[133]

WORSHIP AND PURIFICATION

We have seen that, in Old Japan, the world of the living was everywhere ruled by the world of the dead,—that the individual, at every moment of his existence, was under ghostly supervision. In his home he was watched by the spirits of his fathers; without it, he was ruled by the god of his district. All about him, and above him, and beneath him were invisible powers of life and death. In his conception of nature all things were ordered by the dead,—light and darkness, weather and season, winds and tides, mist and rain, growth and decay, sickness and health. The viewless atmosphere was a phantom-sea, an ocean of ghost; the soil that he tilled was pervaded by spirit-essence; the trees were haunted and holy; even the rocks and the stones were infused with conscious life .... How might he discharge his duty to the infinite concourse of the invisible?

Few scholars could remember the names of all the greater gods, not to speak of the lesser; and no mortal could have found time to address those greater gods by their respective names in his daily [134] prayer. The later Shinto teachers proposed to simplify the duties of the faith by prescribing one brief daily prayer to the gods in general, and special prayers to a few gods in particular; and in thus doing they were most likely confirming a custom already established by necessity. Hirata wrote: "As the number of the gods who possess different functions is very great, it will be convenient to worship by name the most important only, and to include the rest in a general petition." He prescribed ten prayers for persons having time to repeat them, but lightened the duty for busy folk,—observing: "Persons whose daily affairs are so multitudinous that they have not time to go through all the prayers, may content themselves with adoring (1) the residence of the Emperor, (2) the domestic god-shelf,—kamidana, (3) the spirits of their ancestors, (4) their local patron-god, Ujigami, (5) the deity of their particular calling." He advised that the following prayer should be daily repeated before the "god-shelf":—

"Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces of Ise in the first, place,—the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods,—the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods,—the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands, and all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands,—the fifteen hundred myriads of gods whom they cause to serve them, and the gods of branch-palaces and branch-temples, [135]—and Sohodo-no-Kami* whom I have invited to the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer praises day by day,—I pray with awe that they will deign to correct the unwilling faults which, heard and seen by them, I have committed; and that, blessing and favouring me according to the powers which they severally wield, they will cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the Way."**

[*Sohodo-no-Kami is the god of scarecrows,—protector of the fields.] [**Translated by Satow.]

This text is interesting as an example of what Shinto's greatest expounder thought a Shinto prayer should be; and, excepting the reference to So-ho-do-no-Kami, the substance of it is that of the morning prayer still repeated in Japanese households. But the modern prayer is very much shorter.... In Izumo, the oldest Shinto province, the customary morning worship offers perhaps the best example of the ancient rules of devotion. Immediately upon rising, the worshipper performs his ablutions; and after having washed his face and rinsed his mouth, he turns to the sun, claps his hands, and with bowed head reverently utters the simple greeting: "Hail to thee this day, August One!" In thus adoring the sun he is also fulfilling his duty as a subject, paying obeisance to the Imperial Ancestor .... The act is performed out of doors, not kneeling, but standing; and the spectacle of this simple worship is impressive. I can now see in memory,— [136] just as plainly as I saw with my eyes many years ago, off the wild Oki coast,—the naked figure of a young fisherman erect at the prow of his boat, clapping his hands in salutation to the rising sun, whose ruddy glow transformed him into a statue of bronze. Also I retain a vivid memory of pilgrim-figures poised upon the topmost crags of the summit of Fuji, clapping their hands in prayer, with faces to the East .... Perhaps ten thousand—twenty thousand-years ago all humanity so worshipped the Lord of Day ....

After having saluted the sun, the worshipper returns to his house, to pray before the Kamidana and before the tablets of the ancestors. Kneeling, he invokes the great gods of Ise or of Izumo, the gods of the chief temples of his province, the god of his parish-temple also (Ujigami), and finally all the myriads of the deities of Shinto. These prayers are not said aloud. The ancestors are thanked for the foundation of the home; the higher deities are invoked for aid and protection .... As for the custom of bowing in the direction of the Emperor's palace, I am not able to say to what extent it survives in the remoter districts; but I have often seen the reverence performed. Once, too, I saw reverence done immediately in front of the gates of the palace in Tokyo by country-folk on a visit to the capital. They knew me, because I had often sojourned in their village; and on reaching Tokyo [137] they sought me out, and found me, I took them to the palace; and before the main entrance they removed their hats, and bowed, and clapped their hands, just as they would have done when saluting the gods or the rising sun,—and this with a simple and dignified reverence that touched me not a little.

The duties of morning worship, which include the placing of offerings before the tablets, are not the only duties of the domestic cult. In a Shinto household, where the ancestors and the higher gods are separately worshipped, the ancestral shrine may be said to correspond with the Roman lararium; while the "god-shelf," with its taima or o-nusa (symbols of those higher gods especially revered by the family), may be compared with the place accorded by Latin custom to the worship of the Penates. Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days; and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days are occasions of religious assembly,—when the relatives of the family should gather to celebrate the domestic rite .... The Shintoist must also take part in the celebration of the festivals of the Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of the nine great national holidays related to the national cult; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occasions of imperial ancestor-worship.

The nature of the public rites varied according to [138] the rank of the gods. Offerings and prayers were made to all; but the greater deities were worshipped with exceeding ceremony. To-day the offerings usually consist of food and rice-wine, together with symbolic articles representing the costlier gifts of woven stuffs presented by ancient custom. The ceremonies include processions, music, singing, and dancing. At the very small shrines there are few ceremonies,—only offerings of food are presented. But at the great temples there are hierarchies of priests and priestesses (miko)—usually daughters of priests; and the ceremonies are elaborate and solemn. It is particularly at the temples of Ise (where, down to the fourteenth century the high-priestess was a daughter of emperors), or at the great temple of Izumo, that the archaic character of the ceremonial can be studied to most advantage. There, in spite of the passage of that huge wave of Buddhism, which for a period almost submerged the more ancient faith, all things remain as they were a score of centuries ago;—Time, in those haunted precincts, would seem to have slept, as in the enchanted palaces of fairy-tale. The mere shapes of the buildings, weird and tall, startle by their unfamiliarity. Within, all is severely plain and pure: there are no images, no ornaments, no symbols visible—except those strange paper-cuttings (gohei), suspended to upright rods, which are symbols of offerings and also tokens of the [139] viewless. By the number of them in the sanctuary, you know the number of the deities to whom the place is consecrate. There is nothing imposing but the space, the silence, and the suggestion of the past. The innermost shrine is veiled: it contains, perhaps, a mirror of bronze, an ancient sword, or other object enclosed in multiple wrappings: that is all. For this faith, older than icons, needs no images: its gods are ghosts; and the void stillness of its shrines compels more awe than tangible representation could inspire. Very strange, to Western eyes at least, are the rites, the forms of the worship, the shapes of sacred objects. Not by any modern method must the sacred fire be lighted,—the fire that cooks the food of the gods: it can be kindled only in the most ancient of ways, with a wooden fire-drill. The chief priests are robed in the sacred colour,—white,—and wear headdresses of a shape no longer seen elsewhere: high caps of the kind formerly worn by lords and princes. Their assistants wear various colours, according to grade; and the faces of none are completely shaven;—some wear full beards, others the mustache only. The actions and attitudes of these hierophants are dignified, yet archaic, in a degree difficult to describe. Each movement is regulated by tradition; and to perform well the functions of a Kannushi, a long disciplinary preparation is necessary. The office is hereditary; the training begins in boyhood; and [140] the impassive deportment eventually acquired is really a wonderful thing. Officiating, the Kannushi seems rather a statue than a man,—an image moved by invisible strings;—and, like the gods, he never winks. Not at least observably.... Once, during a great Shinto procession, several Japanese friends, and I myself, undertook to watch a young priest on horseback, in order to see how long he could keep from winking; and none of us were able to detect the slightest movement of eyes or eyelids, notwithstanding that the priest's horse became restive during the time that we were watching.

The principal incidents of the festival ceremonies within the great temples are the presentation of the offerings, the repetition of the ritual, and the dancing of the priestesses. Each of these performances retains a special character rigidly fixed by tradition. The food-offerings are served upon archaic vessels of unglazed pottery (red earthenware mostly): boiled rice pressed into cones of the form of a sugar-loaf, various preparations of fish and of edible sea-weed, fruits and fowls, rice-wine presented in jars of immemorial shape. These offerings are carried into the temple upon white wooden trays of curious form, and laid upon white wooden tables of equally curious form;—the faces of the bearers being covered, below the eyes, with sheets of white paper, in order that their breath may [141] not contaminate the food of the gods; and the trays, for like reason, must be borne at arms' length .... In ancient times the offerings would seem to have included things much more costly than food,—if we may credit the testimony of what are probably the oldest documents extant in the Japanese tongue, the Shinto rituals, or norito.* The following excerpt from Satow's translation of the ritual prayer to the Wind-gods of Tatsuta is interesting, not only as a fine example of the language of the norito, but also as indicating the character of the great ceremonies in early ages, and the nature of the offerings:—

[*Several have been translated by Satow, whose opinion of their antiquity is here cited; and translations have also been made into German.]

"As the great offerings set up for the Youth-god, I set up various sorts of offerings: for Clothes, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth,—and the five kinds of things, a mantlet, a spear, a horse furnished with a saddle;—for the Maiden-god I set up various sorts of offerings—providing Clothes, a golden thread-box, a golden tatari, a golden skein-holder, bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things, a horse furnished with a saddle;—as to Liquor, I raise high the beer-jars, fill and range-in-a-row the bellies of the beer-jars; soft grain and coarse grain;—as to things which dwell in the hills, things soft of hair and things coarse of hair;—as to things which grow in the great field—plain, sweet herbs and bitter herbs;—as to things which dwell in the blue sea-plain, things broad of fin and things narrow of fin—down to the weeds of the offing and weeds of the [142] shore. And if the sovran gods will take these great offerings which I set up,—piling them up like a range of hills,—peacefully in their hearts, as peaceful offerings and satisfactory offerings; and if the sovran gods, deigning not to visit the things produced by, the great People of the region under heaven with bad winds and rough waters, will open and bless them,—I will at the autumn service set up the first fruits, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging-in-rows the bellies of the beer-jars,—and drawing them hither in juice and in ear, in many hundred rice-plants and a thousand rice-plants. And for this purpose the princes and councillors and all the functionaries, the servants of the six farms of the country of Yamato—even to the males and females of them—have all come and assembled in the fourth month of this year, and, plunging down the root of the neck cormorant-wise in the presence of the sovran gods, fulfil their praise as the Sun of to-day rises in glory."...

The offerings are no longer piled up "like a range of hills," nor do they include all things dwelling in the mountains and in the sea; but the imposing ritual remains, and the ceremony is always impressive. Not the least interesting part of it is the sacred dance. While the gods are supposed to be partaking of the food and wine set out before their shrines, the girl-priestesses, robed in crimson and white, move gracefully to the sound of drums and flutes,—waving fans, or shaking bunches of tiny bells as they circle about the sanctuary. According to our Western notions. the performance of the [143] miko could scarcely be called dancing; but it is a graceful spectacle, and very curious,—for every step and attitude is regulated by traditions of unknown antiquity. As for the plaintive music, no Western ear can discern in it anything resembling a real melody; but the gods should find delight in it, because it is certainly performed for them to-day exactly as it used to be performed twenty centuries ago.

I speak of the ceremonies especially as I have witnessed them in Izumo: they vary somewhat according to cult and province. At the shrines of Ise, Kasuga, Kompira, and several others which I visited, the ordinary priestesses are children; and when they have reached the nubile age, they retire from the service. At Kitzuki the priestesses are grown-up women: their office is hereditary; and they are permitted to retain it even after marriage.

Formerly the Miko was more than a mere officiant: the songs which she is still obliged to learn indicate that she was originally offered to the gods as a bride. Even yet her touch is holy; the grain sown by her hand is blessed. At some time in the past she seems to have been also a pythoness: the spirits of the gods possessed her and spoke through her lips. All the poetry of this most ancient of religions centres in the figure of its little Vestal,—child-bride of ghosts,—as she flutters, [144] like some wonderful white-and-crimson butterfly, before the shrine of the Invisible. Even in these years of change, when she must go to the public school, she continues to represent all that is delightful in Japanese girlhood; for her special home-training keeps her reverent, innocent, dainty in all her little ways, and worthy to remain the pet of the gods.

The history of the higher forms of ancestor-worship in other countries would lead us to suppose that the public ceremonies of the Shinto-cult must include some rite of purification. As a matter of fact, the most important of all Shinto ceremonies is the ceremony of purification,—o-harai, as it is called, which term signifies the casting-out or expulsion of evils .... In ancient Athens a corresponding ceremony took place every year; in Rome, every four years. The o-harai is performed twice every year,—in the sixth month and the twelfth month by the ancient calendar. It used to be not less obligatory than the Roman lustration; and the idea behind the obligation was the same as that which inspired the Roman laws on the subject .... So long as men believe that the welfare of the living depends upon the will of the dead,—that all happenings in the world are ordered by spirits of different characters, evil as well as good,—that every bad action lends additional power to the viewless [145] forces of destruction, and therefore endangers the public prosperity,—so long will the necessity of a public purification remain an article of common faith. The presence in any community of even one person who has offended the gods, consciously or unwillingly, is a public misfortune, a public peril. Yet it is not possible for all men to live so well as never to vex the gods by thought, word, or deed,—through passion or ignorance or carelessness. "Every one," declares Hirata, "is certain to commit accidental offences, however careful he may be... Evil acts and words are of two kinds: those of which we are conscious, and those of which we are not conscious .... It is better to assume that we have committed such unconscious offences." Now it should be remembered that for the man of Old Japan,—as for the Greek or the Roman citizen of early times,—religion consisted chiefly in the exact observance of multitudinous custom; and that it was therefore difficult to know whether, in performing the duties of the several cults, one had not inadvertently displeased the Unseen. As a means of maintaining and assuring the religious purity of the people periodical lustration was consequently deemed indispensable.

From the earliest period Shinto exacted scrupulous cleanliness —indeed, we might say that it regarded physical impurity as identical with moral impurity, and intolerable to the gods. It has [146] always been, and still remains, a religion of ablutions. The Japanese love of cleanliness—indicated by the universal practice of daily bathing, and by the irreproachable condition of their homes has been maintained, and was probably initiated, by their religion. Spotless cleanliness being required by the rites of ancestor-worship,—in the temple, in the person of the officiant, and in the home,—this rule of purity was naturally extended by degrees to all the conditions of existence. And besides the great periodical ceremonies of purification, a multitude of minor lustrations were exacted by the cult. This was the case also, it will be remembered in the early Greek and Roman civilizations—the citizen had to submit to purification upon almost every important occasion of existence. There were lustrations indispensable at birth, marriage, and death; lustrations on the eve of battle; lustrations at regular periods, of the dwelling, estate, district, or city. And, as in Japan, no one could approach a temple without a preliminary washing of hands. But ancient Shinto exacted more than the Greek or the Roman cult: it required the erection of special houses for birth, —"parturition-houses"; special houses for the consummation of marriage,—"nuptial-huts"; and special buildings for the dead,—"mourning-houses." Formerly women were obliged during the period of menstruation, as well as during the time of confinement, to live apart. These harsher archaic customs [147] have almost disappeared, except in one or two remote districts, and in the case of certain priestly families; but the general rules as to purification, and as to the times and circumstances forbidding approach to holy places, are still everywhere obeyed. Purity of heart is not less insisted upon than physical purity; and the great rite of lustration, performed every six months, is of course a moral purification. It is performed not only at the great temples, and at all the Ujigami, but likewise in every home



[*On the kamidana, "or god-shelf," there is usually placed a kind of oblong paper-box containing fragments of the wands used by the priests of Ise at the great national purification-ceremony, or o-harai. This box is commonly called by the name of the ceremony, o-harai, or "august purification," and is inscribed with the names of the great gods of Ise. The presence of this object is supposed to protect the home; but it should be replaced by a new o-harai at the expiration of six months; for the virtue of the charm is supposed to last only during the interval between two official purifications. This distribution to thousands of homes of fragments of the wands, used to "drive away evils" at the time of the Ise lustration, represents of course the supposed extension of the high-priest's protection to those homes until the time of the next o-harai.

The modern domestic form of the harai is very simple. Each Shinto parish-temple furnishes to all its Ujiko, or parishioners, small paper-cuttings called hitogata ("mankind-shapes"), representing figures of men, women, and children as in silhouette,—only that the paper is white, and folded curiously. Each household receives a number of hitogata corresponding to the number of its members,—"men-shapes" for the men and boys, "women-shapes"]

[148] for the women and girls. Each person in the house touches his head, face, limbs, and body with one of these hitogata; repeating the while a Shinto invocation, and praying that any misfortune or sickness incurred by reason of offences involuntarily committed against the gods (for in Shinto belief sickness and misfortune are divine punishments) may be mercifully taken away. Upon each hitogata is then written the age and sex (not the name) of the person for whom it was furnished; and when this has been done, all are returned to the parish-temple, and there burnt, with rites of purification. Thus the community is "lustrated" every six Months.

In the old Greek and Latin cities lustration was accompanied with registration. The attendance of every citizen at the ceremony was held to be so necessary that one who wilfully failed to attend might be whipped and sold as a slave. Non-attendance involved loss of civic rights. It would seem that in Old Japan also every member of a community was obliged to be present at the rite; but I have not been able to learn whether any registration was made upon such occasions. Probably it would have been superfluous: the Japanese individual was not officially recognized; the family-group alone was responsible, and the attendance of the several members would have been assured by the responsibility of the group. The use of the hitogata, on which the name is not written, but only the sex and age [149] of the worshipper, is probably modern, and of Chinese origin. Official registration existed, even in early times; but it appears to have had no particular relation to the o-harai; and the registers were kept, it seems, not by the Shinto, but by the Buddhist parish-priests .... In concluding these remarks about the o-harai, I need scarcely add that special rites were performed in cases of accidental religious defilement, and that any person judged to have sinned against the rules of the public cult had to submit to ceremonial purification.

Closely related by origin to the rites of purification are sundry ascetic practices of Shinto. It is not an essentially ascetic religion: it offers flesh and wine to its gods; and it prescribes only such forms of self-denial as ancient custom and decency require. Nevertheless, some of its votaries perform extraordinary austerities on special occasions,—austerities which always include much cold-water bathing. It is not uncommon for the very fervent worshipper to invoke the gods as he stands naked under the ice-cold rush of a cataract in midwinter .... But the most curious phase of this Shinto asceticism is represented by a custom still prevalent in remote districts. According to this custom a community yearly appoints one of its citizens to devote himself wholly to the gods on behalf of the rest. During the term of his consecration, this communal representative [150] must separate from his family, must not approach women, must avoid all places of amusement, must eat only food cooked with sacred fire, must abstain from wine, must bathe in fresh cold water several times a day, must repeat particular prayers at certain hours, and must keep vigil upon certain nights. When he has performed these duties of abstinence and purification for the specified time, he becomes religiously free; and another man is then elected to take his place. The prosperity of the settlement is supposed to depend upon the exact observance by its representative of the duties prescribed: should any public misfortune occur, he would be suspected of having broken his vows. Anciently, in the case of a common misfortune, the representative was put to death. In the little town of Mionoseki, where I first learned of this custom, the communal representative is called ichi-nen-gannushi ("one-year god-master"); and his full term of vicarious atonement is twelve months. I was told that elders are usually appointed for this duty,—young men very seldom. In ancient times such a communal representative was called by a name signifying "abstainer." References to the custom have been found in Chinese notices of Japan dating from a time before the beginning of Japanese authentic history.

Every persistent form of ancestor-worship has its [151] system or systems of divination; and Shinto exemplifies the general law. Whether divination ever obtained in ancient Japan the official importance which it assumed among the Greeks and the Romans is at present doubtful. But long before the introduction of Chinese astrology, magic, and fortune-telling, the Japanese practised various kinds of divination, as is proved by their ancient poetry, their records, and their rituals. We find mention also of official diviners, attached to the great cults. There was divination by bones, by birds, by rice, by barley-gruel, by footprints, by rods planted in the ground, and by listening in public ways to the speech of people passing by. Nearly all—probably all—of these old methods of divination are still in popular use. But the earliest form of official divination was performed by scorching the shoulder-blade of a deer, or other animal, and observing the cracks produced by the heat.* Tortoise-shells were afterwards used for the same purpose. Diviners were especially attached, it appears, to the imperial palace; and Motowori, writing in the latter half of the eighteenth century, speaks of divination as still being, in that epoch, a part of the imperial function. "To the end of time," he said, "the Mikado is the child of the Sun-goddess. His mind is in perfect harmony of thought and feeling with hers. He does not seek out new inventions; but he rules in accordance with precedents which date from the Age of the Gods; and if he is ever in doubt, he has recourse to divination, which reveals to him the mind of the great goddess."

[*Concerning this form of divination, Satow remarks that it was practised by the Mongols in the time of Genghis Khan, and is still practised by the Khirghiz Tartars,—facts of strong interest in view of the probable origin of the early Japanese tribes. For instances of ancient official divination see Aston's translation of the Nihongi, Vol. I, pp. 157, 189, 227, 299, 237.]

[152] Within historic times at least, divination would not seem to have been much used in warfare,—certainly not to the extent that it was used by the Greek and Roman armies. The greatest Japanese captains,—such as Hideyoshi and Nobunaga—were decidedly irreverent as to omens. Probably the Japanese, at an early period of their long military history, learned by experience that the general who conducts his campaign according to omens must always be at a hopeless disadvantage in dealing with a skilful enemy who cares nothing about omens.

Among the ancient popular forms of divination which still survive, the most commonly practised in households is divination by dry rice. For the public, Chinese divination is still in great favour; but it is interesting to observe that the Japanese fortune-teller invariably invokes the Shinto gods before consulting his Chinese books, and maintains a Shinto shrine in his reception-room.

[153] We have seen that the developments of ancestor-worship in Japan present remarkable analogies with the developments of ancestor-worship in ancient Europe,—especially in regard to the public cult, with its obligatory rites of purification.

But Shinto seems nevertheless to represent conditions of ancestor-worship less developed than those which we are accustomed to associate with early Greek and Roman life; and the coercion which it exercised appears to have been proportionally more rigid. The existence of the individual worshipper was ordered not merely in relation to the family and the community, but even in relation to inanimate things. Whatever his occupation might be, some god presided over it; whatever tools he might use, they had to be used in such manner as tradition prescribed for all admitted to the craft-cult. It was necessary that the carpenter should so perform his work as to honour the deity of carpenters,—that the smith should fulfil his daily task so as to honour the god of the bellows,—that the farmer should never fail in respect to the earth-god, and the food-god, and the scare-crow god, and the spirits of the trees—about his habitation. Even the domestic utensils were sacred: the servant could not dare to forget the presence of the deities of the cooking-range, the hearth, the cauldron, the brazier,—or the supreme necessity of keeping the fire pure. The professions, not less [154] than the trades, were under divine patronage: the physician, the teacher, the artist—each had his religious duties to observe, his special traditions to obey. The scholar, for example, could not dare to treat his writing-implements with disrespect, or put written paper to vulgar uses: such conduct would offend the god of calligraphy. Nor were women ruled less religiously than men in their various occupations: the spinners and weaving-maidens were bound to revere the Weaving-goddess and the Goddess of Silkworms; the sewing-girl was taught to respect her needles; and in all homes there was observed a certain holiday upon which offerings were made to the Spirits of Needles. In Samurai families the warrior was commanded to consider his armour and his weapons as holy things: to keep them in beautiful order was an obligation of which the neglect might bring misfortune in the time of combat; and on certain days offerings were set before the bows and spears, arrows and swords, and other war-implements, in the alcove of the family guest-room. Gardens, too, were holy; and there were rules to be observed in their management, lest offence should be given to the gods of trees and flowers. Carefulness, cleanliness, dustlessness, were everywhere enforced as religious obligations.

... It has often been remarked in these latter days that the Japanese do not keep their public offices, their railway stations, their new factory-buildings, [155] thus scrupulously clean. But edifices built foreign style, with foreign material, under foreign supervision, and contrary to every local tradition, must seem to old-fashioned thinking God-forsaken places; and servants amid such unhallowed surroundings do not feel the invisible about them, the weight of pious custom, the silent claim of beautiful and simple things to human respect.



[156]

[157]

THE RULE OF THE DEAD

It should now be evident to the reader that the ethics of Shinto were all comprised in the doctrine of unqualified obedience to customs originating, for the most part, in the family cult. Ethics were not different from religion; religion was not different from government; and the very word for government signified "matters-of-religion." All government ceremonies were preceded by prayer and sacrifice; and from the highest rank of society to the lowest every person was subject to the law of tradition. To obey was piety; to disobey was impious; and the rule of obedience was enforced upon each individual by the will of the community to which he belonged. Ancient morality consisted in the minute observance of rules of conduct regarding the household, the community, and the higher authority.

But these rules of behaviour mostly represented the outcome of social experience; and it was scarcely possible to obey them faithfully, and yet to remain a bad man. They commanded reverence toward the Unseen, respect for authority, affection to parents, [158] tenderness to wife and children, kindness to neighbours, kindness to dependants, diligence and exactitude in labour, thrift and cleanliness in habit. Though at first morality signified no more than obedience to tradition, tradition itself gradually became identified with true morality. To imagine the consequent social condition is, of course, somewhat difficult for the modern mind. Among ourselves, religious ethics and social ethics have long been practically dissociated; and the latter have become, with the gradual weakening of faith, more imperative and important than the former. Most of us learn, sooner or later in life, that it is not enough to keep the ten commandments, and that it is much less dangerous to break most of the commandments in a quiet way than to violate social custom. But in Old Japan there was no distinction tolerated between ethics and custom—between moral requirements and social obligations: convention identified both, and to conceal a breach of either was impossible,—as privacy did not exist. Moreover the unwritten commandments were not limited to ten; they were numbered by hundreds, and the least infringement was punishable, not merely as a blunder, but as a sin. Neither in his own home nor anywhere else could the ordinary person do as he pleased; and the extraordinary person was under the surveillance of zealous dependants whose constant duty was to reprove any breach of usage. The religion capable [159] of regulating every act of existence by the force of common opinion requires no catechism.

Early moral custom must be coercive custom. But as many habits, at first painfully formed under compulsion only, become easy through constant repetition, and at last automatic, so the conduct compelled through many generations by religious and civil authority, tends eventually to become almost instinctive. Much depends, no doubt, upon the degree to which religious compulsion is hindered by exterior causes,—by long-protracted war, for example,—and in Old Japan there was interference extraordinary. Nevertheless, the influence of Shinto accomplished wonderful things,—evolved a national type of character worthy, in many ways, of earnest admiration. The ethical sentiment developed in that character differed widely from our own; but it was exactly adapted to the social requirements. For this national type of moral character was invented the name Yamato-damashi (or Yamato-gokoro),—the Soul of Yamato (or Heart of Yamato),—the appellation of the old province of Yamato, seat of the early emperors, being figuratively used for the entire country. We might correctly, though less literally, interpret the expression Yamato-damashi as "The Soul of Old Japan."

It was in reference to this "Soul of Old Japan" that the great Shinto scholars of the eighteenth [160] and nineteenth centuries put forth their bold assertion that conscience alone was a sufficient ethical guide. They declared the high quality of the Japanese conscience a proof of the divine origin of the race. "Human beings," wrote Motowori, "having been produced by the spirits of the two Creative Deities, are naturally endowed with the knowledge of what they ought to do, and of what they ought to refrain from doing. It is unnecessary for them to trouble their minds with systems of morality. If a system of morals were necessary, men would be inferior to animals,—all of whom are endowed with the knowledge of what they ought to do, only in an inferior degree to men."*... [*All of these extracts are quoted from Satow's great essay on the Shinto revival.] Mabuchi, at an earlier day, had made a comparison between Japanese and Chinese morality, greatly to the disadvantage of the latter. "In ancient times," said Mabuchi, "when men's dispositions were straightforward, a complicated system of morals was unnecessary. It would naturally happen that bad actions might be occasionally committed; but the straightforwardness of men's dispositions would prevent the evil from being concealed and so growing in extent. So in those days it was unnecessary to have a doctrine of right and wrong. But the Chinese, being bad at heart, in spite of the teaching which they got, were good [161] only on the outside; so their bad acts became of such magnitude that society was thrown into disorder. The Japanese, being straightforward, could do without teaching." Motowori repeated these ideas in a slightly different way: "It is because the Japanese were truly moral in their practice, that, they required no theory of morals; and the fuss made by the Chinese about theoretical morals is owing to their laxity, in practice.... To have learned that there is no Way [ethical system] to be learned and practised, is really to have learned to practise the Way of the Gods." At a later day Hirata wrote "Learn to stand in awe of the Unseen, and that will prevent you from doing wrong. Cultivate the conscience implanted in you then you will never wander from the Way."

Though the sociologist may smile at these declarations of moral superiority (especially as based on the assumption that the race had been better in primeval times, when yet fresh from the hands of the gods), there was in them a grain of truth. When Mabuchi and Motowori wrote, the nation had been long subjected to a discipline of almost incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what the cost of developing that character must have been.

It is necessary here to observe that the discipline to which the nation had been subjected up to the age of the great Shinto writers, seems to have had a curious evolutional history of its own. In primitive times it had been much less uniform, less complex, less minutely organized, though not less implacable; and it had continued to develop and elaborate more and more with the growth and consolidation of society, until, under the Tokugawa Shogunate the possible maximum of regulation was reached. In other words, the yoke had been made heavier and heavier in proportion to the growth of the national strength,—in proportion to the power of the people to bear it.... We have seen that, from the beginning of this civilization, the whole life of the citizen was ordered for him: his occupation, his marriage, his rights of fatherhood, his rights to hold or to dispose of property,—all these matters were settled by religious custom. We have also seen that outside as well as inside of his home, his actions were under supervision, and that a single grave breach of usage might cause his social ruin,—in which case he would be given to understand that he was not merely a social, but also a religious offender; that the communal god was angry with him; and that to pardon his fault might [163] provoke the divine vengeance against the entire settlement. But it yet remains to be seen what rights were left him by the central authority ruling his district,—which authority represented a third form of religious despotism from which there was no appeal in ordinary cases.

Material for the study of the old laws and customs have not yet been collected in sufficient quantity to yield us full information as to the conditions of all classes before Meiji. But a great deal of precious work has been accomplished in this direction by American scholars; and the labours of Professor Wigmore and of the late Dr. Simmons have furnished documentary evidence from which much can be learned about the legal status of the masses during the Tokugawa period. This, as I have said, was the period of the most elaborated regulation. The extent to which the people were controlled can be best inferred from the nature and number of the sumptuary laws to which they were subjected. Sumptuary laws in Old Japan probably exceeded in multitude and minuteness anything of which Western legal history yields record. Rigidly as the family-cult dictated behaviour in the home, strictly as the commune enforced its standards of communal duty,—just so rigidly and strictly did the rulers of the nation dictate how the individual—man, woman, or child—should dress, walk, sit, [164] speak, work, eat, drink. Amusements were not less unmercifully regulated than were labours.

Every class of Japanese society was under sumptuary regulation,—the degree of regulation varying in different centuries; and this kind of legislation appears to have been established at an early period. It is recorded that, in the year 681 A.D., the Emperor Temmu regulated the costumes of all classes,—"from the Princes of the Blood down to the common people,—and the wearing of headdresses and girdles, as well as of all kinds of coloured stuffs,—according to a scale."* [* See Nihongi Aston's translation, Vol. II, pp. 343, 349, 350.] The costumes and the colours to be worn by priests and nuns had been already fixed, by an edict issued in 679 A.D. Afterwards these regulations were greatly multiplied and detailed. But it was under the Tokugawa rulers, a thousand years later, that sumptuary laws obtained their most remarkable development; and the nature of them is best: indicated by the regulations applying to the peasantry. Every detail of the farmer's existence was prescribed for by law,—from the size, form, and cost of his dwelling, down even to such trifling matters as the number and the quality of the dishes to be served to him at meal-times. A farmer with an income of 100 koku of rice—(let us say 90 to 100 pounds per annum)—might build a house 60 feet long, but no longer: he was forbidden to construct it with a room containing an alcove; and he was not [165] allowed—except by special permission—to roof it with tiles. None of his family were permitted to wear silk; and in case of the marriage of his daughter to a person legally entitled to wear silk, the bridegroom was to be requested not to wear silk at the wedding. Three kinds of viands only were to be served at the wedding of such a farmer's daughter or son; and the quality as well as the quantity of the soup, fish, or sweetmeats offered to the wedding-guests, were legally fixed. So likewise the number of the wedding-gifts: even the cost of the presents, of rice-wine and dried fish was prescribed, and the quality of the single fan which it was permissible to offer the bride. At no time was a farmer allowed to make any valuable presents to his friends. At a funeral he might serve the guests with certain kinds of plain food; but if rice-wine were served it was not to be served in wine-cups,—only in soup-cups! (The latter regulation probably referred to Shinto funerals in especial.) On the occasion of a child's birth, the grandparents were allowed to make only four presents (according to custom),—including "one cotton baby-dress"; and the values of the presents were fixed. On the occasion of the Boy's Festival, the presents to be given to the child by the whole family, including grandparents, were limited by law to "one paper-flag," and "two toy-spears." ... A farmer whose, property was assessed at 50 koku was forbidden to [166] build a house more than 45 feet long. At the wedding of his daughter the gift-girdle was not to exceed 50 sen in value; and it was forbidden to serve more than one kind of soup at the wedding-feast.... A farmer with a property assessed at 20 koku was not allowed to build a house more than 36 feet long, or to use in building it such superior qualities of wood as keyaki or hinoki. The roof of his house was to be made of bamboo-thatch or straw; and he was strictly forbidden the comfort of floor-mats. On the occasion of the wedding of his daughter he was forbidden to have fish or any roasted food served at the wedding-feast. The women of his family were not allowed to wear leather sandals: they might wear only straw-sandals or wooden clogs; and the thongs of the sandals or the clogs were to be made of cotton. The women were further forbidden to wear hair-bindings of silk, or hair-ornaments of tortoise-shells; but they might wear wooden combs and combs of bone—not ivory. The men were forbidden to wear stockings, and their sandals were to be made of bamboo.* [*There are sandals or clogs made of bamboo-wood, but the meaning here is bamboo-grass.] They were also forbidden to use sun-shades —hi-gasa—or paper-umbrellas.... A farmer assessed at 10 koku was forbidden to build a house more than 30 feet long. The women of his family were required to wear sandals with thongs of [167] bamboo-grass. At the wedding of his son or daughter one present only was allowed,—a quilt-chest. At the birth of his child one present only was to be made: namely, one toy-spear, in the case of a boy; or one paper-doll, or one "mud-doll," in the case of a girl... As for the more unfortunate class of farmers, having no land of their own, and officially termed mizunomi, or "water-drinkers," it is scarcely necessary to remark that these were still more severely restricted in regard to food, apparel, etc. They were not even allowed, for example, to have a quilt-chest as a wedding-present. But a fair idea of the complexity of these humiliating restrictions can only be obtained by reading the documents published by Professor Wigmore, which chiefly consist of paragraphs like these:—

"The collar and the sleeve-ends of the clothes may be ornamented with silk, and an obi (soft girdle) of silk or crepe-silk may be worn—but not in public." ...

"A family ranking less than 20 koku must use the Takeda-wan (Takeda rice-bowl), and the Nikko-zen (Nikko tray).".. (These were utensils of the cheapest kind of lacquer-ware.)

"Large farmers or chiefs of Kumi may use umbrellas; but small farmers and farm-labourers must use only mino (straw-raincoats), and broad straw-hats." ...

These documents published by Professor Wigmore contain only the regulations issued for the daimiate of Maizuru; but regulations equally [168] minute and vexatious appear to have been enforced throughout the whole country. In Izumo I found that, prior to Meiji, there were sumptuary laws prescribing not only the material of the dresses to be worn by the various classes, but even the colours of them, and the designs of the patterns. The size of rooms, as well as the size of houses, was fixed there by law,—also the height of buildings and of fences, the number of windows, the material of construction.... It is difficult for the Western mind to understand how human beings could patiently submit to laws that regulated not only the size of one's dwelling, and the cost of its furniture, but even the substance and character of clothing,—not only the expense of a wedding outfit, but the quality of the marriage-feast, and the quality of the vessels in which the food was to be served,—not only the kind of ornaments to be worn in a woman's hair, but the material of the thongs of her sandals,—not only the price of presents to be made to friends, but the character and the cost of the cheapest toy to be given to a child. And the peculiar constitution of society made it possible to enforce this sumptuary legislation by communal will; the people were obliged to coerce themselves! Each community, as we have seen, had been organized in groups of five or more households, called kumi; and the heads of the households forming a kumi elected one of their number as kumi-gashira, or group-chief, directly [169] responsible to the higher authority. The kumi was accountable for the conduct of each and all of its members; and each member was in some sort responsible for the rest. "Every member of a kumi," declares one of the documents above mentioned, "must carefully watch the conduct of his fellow-members. If any one violates these regulations, without due excuse, he is to be punished; and his kumi will also be held responsible." Responsible even for the serious offence of giving more than one paper-doll to a child! ... But we should remember that in early Greek and Roman societies there was much legislation of a similar kind. The laws of Sparta regulated the way in which a woman should dress her hair; the laws of Athens fixed the number of her robes. At Rome, in early times, women were forbidden to drink wine; and a similar law existed in the Greek cities of Miletus and Massilia. In Rhodes and Byzantium the citizen was forbidden to shave; in Sparta he was forbidden to wear a moustache. (I need scarcely refer to the later Roman laws regulating the cost of marriage-feasts, and the number of guests that might be invited to a banquet; for this legislation was directed chiefly against luxury.) The astonishment evoked by Japanese sumptuary laws, particularly as inflicted upon the peasantry, is justified less by their general character than by their implacable minuteness,—their ferocity of detail.... [170] Where a man's life was legally ordered even to the least particulars,—even to the quality of his foot-gear and head-gear, the cost of his wife's hairpins, and the price of his child's doll,—one could hardly suppose that freedom of speech would have been tolerated. It did not exist; and the degree to which speech became regulated can be imagined only by those who have studied the spoken tongue. The hierarchical organization of society was faithfully reflected in the conventional organization of language,—in the ordination of pronouns, nouns, and verbs,—in the grades conferred upon adjectives by prefixes or suffixes. With the same merciless exactitude which prescribed rules for dress, diet, and manner of life, all utterance was regulated both negatively and positively,—but positively much more than negatively. There was little insistence upon what was not to be said; but rules innumerable decided exactly what should be said,—the word to be chosen, the phrase to be used. Early training enforced caution in this regard: everybody had to learn that only certain verbs and nouns and pronouns were lawful when addressing superiors, and other words permissible only when speaking to equals or to inferiors. Even the uneducated were obliged to learn something about this. But education cultivated a system of verbal etiquette so multiform that only the training of years could enable any one to master it. Among the [171] higher classes this etiquette developed almost inconceivable complexity. Grammatical modifications of language, which, by implication, exalted the person addressed or humbly depreciated the person addressing, must have come into general use at some very early period; but under subsequent Chinese influence these forms of propitiatory speech multiplied exceedingly. From the Mikado himself—who still makes use of personal pronouns, or at least pronominal expressions, forbidden to any other mortal—down through all the grades of society, each class had an "I" peculiarly its own. Of terms corresponding to "you" or "thou" there are still sixteen in use; but formerly there were many more. There are yet eight different forms of the second person singular used only in addressing children, pupils, or servants.* Honorific or humble forms of nouns indicating relationship were similarly multiplied and graded: there are still in use nine terms signifying "father," nine terms signifying "mother," eleven terms for "wife," eleven terms for "son," nine terms for "daughter," and seven terms for "husband." The rules of the verb, above all, were complicated by the exigencies of etiquette to a [172] degree of which no idea can be given in any brief statement.... At nineteen or twenty years of age a person carefully trained from childhood might have learned all the necessary verbal usages of respectable society; but for a mastery of the etiquette of superior converse many more years of study and experience were required. With the unceasing multiplication of ranks and classes there came into existence a corresponding variety of forms of language: it was possible to ascertain to what class a man or a woman belonged by listening to his or to her conversation. The written, like the spoken tongue, was regulated by strict convention: the forms used by women were not those used by men; and those differences in verbal etiquette arising from the different training of the sexes resulted in the creation of a special epistolary style,—a "woman's language," which remains in use. And this sex-differentiation of language was not confined to letter-writing: there was a woman's language also of converse, varying according to class. Even to-day, in ordinary conversation, an educated woman makes use of words and phrases not employed by men. Samurai women especially had their particular forms of expression in feudal times; and it is still possible to decide, from the speech of any woman brought up according to the old home-training, whether she belongs to a Samurai family.

[*The sociologist will of course understand that these facts are not by any means inconsistent with that very sparing use of pronouns so amusingly discussed in Percival Lowell's "Soul of the Far East." In societies where subjection is extreme "there is an avoidance of the use of personal pronouns," though, as Herbert Spencer points out in illustrating this law, it is just among such societies that the most elaborate distinctions in pronominal forms of address are to be found.]

[173] Of course the matter as well as the manner of converse was restricted; and the nature of the restraints upon free speech can be inferred from the nature of the restraints upon freedom of demeanour. Demeanour was most elaborately and mercilessly regulated, not merely as to obeisances, of which there were countless grades, varying according to sex as well as class,—but even in regard to facial expression, the manner of smiling, the conduct of the breath, the way of sitting, standing, walking, rising. Everybody was trained from infancy in this etiquette of expression and deportment. At what period it first became a mark of disrespect to betray, by look or gesture, any feeling of grief or pain in the presence of a superior, we cannot know; there is reason to believe that the most perfect self-control in this regard was enforced from prehistoric times. But there was gradually developed—partly, perhaps, under Chinese teaching—a most elaborate code of deportment which exacted very much more than impassiveness. It required not only that any sense of anger or pain should be denied all outward expression, but that the sufferer's face and manner should indicate the contrary feeling. Sullen submission was an offence; mere impassive obedience inadequate: the proper degree of submission should manifest itself by a pleasant smile, and by a soft and happy tone of voice. The smile, however, was also regulated. [174] One had to be careful about the quality of the smile: it was a mortal offence, for example, so to smile in addressing a superior, that the back teeth could be seen. In the military class especially this code of demeanour was ruthlessly enforced. Samurai women were required, like the women of Sparta, to show signs of joy on hearing that their husbands or sons had fallen in battle: to betray any natural feeling under the circumstances was a grave breach of decorum. And in all classes demeanour was regulated so severely that even to-day the manners of the people everywhere still reveal the nature of the old discipline. The strangest fact is that the old-fashioned manners appear natural rather than acquired, instinctive rather than made by training. The bow,—the sibilant in drawing of the breath which accompanies the prostration, and is practised also in praying to the gods,—the position of the hands upon the floor in the moment of greeting or of farewell,—the way of sitting or rising or walking in presence of a guest,—the manner of receiving or presenting anything,—all these ordinary actions have a charm of seeming naturalness that mere teaching seems incapable of producing. And this is still more true of the higher etiquette,—the exquisite etiquette of the old-time training in cultivated classes, —particularly as displayed by women. We must suppose that the capacity to acquire such manners depends considerably upon inheritance,—that it could only have [175] been formed by the past experience of the race under discipline.

What such discipline, as regards politeness, must have signified for the mass of the people, may be inferred from the enactment of Iyeyasu authorizing a Samurai to kill any person of the three inferior classes guilty of rudeness. Be it observed that Iyeyasu was careful to qualify the meaning of "rude": he said that the Japanese term for a rude fellow signified "an other-than-expected person"—so that to commit an offence worthy of death it was only necessary to act in an "unexpected manner"; that is to say, contrary to prescribed etiquette:—

"The Samurai are the masters of the four classes. Agriculturists, artizans, and merchants may not behave in a rude manner towards Samurai. The term for a rude man is an 'other-than-expected fellow'; and a Samurai is not to be interfered with in cutting down a fellow who has behaved to him in a manner other than is expected. The Samurai are grouped into direct retainers, secondary retainers, and nobles and retainers of high and low grade; but the same line of conduct is equally allowable to them all towards an other-than-expected fellow."—[Art. 45.]

But there is little reason to suppose that Iyeyasu created any new privilege of slaughter: he probably did no more than confirm by enactment certain long established military rights. Stern rules about the conduct of inferiors to superiors would seem to have been pitilessly enforced long before the rise of the [176] military power. We read that the Emperor Yuriaku, in the latter part of the fifth century, killed a steward for the misdemeanour of remaining silent, through fear, when spoken to: we also find it recorded that he struck down a maid-of-honour who had brought him a cup of wine, and that he would have cut off her head but for the extraordinary presence of mind which enabled her to improvise a poetical appeal for mercy. Her only fault had been that, in carrying the wine-cup, she failed to notice that a leaf had fallen into it,—probably because court-custom obliged her to carry the cup in such a way as not to breathe upon it; for emperors and high nobles were served after the manner of gods. It is true that Yuriaku was in the habit of killing people for little mistakes; but it is evident that, in the cases cited, such mistakes were regarded as breaches of long-established decorum.

Probably before as well as after the introduction of the Chinese penal codes,—the so-called Ming and Tsing codes, by which the country was ruled under the Shoguns,—the bulk of the nation was literally under the rod. Common folk were punished by cruel whippings for the most trifling offences. For serious offences, death by torture was an ordinary penalty; and there were extraordinary penalties as savage, or almost as savage, as those established during our own medieval period,—[177] burnings and crucifixions and quarterings and boiling alive in oil. The documents regulating the life of village-folk do not contain any indication of the severity of legal discipline: the Kumi-cho declarations that such and such conduct "shall be punished" suggest nothing terrible to the reader who has not made himself familiar with the ancient codes. As a matter of fact the term "punishment" in a Japanese legal document might, signify anything from a trifling fine up to burning alive.... Some evidence of the severity used to repress quarrelling even as late as the time of Iyeyasu, may be found in a curious letter of Captain Saris, who visited Japan in 1613. "The first of July," wrote the Captain, "two of our Company happened to quarrell the one with the other, and were very likely to haue gone into the field [i.e. to have fought a duel] to the endangering of vs all. For it is a custome here that whosoever drawes a weapon in anger, although he do noe harme therewith, hee is presently cut in peeces; and, doing but small hurt, not only themselues are so executed, but their whole generation." ... The literal meaning of "cut in peeces" he explains later on, when recounting in the same letter an execution that came under his observation:—

"The eighth, three Iaponians were executed, viz., two men and one woman: the cause this,—the woman, none of the honestest (her husband being trauelled from home) [178] had appointed these two their several hours to repair vnto her. The latter man, not knowing of the former, and comming in before the houre appointed, found the first man, and enraged thereat, he whipped out his cattan [katana] and wounded both of them very sorely,—hauing very neere hewn the chine of the mans back in two. But as well as hee might he cleared himselfe, and recouering his cattan, wounded the other. The street, taking notice of the fray, forthwith seased vpon them, led them aside, and acquainted King Foyne therewith, and sent to know his pleasure, (for according to his will, the partie is executed), who presently gaue order that they should cut off their heads: which done, euery man that listed (as very many did) came to try the sharpness of their cattans vpon the corps, so that, before they left off, they had hewne them all three into peeces as small as a mans hand,—and yet notwithstanding, did not then giue over, but, placing the peeces one vpon another, would try how many of them they could strike through at a blow; and the peeces are left to the fowles to deuoure." ....

Evidently the execution was in this case ordered for cause more serious than the offence of fighting; but it is true that quarrels were strictly forbidden and rigorously punished.

Though privileged to cut down "other-than-expected" people of inferior rank, the military class itself had to endure a discipline even more severe than that which it maintained. The penalty for a word or a look that displeased, or for a trifling mistake in performance of duty, might be death. In [179] most cases the Samurai was permitted to be his own executioner; and the right of self-destruction was deemed a privilege; but the obligation to thrust a dagger deeply into one's belly on the left side, and then draw the blade slowly and steadily across to the right side, so as to sever all the entrails, was certainly not less cruel than the vulgar punishment of crucifixion, or rather, double-transfixion.

Just as all matters relating to the manner of the individual's life were regulated by law, so were all matters relating to his death,—the quality of his coffin, the expenses of his interment, the order of his funeral, the form of his tomb. In the seventh century laws were passed to the effect that no one should be buried with unseemly expense; and these laws fixed the cost of funerals according to rank and grade. Subsequent edicts decided the dimensions and material of coffins, and the size of graves. In the eighth century every detail of funerals, for all classes of persons from prince to peasant, was fixed by decree. Other laws, and modifications of laws, were made upon the subject in later centuries; but there appears to have always been a general tendency to extravagance in the matter of funerals,—a tendency so strong that, in spite of centuries of sumptuary legislation, it remains to-day a social danger. This can easily be understood if we remember the beliefs regarding duty to the dead, and the consequent [180] desire to honour and to please the spirit even at the risk of family impoverishment.

Most of the legislation to which reference has already been made must appear to modern minds tyrannical; and some of the regulations seem to us strangely cruel. There was, moreover, no way of evading or shirking these obligations of law and custom: whoever failed to fulfil them was doomed to perish or to become an outcast; implicit obedience was the condition of survival. The tendency of such regulation was necessarily to suppress all mental and moral differentiation, to numb personality, to establish one uniform and unchanging type of character; and such was the actual result. To this day every Japanese mind reveals the lines of that antique mould by which the ancestral mind was compressed and limited. It is impossible to understand Japanese psychology without knowing something of the laws that helped to form it,—or, rather, to crystallize it under pressure.

Yet, on the other hand, the ethical effects of this iron discipline were unquestionably excellent. It compelled each succeeding generation to practise the frugality of the forefathers; and that—compulsion was partly justified by the great poverty of the nation. It reduced the cost of living to a figure far below our Western comprehension of the necessary; it cultivated sobriety, simplicity, economy; it enforced [181] cleanliness, courtesy, and hardihood. And—strange as the fact may seem—it did not make the people miserable: they found the world beautiful in spite of all their trouble; and the happiness of the old life was reflected in the old Japanese art, much as the joyousness of Greek life yet laughs to us from the vase-designs of forgotten painters.

And the explanation is not difficult. We must remember that the coercion was not exercised only from without: it was really maintained from within. The discipline of the race was self-imposed. The people had gradually created their own social conditions, and therefore the legislation conserving those conditions; and they believed that legislation the best possible. They believed it to be the best possible for the excellent reason that it had been founded upon their own moral experience; and they could greatly endure because they had great faith. Only religion could have enabled any people to bear such discipline without degenerating into mopes and cowards; and the Japanese never so degenerated: the traditions that compelled self-denial and obedience, also cultivated courage, and insisted upon cheerfulness. The power of the ruler was unlimited because the power of all the dead supported him. "Laws," says Herbert Spencer, "whether written or unwritten, formulate the rule of the dead over the living. In addition to that power which past generations exercise over present generations, by transmitting [182] their natures,—bodily and mental,—and in addition to the power they exercise over them by bequeathed habits and modes of life, there is the power they exercise through their regulations for public conduct, handed down orally, or in writing.... I emphasize these truths,"—he adds,—"for the purpose of showing that they imply a tacit ancestor-worship." ... Of no other laws in the history of human civilization are these observations more true than of the laws of Old Japan. Most strikingly did they "formulate the rule of the dead over the living." And the hand of the dead was heavy: it is heavy upon the living even to-day.



[183]

THE INTRODUCTION OF BUDDHISM

The nature of the opposition which the ancient religion of Japan could offer to the introduction of any hostile alien creed, should now be obvious. The family being founded upon ancestor-worship, the commune being regulated by ancestor-worship, the clan-group or tribe being governed by ancestor-worship, and the Supreme Ruler being at once the high-priest and deity of an ancestral cult which united all the other cults in one common tradition, it must be evident that the promulgation of any religion essentially opposed to Shinto would have signified nothing less than an attack upon the whole system of society. Considering these circumstances, it may well seem strange that Buddhism should have succeeded, after some preliminary struggles (which included one bloody battle), in getting itself accepted as a second national faith. But although the original Buddhist doctrine was essentially in disaccord with Shinto beliefs, Buddhism had learned in India, in China, in Korea, and in divers adjacent countries, how to meet the spiritual needs of peoples maintaining a persistent ancestor-worship. [184] Intolerance of ancestor-worship would have long, ago resulted in the extinction of Buddhism; for its vast conquests have all been made among ancestor-worshipping races. Neither in India nor in China nor in Korea,—neither in Siam nor Burmah nor Annam,—did it attempt to extinguish ancestor-worship, Everywhere it made itself accepted as an ally, nowhere as an enemy, of social custom. In Japan it adopted the same policy which had secured its progress on the continent; and in order to form any clear conception of Japanese religious conditions, this fact must be kept in mind.

As the oldest extant Japanese texts—with the probable exception of some Shinto rituals—date from the eighth century, it is only possible to surmise the social conditions of that earlier epoch in which there was no form of religion but ancestor-worship. Only by imagining the absence of all Chinese and Korean influences, can we form some vague idea of the state of things which existed during the so-called Age of the Gods,—and it is difficult to decide at what period these influences began to operate. Confucianism appears to have preceded Buddhism by a considerable interval; and its progress, as an organizing power, was much more rapid. Buddhism was first introduced from Korea, about 552 A.D.; but the mission accomplished little. By the end of the eighth century [185] the whole fabric of Japanese administration had been reorganized upon the Chinese plan, under Confucian influence; but it was not until well into the ninth century that Buddhism really began to spread throughout the country. Eventually it over-shadowed the national life, and coloured all the national thought. Yet the extraordinary conservatism of the ancient ancestor-cult—its inherent power of resisting fusion—was exemplified by the readiness with which the two religions fell apart on the disestablishment of Buddhism in 1871. After having been literally overlaid by Buddhism for nearly a thousand years, Shinto immediately reassumed its archaic simplicity, and reestablished the unaltered forms of its earliest rites.

But the attempt of Buddhism to absorb Shinto seemed at one period to have almost succeeded. The method of the absorption is said to have been devised, about the year 800, by the famous founder of the Shingon sect, Kukai or "Kobodaishi" (as he is popularly called), who first declared the higher Shinto gods to be incarnations of various Buddhas. But in this matter, of course, Kobodaishi was merely following precedents of Buddhist policy. Under the name of Ryobu-Shinto,* the new compound of Shinto and Buddhism obtained imperial approval and support. [*The term "Ryobu" signifies "two-departments" or "two religions."] Thereafter, in hundreds of [186] places, the two religions were domiciled within the same precinct—sometimes even within the same building: they seemed to have been veritably amalgamated. And nevertheless there was no real fusion;—after ten centuries of such contact they separated again, as lightly as if they had never touched. It was only in the domestic form of the ancestor-cult that Buddhism really affected permanent modifications; yet even these were neither fundamental nor universal. In certain provinces they were not made; and almost everywhere a considerable part of the population preferred to follow the Shinto form of the ancestor-cult. Yet another large class of persons, converts to Buddhism, continued to profess the older creed as well; and, while practising their ancestor-worship according to the Buddhist rite, maintained separately also the domestic worship of the elder gods. In most Japanese houses to-day, the "god-shelf" and the Buddhist shrine can both be found; both cults being maintained under the same roof.* ... But I am mentioning these facts only as illustrating the conservative vitality of Shinto, not as indicating any weakness in the Buddhist propaganda. Unquestionably the influence which Buddhism exerted upon Japanese [187] civilization was immense, profound, multiform, incalculable; and the only wonder is that it should not have been able to stifle Shinto forever. To state, as various writers have carelessly stated, that Buddhism became the popular religion, while Shinto remained the official religion, is altogether misleading. As a matter of fact Buddhism became as much an official religion as Shinto itself, and influenced the lives of the highest classes not less than the lives of the poor. It made monks of Emperors, and nuns of their daughters; it decided the conduct of rulers, the nature of decrees, and the administration of laws. In every community the Buddhist parish-priest was a public official as well as a spiritual teacher: he kept the parish register, and made report to the authorities upon local matters of importance.

[*The ancestor-worship and the funeral rites are Buddhist, as a general rule, if the family be Buddhist; but the Shinto gods are also worshipped in most Buddhist households, except those attached to the Shin sect. Many followers of even the Shin sect, however, appear to follow the ancient religion likewise; and they have their Ujigami.]

By introducing the love of learning, Confucianism had partly prepared the way for Buddhism. As early even as the first century there were some Chinese scholars in Japan; but it was toward the close of the third century that the study of Chinese literature first really became fashionable among the ruling classes. Confucianism, however, did not represent a new religion: it was a system of ethical teachings founded upon an ancestor-worship much like that of Japan. What it had to offer was a kind of social philosophy,—an explanation of the [188] eternal reason of things. It reinforced and expanded the doctrine of filial piety; it regulated and elaborated preexisting ceremonial; and it systematized all the ethics of government. In the education of the ruling classes it became a great power, and has so remained down to the present day. Its doctrines were humane, in the best meaning of the word; and striking evidence of its humanizing effect on government policy may be found in the laws and the maxims of that wisest of Japanese rulers—Iyeyasu.

But the religion of the Buddha brought to Japan another and a wider humanizing influence,—a new gospel of tenderness,—together with a multitude of new beliefs that were able to accommodate themselves to the old, in spite of fundamental dissimilarity. In the highest meaning of the term, it was a civilizing power. Besides teaching new respect for life, the duty of kindness to animals as well as to all human beings, the consequence of present acts upon the conditions of a future existence, the duty of resignation to pain as the inevitable result of forgotten error, it actually gave to Japan the arts and the industries of China. Architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, printing, gardening—in short, every art and industry that helped to make life beautiful—developed first in Japan under Buddhist teaching.

There are many forms of Buddhism; and in [189] modern Japan there are twelve principal Buddhist sects; but, for present purposes, it will be enough to speak, in the most general way, of popular Buddhism only, as distinguished from philosophical Buddhism, which I shall touch upon in a subsequent chapter. The higher Buddhism could not, at any time or in any country, have had a large popular following; and it is a mistake to suppose that its particular doctrines—such as the doctrine of Nirvana—were taught to the common people. Only such forms of doctrine were preached as could be made intelligible and attractive to very simple minds. There is a Buddhist proverb: "First observe the person; then preach the Law,"—that is to say, Adapt your instruction to the capacity of the listener. In Japan, as in China, Buddhism had to adapt its instruction to the mental capacity of large classes of people yet unaccustomed to abstract ideas. Even to this day the masses do not know so much as the meaning of the word "Nirvana" (Nehan): they have been taught only the simpler forms of the religion; and in dwelling upon these, it will be needless to consider differences of sect and dogma.

To appreciate the direct influence of Buddhist teaching upon the minds of the common people, we must remember that in Shinto there was no doctrine of metempsychosis. As I have said before, the spirits of the dead, according to ancient Japanese thinking, continued to exist in the world: they [190] mingled somehow with the viewless forces of nature, and acted through them. Everything happened by the agency of these spirits—evil or good. Those who had been wicked in life remained wicked after death; those who had been good in life became good gods after death; but all were to be propitiated. No idea of future reward or punishment existed before the coming of Buddhism: there was no notion of any heaven or hell. The happiness of ghosts and gods alike was supposed to depend upon the worship and the offerings of the living.

With these ancient beliefs Buddhism attempted to interfere only by expanding and expounding them,—by interpreting them in a totally new light. Modifications were effected, but no suppressions: we might even say that Buddhism accepted the whole body of the old beliefs. It was true, the new teaching declared, that the dead continued to exist invisibly; and it was not wrong to suppose that they became divinities, since all of them were destined, sooner or later, to enter upon the way to Buddhahood—the divine condition. Buddhism acknowledged likewise the greater gods of Shinto, with all their attributes and dignities,—declaring them incarnations of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas: thus the goddess of the sun was identified with Dai-Nichi-Nyorai (the Tathagata Mahavairokana); the deity Hachiman was identified with Amida (Amitabha). Nor did Buddhism deny the existence of goblins [191] and evil gods: these were identified with the Pretas and the Merakayikas; and the Japanese popular term for goblin, Ma, to-day reminds us of this identification. As for wicked ghosts, they were to be thought of as Pretas only,—Gaki,—self-doomed by the errors of former lives to the Circle of Perpetual Hunger. The ancient sacrifices to the various gods of disease and pestilence—gods of fever, small-pox, dysentery, consumption, coughs, and colds—were continued with Buddhist approval; but converts were bidden to consider such maleficent beings as Pretas, and to present them with only such food-offerings as are bestowed upon Pretas—not for propitiation, but for the purpose of relieving ghostly pain. In this case, as in the case of the ancestral spirits, Buddhism prescribed that the prayers to be repeated were to be said for the sake of the haunters, rather than to them.... The reader may be reminded of the fact that Roman Catholicism, by making a similar provision, still practically tolerates a continuance of the ancient European ancestor-worship. And we cannot consider that worship extinct in any of those Western countries where the peasants still feast their dead upon the Night of All Souls.

Buddhism, however, did more than tolerate the old rites. It cultivated and elaborated them. Under its teaching a new and beautiful form of the domestic cult came into existence; and all the [192] touching poetry of ancestor-worship in modern Japan can be traced to the teaching of the Buddhist missionaries. Though ceasing to regard their dead as gods in the ancient sense, the Japanese converts were encouraged to believe in their presence, and to address them in terms of reverence and affection. It is worthy of remark that the doctrine of Pretas gave new force to the ancient fear of neglecting the domestic rites. Ghosts unloved might not become "evil gods" in the Shinto meaning of the term; but the malevolent Gaki was even more to be dreaded than the malevolent Kami,—for Buddhism defined in appalling ways the nature of the Gaki's power to harm. In various Buddhist funeral-rites, the dead are actually addressed as Gaki,—beings to be pitied but also to be feared,—much needing human sympathy and succour, but able to recompense the food-giver by ghostly help.

One particular attraction of Buddhist teaching was its simple and ingenious interpretation of nature. Countless matters which Shinto had never attempted to explain, and could not have explained, Buddhism expounded in detail, with much apparent consistency. Its explanations of the mysteries of birth, life, and death were at once consoling to pure minds, and wholesomely discomforting to bad consciences. It taught that the dead were happy or unhappy not directly because of the attention or the [193] neglect shown them by the living, but because of their past conduct while in the body.* It did not attempt to teach the higher doctrine of successive rebirths,—which the people could not possibly have understood,—but the merely symbolic doctrine of transmigration, which everybody could understand. To die was not to melt back into nature, but to be reincarnated; and the character of the new body, as well as the conditions of the new existence, would depend upon the quality of one's deeds and thoughts in the present body. All states and conditions of being were the consequence of past actions. Such a man was now rich and powerful, because in previous lives he had been generous and kindly; such another man was now sickly and poor, because in some previous existence he had been sensual and selfish. This woman was happy in her husband and her children, because in the time of a former birth she had proved herself a loving daughter and a faithful spouse; this other was wretched and childless, because in some anterior existence she had been a jealous wife and a cruel mother. "To hate your enemy," the Buddhist preacher would proclaim, "is [194] foolish as well as wrong: he is now your enemy only because of some treachery that you practised upon him in a previous life, when he desired to be your friend. Resign yourself to the injury which he now does you accept it as the expiation of your forgotten fault... The girl whom you hoped to marry has been refused you by her parents,—given away to another. But once, in another existence, she was yours by promise; and you broke the pledge then given.... Painful indeed the loss of your child; but this loss is the consequence of having, in some former life, refused affection where affection was due.... Maimed by mishap, you can no longer earn your living as before. Yet this mishap is really due to the fact that in some previous existence you wantonly inflicted bodily injury. Now the evil of your own act has returned upon you: repent of your crime, and pray that its Karma may be exhausted by this present suffering." ... All the sorrows of men were thus explained and consoled. Life was expounded as representing but one stage of a measureless journey, whose way stretched back through all the night of the past, and forward through all the mystery of the future,—out of eternities forgotten into the eternities to be; and the world itself was to be thought of only as a traveller's resting-place, an inn by the roadside.

[*The reader will doubtless wonder how Buddhism could reconcile its doctrine of successive rebirths with the ideas of ancestor-worship, If one died only to be born again, what could be the use of offering food or addressing any kind of prayer to the reincarnated spirit? This difficulty was met by the teaching that the dead were not immediately reborn in most cases, but entered into a particular condition called Chu-U. They might remain in this disembodied condition for the time of one hundred years, after which they were reincarnated. The Buddhist services for the dead are consequently limited to the time of one hundred years.]

Instead of preaching to the people about Nirvana, [195] Buddhism discoursed to them of blisses to be won and pains to be avoided: the Paradise of Amida, Lord of Immeasurable Light; the eight hot hells called To-kwatsu, and the eight icy hells called Abuda. On the subject of future punishment the teaching was very horrible: I should advise no one of delicate nerves to read the Japanese, or rather the Chinese accounts of hell. But hell was the penalty for supreme wickedness only: it was not eternal; and the demons themselves would at last be saved.... Heaven was to be the reward of good deeds: the reward might indeed be delayed, through many successive rebirths, by reason of lingering Karma; but, on the other hand, it might be attained by virtue of a single holy act in this present life. Besides, prior to the period of supreme reward, each succeeding rebirth could be made happier than the preceding one by persistent effort in the holy Way. Even as regarded conditions in this transitory world, the results of virtuous conduct were not to be despised. The beggar of to-day might to-morrow be reborn in the palace of a daimyo; the blind shampooer might become, in his very next life, an imperial minister. Always the recompense would be proportionate to the sum of merit. In this lower world to practise the highest virtue was difficult; and the great rewards were hard to win. But for all good deeds a recompense was sure; and there was no one who could not acquire merit. [196] Even the Shinto doctrine of conscience—the god-given sense of right and wrong—was not denied by Buddhism. But this conscience was interpreted as the essential wisdom of the Buddha dormant in every human creature,—wisdom darkened by ignorance, clogged by desire, fettered by Karma, but destined sooner or later to fully awaken, and to flood the mind with light.