon, wonderful to tell, sixteen deities were born from the blood and the different parts of the body of the fire-god. Among the names of these we find such titles as "Rock-splitter," "Root-splitter," "Brave-snapping," and "Possessor-of-Mountains;" and the name of the sword which cleft the head of the fire-god was "Heavenly," or "Majestic-Point-Blade-Extended."

After the birth of these deities, Izanagi longed to see again his sister and spouse, and went to seek her in the underworld. He called to her and asked her to come back to him. She answered that such was her desire, but she must consult the deities of Hades, and she bade him wait, saying, "Look not at me." One can not help comparing here the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus descended into the lower world, charmed Pluto with his lyre, and obtained permission for his wife Eurydice to return, following behind him, but only on condition that Orpheus should not look back at her till they had both reached the upper world. He grew impatient, looked back to see if she were indeed following, and she at once vanished from his sight. According to the Japanese myth, however, Izanagi grew tired of waiting outside, made a light and entered, and was shocked to behold maggots swarming over her body, and eight thunder-deities dwelling in her rotting form where they had been born. He turned and fled back, but she pursued him with the forces of the underworld. He succeeded in driving them all back, and with a mighty rock blocked up the pass of Hades. Then he went to purify himself by bathing in a stream, and from his staff, and girdle, and bracelet, and various garments, and from the filth which he contracted in the underworld were born a multitude of deities, bearing composite names of strange significance. There was also born, as he washed his left eye, a deity who was called "the Heaven-Shining-Great-August One;" and from his right eye was born the "Moon-Night-Possessor," and as he washed his nose there was born Susa-no-Wo, "Impetuous-Male-Deity."

But we need not pursue further this seemingly "endless genealogy" of the deities. We are told in section xxx that in a divine assembly of eight hundred myriad deities it was decided to send one of their number to govern "the Central Land of Reed-Plains," and subdue the "savage Earthly Deities." Various deities were sent, and at length a grandchild of the Sun-Goddess[11] became the Ruler of the Empire, and bears the composite name of Kamu-yamato-ihare-biko, but is commonly called by his "canonical name," Jimmu, a title given him long after his decease. From such heavenly origin sprang all the Emperors of Japan, and the present Mikado, like all his predecessors, is thus conceived as an offspring of Heaven, a direct descendant of the ancient heavenly deities. The significance of this fact will appear conspicuously when we come to notice more particularly the essential elements in the Shinto cult.

On this remarkable cosmogony and mythology we do well at this point to offer the following observations:

(1) These accounts of the origin of the Japanese Archipelago and its rulers are regarded as genuine traditions handed down from former ages. One part of the tradition is that the Emperor, who took pains to have the old records carefully looked after, employed a person living in his household, who was gifted with marvelous memory; "he could repeat without mistake the contents of any document he had ever seen, and never forgot anything that he had heard;" and from the lips of this man of prodigious memory the scribe Yasumaro wrote down the contents of the Ko-ji-ki.[12]

(2) Notice, in the next place, that the island world of Japan is all the world which these records know anything about. The universe of this cosmogony consists of "the islands of the Central-Land of the Reed-Plains," with their inland and surrounding seas, and "the Plain of High Heaven," which, however, was not conceived as very far away above them.

(3) The entire description of the beginnings of heaven, and earth, and gods, and men accords with the idea of a continuous process of evolution. The first three heavenly deities "were born alone, and hid their persons," or disappeared. All the other deities are spoken of as begotten, or born, and the deities give birth to the different islands of the earth.[13]

(4) The world-idea of this old mythology is in notable keeping with the ancestor worship, and the Animism which enter so largely into the Shinto faith. In spite of all the wars and discords of the deities, this a primordial monism, so to speak, at the basis of Japanese cosmogony, and of all its diverse generations of the heavens and the earth; and yet there is no one Supreme Ruler in all the Pantheon of eight hundred myriad gods. When a great council of the gods assembles in the bed of the Tranquil Heavenly River, no one deity is chief among them, and we are at a loss to imagine who has authority to call them together or to preside over the assembly. Izanagi seems for a while to be the chief creator and ruler, but after a time he disappears, and the Sun Goddess, his daughter Amaterasu, has her heavenly domain shaken and ravaged by her younger brother, but is avenged by the heavenly assembly of gods, who fine and punish the offender, "and expel him with a divine expulsion." So the Sun Goddess maintains her dominion by the help of the eight hundred myriad gods, no one of whom is invested with supreme power. It appears from certain poems of the Manyoshu that the moon as well as the sun was extensively worshiped among the primitive Japanese.[14]

(5) It accords with all these ideas that the devotees of the "pure Shinto" faith trace all their history back to the age of the gods, and recognize some deity in, or back of, all phenomena. Japan is the country of the gods; every Japanese is a descendant or offspring of the gods, and the Mikado is the direct descendant of the imperial line which has continued in unbroken succession from the beginning of the world. Japan is, therefore, superior to all other countries, and the Japanese, being thus directly from the gods, are superior in every respect to other people. Sprung from the gods, they need no codes of moral law (like the Chinese), for they are naturally perfect, and do the right things spontaneously.