Kagura.—The Kagura, or pantomimic dances with masks and music, representing some incident of the mythical narrative, has been at all times a prominent part of Shinto religious festivals, and, as in other countries, has become the parent of the secular drama.
Pilgrimages are an ancient institution in Japan. Even the Mikado paid occasional visits to the shrines in or near Kioto. At the present day most Japanese think it a duty to make a pilgrimage at least once in their lifetime to one or more of the most famous Shinto fanes, and believe that their success in life depends on their doing so. Clubs are formed for the purpose, the subscriptions going to pay the expenses of these fortunate members who are selected to represent their fellows. Pilgrim trains take the place of our excursion trains. Boys and girls frequently run away from home in order to make a pilgrimage to Ise.
[CHAPTER VII]
MORALITY AND PURITY
Moral Code.—Shinto has hardly anything in the shape of a code of morals. The Ohoharahi, a service in which the Mikado, by divine authority, declared to his ministers and people the absolution of their offences against the gods, makes no mention of any one of the sins of the Decalogue. M. Revon, the author of a valuable treatise on Shinto, challenges this statement, which I had already made in my History of Japanese Literature. He maintains that from a comparison of the Decalogue and the Ohoharahi, ‘Il résulte avec évidence que tous les commandements essentiels du Décalogue (sur le meurtre, le vol, la fornication, etc.), se retrouvent dans notre rituel.’[2] In view of the importance of the subject, and of M. Revon’s acknowledged competence as a writer on Shinto, it is desirable to examine this assertion more closely. His ‘etc.’ puzzles me. I am unable to find in the Ohoharahi the smallest trace of any of the seven commandments which it covers, and can only suppose that it is a mere flourish of M. Revon’s exuberant imagination. It will be seen that for the ‘adultery’ of the Decalogue M. Revon has substituted ‘fornication.’ Is it not a cas pendable to tamper with the ten commandments in this way? But neither adultery nor fornication are mentioned in the Ohoharahi. Incest is included in the latter’s schedule of offences, but, pace M. Revon, incest and adultery are distinct offences. Theft is not mentioned in the Ohoharahi. The planting of skewers (of offerings in rice-fields) is one of its offences, but even if the commentator is right who conjectures that this was done for a dishonest purpose, I submit that so highly specific an offence is by no means the same thing as the far more general theft of the Decalogue. The case of ‘murder’ of the Mosaic code, and ‘the cutting of living bodies’ of the Ohoharahi is more complicated. Murder is at the same time more and less comprehensive than the corresponding Shinto offence. The Jewish prohibition is more extensive, as it includes murder by poison, strangling, drowning, etc., and it is more restricted as it omits minor injuries. But there is a profound difference between the motives which prompted the two prohibitions. It is the crime of taking away human life which is condemned in the Decalogue: the Ohoharahi objects to wounds as nasty, unsightly things, unmeet for a God to look upon or to be in any way associated with. Self-inflicted wounds, the cutting of dead bodies, or wounds inflicted by others, caused uncleanness just as much as the wounding of others. Justifiable homicide required absolution equally with felonious murder. In a word, the Japanese offence was ritual, the Jewish moral.
[2] See his Shintoisme, p. 15, note.
There are moral elements in the Ohoharahi, but they are scanty, and M. Revon greatly overestimates their importance. Not only does it contain no explicit mention of any of the sins of the Decalogue—which is all that I contended for—but it has hardly anything which even implicitly condemns them. Shintoists do not deny this feature of their religion, but claim that the absence of a code of ethics is a proof of the superior natural goodness of the Japanese nation. It needs no such artificial aids to virtuous conduct.
Purity.—But if ethics are conspicuously absent from Shinto, the doctrine of uncleanness holds a prominent position. Actual personal dirt was obnoxious to the gods, as is evidenced by the frequent mention of bathing and putting on fresh garments before the discharge of religious functions. Sexual acts of various kinds, such as the consummation of a marriage, incest (within narrow limits), interference with virgin priestesses, menstruation and child-birth, were accompanied with disabilities for the service of the gods. Curiously enough, adultery, though cognisable by the courts of justice, did not entail religious uncleanness. Disease, especially leprosy (as in the Mosaic legislation), wounds and sores involved various degrees of pollution. The death of a relative, attendance at a funeral, touching a dead body, pronouncing or executing a capital sentence, all incapacitated a man temporarily for the discharge of religious duties. Lafcadio Hearn thought that the miya or shrine was a development of the moya or mourning house, where the dead bodies of sovereigns and nobles were deposited until their costly megalithic tombs could be got ready. This view harmonises nicely with Herbert Spencer’s well-known theories, but an ancient Shintoist would have considered it not only erroneous, but blasphemous. As in ancient Greece, the gods had nothing to do with such a polluting thing as death. Shinto funerals, of which we have heard a good deal of late, were unknown in ancient Japan. They date from 1868. Shinto shrines have no cemeteries attached to them. Eating flesh was formerly not considered offensive to the gods, but later, under Buddhist influence, it fell under prohibition. The fire with which impure food was cooked also contracted impurity. To avoid the danger of such defilement, fresh fire was made by a fire-drill for all the more important ceremonies. Everything Buddhist, rites, terms, etc., were at one time placed under a Shinto tabu. When a festival was approaching, the intending participant was specially careful to avoid (imi) all possible sources of pollution. He shut himself up in his house, refrained from speech and noise and ate food cooked at a pure fire. A special imi of one month was observed by the priests before officiating at the greater festivals. An imi-dono (sacred hall) was a hall in which purity was observed, imi-axes and imi-mattocks were used to cut the first tree and turn the first sod when a sacred building was to be erected. If, in spite of all precaution, defilement took place, consciously or unconsciously, various expedients were resorted to for its removal. Lustration was the most common. After a funeral, it has been the rule at all periods of Japanese history for the relatives of the deceased to purify themselves in this way. Izanagi, after his visit to Hades, washed in the sea. Salt is sometimes dissolved in the water used for this purpose, and is employed in other ways to avert evil influences. Spitting, rinsing the mouth, and breathing on an object to which the impurity is communicated, are familiar practices. Human figures were sometimes breathed upon and flung into the sea in order to carry off pollution. In modern times a gohei is shaken over the person to be purified.
Ceremonial is the combination for some specific purpose of the various elements of worship described above. The great ceremony of the Shinto religion is that known as the Ohonihe or Daijôwe, which means ‘great-food-offering.’ It is the equivalent of our coronation, and its cardinal feature was the Mikado’s offering in person to the god or gods, represented by a cushion, the first rice of the new harvest, and of sake brewed from it. A modern Japanese writer says:—
‘Anciently the Mikado received the auspicious grain from the Gods of Heaven, and therewithal nourished the people. In the Daijôwe (or Ohonihe) the Mikado, when the grain became ripe, joined unto him the people in sincere veneration, and, as in duty bound, made return to the Gods of Heaven. He thereafter partook of it along with the nation. Thus the people learnt that the grain which they eat is no other than the seed bestowed on them by the Gods of Heaven.’