"Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught done, who could know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the three Deities performed the commencement of creation; the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the ancestors of all things."—Preface of Yasumarō (A.D. 712) to the "Kojiki."
"These, the 'Kojiki' and 'Nihongi' are their [the Shintōists] canonical books, ... and almost their every word is considered undeniable truth."
"The Shintō faith teaches that God inspired the foundation of the Mikadoate, and that it is therefore sacred."—Kaburagi.
"We now reverently make our prayer to Them [Our Imperial Ancestors] and to our Illustrious Father [Komei, + 1867], and implore the help of Their Sacred Spirits, and make to Them solemn oath never at this time nor in the future to fail to be an example to Our subjects in the observance of the Law [Constitution] hereby established."—Imperial oath of the Emperor Mutsuhito in the sanctuary in the Imperial Palace, Tōkiō, February 11, 1889.
"Shintō is not our national religion. A faith existed before it, which was its source. It grew out of superstitious teaching and mistaken tradition. The history of the rise of Shintō proves this."—T. Matsugami.
"Makoto wo moté KAMI NO MICHI wo oshiyuréba nari." (Thou teachest the way of God in truth.)—Mark xii. 14.
"Ware wa Micni nuri, Mukoto nari, Inochi nari."—John xiv. 6.—The New Testament in Japanese.
CHAPTER III - "THE KOJIKI" AND ITS TEACHINGS
"The Kojiki" mid its Myths of Cosmogony.
As to the origin of the "Kojiki," we have in the closing sentences of the author's preface the sole documentary authority explaining its scope and certifying to its authenticity. Briefly the statement is this: The "Heavenly Sovereign" or Mikado, Temmu (A.D. 673-686), lamenting that the records possessed by the chief families were "mostly amplified by empty falsehoods," and fearing that "the grand foundation of the monarchy" would be destroyed, resolved to preserve the truth. He therefore had the records carefully examined, compared, and their errors eliminated. There happened to be in his household a man of marvellous memory, named Hiyéda Aré, who could repeat, without mistake, the contents of any document he had ever seen, and never forgot anything which he had heard. This person was duly instructed in the genuine traditions and old language of former ages, and made to repeat them until he had the whole by heart. "Before the undertaking was completed," which probably means before it could be committed to writing, "the emperor died, and for twenty-five years Aré's memory was the sole depository of what afterwards received the title of 'Kojiki.' ... At the end of this interval the Empress Gemmiō ordered Yasumarō to write it down from the mouth of Aré, which accounts for the completion of the manuscript in so short a time as four months and a half,"[1] in A.D. 712.
It is from the "Kojiki" that we obtain most of our ideas of ancient life and thought. The "Nihongi," or Chronicles of Japan, expressed very largely in Chinese phrases and with Chinese technical and philosophical terms, further assists us to get a measurably correct idea of what is called The Divine Age. Of the two books, however, the "Kojiki" is much more valuable as a true record, because, though rude in style and exceedingly naïve in expression, and by no means free from Chinese thoughts and phrases, it is marked by a genuinely Japanese cast of thought and method of composition. Instead of the terse, carefully measured, balanced, and antithetical sentences of correct Chinese, those of the "Kojiki" are long and involved, and without much logical connection. The "Kojiki" contains the real notions, feelings, and beliefs of Japanese who lived before the eighth century.
Remembering that prefaces are, like porticos, usually added last of all, we find that in the beginning all things were in chaos. Heaven and earth were not separated. The world substance floated in the cosmic mass, like oil on water or a fish in the sea. Motion in some way began. The ethereal portions sublimed and formed the heavens; the heavier residuum became the present earth. In the plain of high heaven, when the heaven and earth began, were born three kami who "hid their bodies," that is, passed away or died. Out of the warm mould of the earth a germ sprouted, and from this were born two kami, who also were born alone, and died. After these heavenly kami came forth what are called the seven divine generations, or line of seven kami.[2]
To express the opening lines of the "Kojiki" in terms of our own speech and in the moulds of Western thought, we may say that matter existed before mind and the gods came forth, as it were, by spontaneous evolution. The first thing that appeared out of the warm earth-muck was like a rush-sprout, and this became a kami, or god. From this being came forth others, which also produced beings, until there were perfect bodies, sex and differentiation of powers. The "Nihongi," however, not only gives a different view of this evolution basing it upon the dualism of Chinese philosophy—that is, of the active and passive principles—and uses Chinese technical terminology, but gives lists of kami that differ notably from those in the "Kojiki." This latter fact seems to have escaped the attention of those who write freely about what they imagine to be the early religion of the Japanese.[3]
After this introduction, in which "Dualities, Trinities, and Supreme Deities" have been discovered by writers unfamiliar with the genius of the Japanese language, there follows an account of the creation of the habitable earth by Izanami and Izanagi, whose names mean the Male-Who-Invites and the Female-Who-Invites. The heavenly kami commanded these two gods to consolidate and give birth to the drifting land. Standing on the floating bridge of heaven, the male plunged his jewel-spear into the unstable waters beneath, stirring them until they gurgled and congealed. When he drew forth the spear, the drops trickling from its point formed an island, ever afterward called Onokoro-jima, or the Island of the Congealed Drop. Upon this island they descended. The creative pair, or divine man and woman, now separated to make a journey round the island, the male to the left, the female to the right. At their meeting the female spoke first: "How joyful to meet a lovely man!" The male, offended that the woman had spoken first, required the circuit to be repeated. On their second meeting, the man cried out: "How joyful to meet a lovely woman!" This island on which they had descended was the first of several which they brought into being. In poetry it is the Island of the Congealed Drop. In common geography it is identified as Awaji, at the entrance of the Inland Sea. Thence followed the creation of the other visible objects in nature.