[CHAPTER VIII]
DIVINATION AND INSPIRATION
Divination.—The most ancient official method of divination was by interpreting the cracks made by fire on the shoulder-blade of a deer. This process is known in many places from Siberia to Scotland, in which latter country it is called ‘reading the speal’ (épaule). A tortoise-shell was afterwards substituted for the deer’s shoulder-blade, in imitation of China. There was attached to the palace a college of diviners whose business it was to ascertain by this means whether a proposed expedition would be successful, the best site for a shrine, a tomb, or a dwelling-house, from what provinces the rice for the Ohonihe should be taken, etc. etc. With private persons, the Tsuji-ura, or cross-road divination, was a favourite method of ascertaining the future. The person who wished to consult the god went out at dusk to a cross-roads and inferred the answer to his question from the chance words spoken by the first person who made his appearance. Other kinds of divination were by the sound of a boiling cauldron, or of a harp, by lots, by beans boiled in gruel, by the head of a dog or fox that had been starved to death, and by dreams and omens. Ordeal was practised by fire and boiling water.
Inspiration.—There are frequent notices of oracles in the old records. Legend has preserved an ‘inspired utterance’ given forth by the Goddess Uzume before the Rock-cave of Heaven to which the Sun-goddess had retired. It consists of the numerals from one to ten! The famous legendary invasion of Korea by the Empress Jingo was suggested by a deity. Oracles had generally reference to the worship of the god concerned, directing that a shrine should be built for him, or religious observances inaugurated in his honour. They were sometimes used for political purposes. There is evidence that the inspired person, generally a woman, delivered the divine message when in a hypnotic trance. This is undoubtedly the case at the present time. Mr. P. Lowell’s Occult Japan gives a detailed description of a séance of this kind at which he was present. There are mediums in Japan as there are nearer home, who, for a consideration, will place their customers in communication with deceased friends or relatives.
Divination and the hypnotic trance are not recognised by modern or official Shinto.
[CHAPTER IX]
LATER HISTORY
Buddhism was introduced into Japan in the sixth century, but it had at first little influence on the native religion. Two centuries later a process of pacific penetration began which had some curious and important results. The missionaries of Buddhism applied to the Shinto gods a principle which had been already adopted in China. They discovered that whether Nature-gods or Man-gods they were nothing more than avatars or incarnations of the various Buddhas. The Sun-goddess, for example, was made out to be Vairochana, the Buddhist personification of essential bodhi (enlightenment) and absolute purity; and deified men received the Buddhist titles of Gongen (avatar) or Bosatsu (saint). Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of Shoguns, is the Gongen-sama par excellence.
Ryôbu Shinto, which was in practice little more than a form of Buddhism, was the result of this process. Its principal founder was the famous Kōbō Daishi. At a later time other similar schools or sects were originated which drew their inspiration from Chinese philosophy or from Buddhism. Under these influences the true Shinto was much neglected. The Mikados themselves, after a few years of reign, shaved their heads and became Buddhist monks. One of them called himself a slave of Buddha. The greater Shinto ceremonies were omitted, or worse still, were performed by Buddhist monks, who also took possession of many of the Shinto shrines and celebrated Buddhist rites there.
It should not be forgotten that the foreign religion contained valuable elements unknown to the older Shinto, and that the latter had much to gain by their absorption. The Ryōbu Shinto inculcated uprightness, purity of heart, charity to the poor, humanity, and the vanity of mere outward forms of worship; of all which there is little trace in the older cult.
Chinese Learning.—The civilisation of Japan during the Tokugawa dynasty of Shōguns (1603-1868) was modelled on Chinese originals. Its moral ideals were drawn from the writings of the ancient sages Confucius and Mencius, and the sceptical philosophy of the Sung dynasty (960-1278). But in the eighteenth century a patriotic reaction set in, which strove to establish more purely national standards of ethics and principles of government and religion. This movement, known as the ‘Revival of Pure Shinto,’ was first revealed to Europeans by a paper contributed by Sir E. Satow to the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan in 1875. The principal promoters were Motoöri and his pupil Hirata, two earnest, able, and stupendously learned writers who devoted their lives to an endeavour by oral teaching and in a series of voluminous works to the dethronement of the established Chinese ethics and philosophy in favour of a Shinto purified from Buddhist and other foreign adulterations of later times. They succeeded to some extent in this object. It was no doubt partially owing to their teachings that the Mikado was restored in 1868 to his sovereign position as the descendant of the Sun-goddess, the Shinto shrines purified from Buddhist ornaments and practices, and the monks expelled from them. In reality Motoöri and Hirata’s movement was a retrograde one. The old Shinto, which they wished to restore, could not possibly hold its own as the national faith of a people familiar with the far higher religious and moral ideas of India and China, not to speak of civilised Europe. Without a code of morals, or an efficient ecclesiastical organisation, with little aid from the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture, and with a sacred literature scanty and feeble compared with those of its foreign rivals, Shinto is doomed to extinction. Whatever the religious future of Japan may be, Shinto will assuredly have little place in it. Such meat for babes is quite inadequate as the spiritual food of a nation which in these latter days has reached a full and vigorous manhood.