Shinto (the Way of the Gods)

by W. G. Aston

CHAPTER XIV.

DECAY OF SHINTO.--ITS MODERN SECTS.

Rise of Buddhism.--The later history of Shinto is one of neglect and decay. Such vitality as it retained was owing mainly to the Buddhist ideas which were engrafted upon it. The influence of Chinese systems of ethics and philosophy was also very perceptible, especially in more recent times. The Buddhism of Japan is not simply the doctrine of the founder, described by some as atheistic. It is a real religion, and besides the worship of other Buddhas, comprises that of an Infinite Being--the Buddha Amida--having certain attributes which we should term divine, and of his assessors, with doctrines far more abstruse and profound than those which were taught by Sakyamuni himself. In the main a form of the northern branch of Buddhism, it found its way originally to Japan viâ Tibet, Western China, and Korea.[331]

In a.d. 552 the King of Pèkché, in Korea, sent an embassy to Japan with a present to the Mikado of an image of Shaka (Sakyamuni) and several volumes of Sutras. They were gladly received, and were entrusted to the charge of a Minister with instructions to practise the new faith. But the jealousy of the adherents of the older religion was aroused. When a pestilence broke out soon after, they attributed it to the wrath of the native deities, and found means to have the Buddhist temple burnt and the holy image thrown into a canal. Other attempts to propagate Buddhism were little more successful, and it was not until the time of the Regent Shōtoku Taishi that it made any substantial progress. At his death in 621 there were in Japan 46 temples or monasteries and 1385 monastics, male and female. In 686 it was decreed that every household should have its domestic Buddhist shrine.

When Buddhism, after Christianity the great religion of the world, had once gained a foothold in Japan, its ultimate victory was certain. There was nothing in Shinto which could rival in attraction the sculpture, architecture, painting, costumes, and ritual of the foreign faith. Its organization was more complete and effective. It presented ideals of humanity, charity, self-abnegation, and purity, far higher than any previously known to the Japanese nation. Its doctrines of sin and repentance, of fate, of future bliss and woe, its profound metaphysics, and, perhaps more than aught else, the satisfaction which it offered to the yearnings of many a wounded spirit for a holy contemplative life, detached from the toil and worry, the sorrow and the disturbing passions of the world, were well calculated to find a welcome in their hearts.

At first the two religions held aloof from one another. But while Buddhism flourished more and more, Shinto was gradually weakened by the diversion into another channel of material resources and religious thought which might otherwise have been bestowed upon itself.

Ryôbu Shinto.--The two religions came into more direct contact in the eighth century, when there began a process of pacific penetration of the weaker by the stronger cult, which yielded some curious and important results. Buddhism is not a militant religion in the sense that Islam was. It owes little or nothing to the aid of the secular arm, and avoids rather than seeks open conflicts with other faiths. What the Japanese call hōben (pious device) and to which we should often apply the harsher terms "pious fraud" or "priestcraft," are more congenial to it. A notable application of the hōben method occurred in the time of the Mikado Shōmu, who reigned at Nara from 724 to 756. Wishing to celebrate his reign by the erection of a great Buddhist temple and image, he took advice of Gyōgi, a priest renowned to this day for many services to civilization, and despatched him to Ise with a present for the Sun-Goddess of a relic of Buddha. Gyōgi spent seven days and seven nights in prayer under a tree close to the gate of the shrine, and was then vouchsafed an oracle in the form of some couplets of Chinese verse couched in purely Buddhistic phraseology. It spoke of the Sun of truth enlightening the long night of life and death and of the Moon of eternal reality dispersing the clouds of sin and ignorance. This was interpreted to mean that the Sun-Goddess identified herself with Vairochana, called by the Japanese Birushana or Dainichi (great Sun), a person of a Buddhist trinity and described as the personification of essential bodhi (enlightenment) and absolute purity. The Sun-Goddess subsequently appeared to the Mikado in a dream and confirmed this view of her character. The temple (Tōdaiji) founded by Shōmu--though not the original building--is still in existence. It contains the famous colossal statue of Birushana, which is at this day one of the wonders of Japan.

The principle of recognizing the Kami as avatars or incarnations of Buddhist deities, of which the case of the Sun-Goddess and Vairochana was the first in Japan--it had been already applied in China to Laotze and Confucius--was subsequently much extended, and, with a spice of Chinese philosophy added, formed the basis of a new sect called Ryōbu Shinto. Its Buddhist character is indicated by its name, which means "two parts," the two parts being the two mystic worlds of Buddhism, namely, the Kongôkai and the Taizōkai. The principal founder of Ryōbu was the famous (and fabulous) Kōbō Daishi (died 835), to whom the invention of the Hiragana syllabary and quite a miraculous number of sculptures, writings, and paintings are ascribed. The sect of Buddhism engrafted by him on Shinto is that known as Shingon (true word). It is not one of its highest forms, and deals much in magic finger-twistings, endless repetitions of mystic formulæ unintelligible to the worshipper, and other superstitious practices.

Despite its professions of eclecticism, the soul of Ryōbu is essentially Buddhist. It borrows little more from Shinto than the names of a few deities, notably Kuni-toko-tachi, to whom it gives an importance by no means justified by anything in the older Shinto writings.[332] Ryōbu owed much of its success to forgeries and other means, which were considered less objectionable in those days than they would be at present. Great indulgence has always been shown in Japan towards means of edification (hōben) that would hardly recommend themselves to our more scrupulous minds. Yet there was something more than priestcraft in the attempt to weld Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto into one consistent whole. It is surely a true instinct which leads mankind to recognize an essential unity in all religions, and to reconcile, as far as possible, the outwardly conflicting forms in which it is clothed. The religious history of Japan is full of such endeavours.[333] But Shinto, Buddhism of various sects, Confucianism, and Sung philosophy constituted a very refractory mass of material, and the results obtained, while they testify to much industry and ingenuity, are more curious than valuable.

Yui-itsu.--The Yui-itsu Shinto was a branch of Ryōbu. It was invented about the end of the fifteenth century. Yui-itsu is short for Ten-jin-yui-itsu (Heaven-man-only-one), a doctrine borrowed, according to Hirata, by the Chinese philosophers from Buddhism. Of course in this connexion Ten does not mean the visible sky. It is rather a conception which fluctuates between Nature and God. It will be seen that the fundamental problem which has so much occupied the minds of Western theologians and philosophers--namely, that of the relation which exists between the human and the divine--has not escaped the attention of Far Eastern thinkers. Motoöri treats the doctrine of the identity of Ten and man with much contempt. "How can there be anything in common," he asks, "between Ten, the country where the Gods live, and man?"