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

by Milton Spenser Terry

[14. The Communal Cult.] The next phase of the Shinto worship to be noticed is that which is represented in the temples scattered about everywhere in the land and which are said to number over 195,000 at the present time. In every community, village, and large city is found the parish-temple, and in the larger towns each section or district has its public shrine, in which the whole community honor the deified ancestors of certain noble families of ancient time, or the spirit of the first great patriarch of the clan. The farmers, or those who till the fields, usually dwell in a village on the principal highway, and go out thence to work the rural districts round about. So the villages vary in size from fifty houses set on a single street half a mile long to a large town of many hundred houses. In Simmons and Wigmore's "Notes on Land Tenure and Local Institutions in Old Japan,"[26] we read that the Japanese rural population is, as a rule, "exceedingly stable. The villagers are for the most part engaged wholly or partially as cultivators of land, and in the vast majority of cases many generations of cultivators have been born and have died on the same spot. From the almost numberless replies to inquiries, the answer usually is, 'We do not know where our ancestors came from, or when they came to live on this spot. Our temple register may tell, but we have never thought about the matter.'"

The deity honored at these village temples is called the Ujigami, and recognized as the patriarchal and tutelary god of the community. Just whether he were the clan-ancestor of the first settlers in that particular parish, or the spirit of some mighty ruler of that district at a former time, or the patron-god of some noble family once resident there, is as uncertain as the knowledge of the common villagers touching their earliest progenitors. But in every class these Ujigami were worshiped as the tutelar deity of the community in which the temple stood. Also, in the larger towns there are Shinto temples dedicated to certain patron-gods of other localities.

Each one of these parish temples naturally has a most intimate relation to the life of the community about it. Thither every child born in the parish is taken, when a month old, and formally named and placed under the protection of the ancestral deity. As it grows up it is regularly taken to observe all the festivals and the processions and ceremonies, and the temple groves and gardens become its common playground. There is nothing somber or solemn about this religious cult to scare a child, but rather very much to attract and interest.[27] Every village temple has its appointed days of public worship, and neighboring districts vie with each other in making their great festival days occasions of popular delight. To these joyous festivals every family contributes according to ability, and the worship is accompanied by public amusements of various kinds, athletic sports, and the sale of toys for children. The temple worship consisted in the presentation of offerings of cloth, herbs, fruits, and other of the most common products of the country, and in a ritual prayer enumerating the various gifts and supplicating for prosperity and success in all communal affairs, for protection against sickness, plague, and famine, and for the triumph of their chieftains in time of war. In this way the Ujigami was recognized as the tutelar deity of the community and the district, the abiding friend and helper of his offspring. The communal cult thus powerfully confirmed the family cult, and enforced the lesson that no man could live unto himself alone.

[15. The National Cult.] But it is in the State or National observances of the great temples that the Shinto worship is seen in its most elaborated form. The substance and manner of this worship may be learned from the ancient Japanese rituals, which make mention of the chief deities, enumerate the offerings that are presented at the sacred shrines, and furnish us the very language employed "in the presence of the sovran gods." How early these rituals of worship were committed to writing is an open question, but it is altogether probable that in substance they had been transmitted orally through many generations before they were put in written form. From these rituals, and the practices of the worship as they may be observed at the present time, we are able to learn the chief features of the service.[28]

In connection with this national worship we may here note (1) that the great festivals and occasions of worship were observed in all the principal temples at the same time; (2) the Yengishiki mentions 3,132 shrines distinguished as great and small; there were 492 great shrines, and 2,640 small ones. But besides these there were many thousands of smaller, undistinguished temples scattered all over the lands. (3) These various shrines were dedicated to a great number of deities, and there were many gods who received worship in a number of temples at one and the same time. (4) The offerings were made in the name of "the Sovran Grandchild" of the sun-goddess, the divine title of every Mikado, and Satow remarks that "it is difficult to resist the suggestion that the sun was the earliest among the powers of nature to be deified, and that the long series of gods who precede her in the cosmogony of the Ko-ji-ki and Nihongi, most of whom are shown by their names to have been mere abstractions, were invented to give her a genealogy, into which were inserted two or perhaps more of her own attributes, personified as separate deities."[29] (5) The priesthood seems to have been for the most part hereditary, and many priests claimed descent from the chief deity to whom the temple was dedicated. The reader of the ritual was a member of the priestly tribe which traced its origin to Oho-nakato-mi, chief of the whole Nakatomi family. Another priestly family is the Imbibi tribe.[30] (6) Virgin priestesses also figure in the celebration of the great ceremonies of State. Princesses of the Mikado's family have been consecrated to officiate in the temples of Isè and in other great temples also. While some of the priestesses are virgin princesses, some of them also are young, not yet having reached the nubile age, and when they reach that age they cease to be priestesses. With others the office is hereditary, as it is with men, and the women of this class retain and exercise their priestly office after marriage.

[16. The Harvest Service.] As an example of public worship of exceptional interest, we take the ritual ceremony for Harvest, which is celebrated once a year—the fourth day of the second month. The chief service is at the capital, but the festival is observed in all the provinces under the direction of the local rulers. Preparations go on for a fortnight beforehand, and the service begins twenty minutes before seven in the morning. At the capital, in the large court used for the worship of the Shinto gods, the ministers of State assemble, along with the priests and priestesses of many temples which are supported from the Mikado's treasury. When all things are in readiness, the ministers, priests, and priestesses enter in succession and occupy the places assigned them. The various offerings are duly presented and the ritual is read. At the conclusion of each section of the ritual as recited by the reader, all the priests respond, "O!" (Yes, or Amen.)

The following is a portion of the ritual used on one of these occasions: "Hear, all of you, assembled priests of higher and lower order. I declare in the presence of the sovran gods[31] whose praises are fulfilled as heavenly temples and country temples.[32] I fulfill your praises by setting up the great offerings of the sovran grandchild's augustiness, made with intention of deigning to begin the harvest in the second month of this year, as the morning sun rises in glory. I declare in the presence of the sovran gods of the harvest: If the sovran gods will bestow in many-bundled ears and in luxuriant ears the late-ripening harvest which they will bestow, the late-ripening harvest which will be produced by the dripping of foam from the arms and by drawing the mud together between the opposite thighs, then I will fulfill their praises by setting up the first fruits in a thousand ears, and many hundred ears, raising high the beer-jars, filling them, and ranging them in rows." The ritual goes on to specify, among the offerings, sweet and bitter herbs, "things which dwell in the blue sea-plain;" clothes bright, and glittering, and soft, and coarse; a white horse, a white boar, and a white cock. The names also of many deities are declared: the "divine Producer," the "great Goddess of Food," "wonderful-rock-Gate," "the from-heaven-shining-great Deity who sits in Isè," "sovran gods who sit in the Farms," "sovran gods who sit in the mouths of the mountains," and those "who dwell in the partings of the waters."

As soon as the reader had finished the words of the ritual, he retired, and the priests distributed the various offerings and presented them to the gods for whom they were set apart.