Shinto: The Way of the GodsShintoScholarly ReconstructionEnglish study drawing on Japanese sourcesShareShinto: The Way of the Gods 15Aston - EnglishMoreVersion - 1 availableAstonLanguageEnglishEspañol‹Shinto: The Way of the Gods 1Shinto: The Way of the Gods 2Shinto: The Way of the Gods 3Shinto: The Way of the Gods 4Shinto: The Way of the Gods 5Shinto: The Way of the Gods 6Shinto: The Way of the Gods 7Shinto: The Way of the Gods 8Shinto: The Way of the Gods 9Shinto: The Way of the Gods 10Shinto: The Way of the Gods 11Shinto: The Way of the Gods 12Shinto: The Way of the Gods 13Shinto: The Way of the Gods 14Shinto: The Way of the Gods 15Shinto: The Way of the Gods 16Shinto: The Way of the Gods 17Shinto: The Way of the Gods 18Shinto: The Way of the Gods 19Shinto: The Way of the Gods 20Shinto: The Way of the Gods 21Shinto: The Way of the Gods 22Shinto: The Way of the Gods 23Shinto: The Way of the Gods 24Shinto: The Way of the Gods 25Shinto: The Way of the Gods 26Shinto: The Way of the Gods 27Shinto: The Way of the Gods 28Shinto: The Way of the Gods 29Shinto: The Way of the Gods 30Shinto: The Way of the Gods 31›I. Deified Individual Men.Shinto: The Way of the Gods 15ListenPlay this chapter in spoken English.Save chapterListen to chapter1None of the Dii majores of the more ancient Shinto are deified individual men, and although it is highly probable that some of the inferior mythical personages were originally human beings, I am unable to point to a case of this kind which rests on anything more than conjecture. 2=Take-minakata=, the deity of Suha in Shinano, may be a real ancestral deity. He is very popular at the present day. This God is not mentioned in the Nihongi, but his legend is given in the Kojiki[147] and Kiujiki. He was a son of Ohonamochi, who, after his father's submission, refused allegiance to the Sun-Goddess and fled to Suha, where he was obliged to surrender, his life being spared. Tradition says that the present Oho-hafuri, or chief priests of Suha, are direct descendants of this deity. The inhabitants hold that the God is the Oho-hafuri, and that the Oho-hafuri is the God. An oracle of the God is quoted to this effect: "I have no body, the hafuri is my body." His house is called the shinden or divine dwelling. He never leaves the neighbourhood, and takes precedence of the chief local official. At every change of office the newly appointed high priest formerly received a cap of honour and robes from the Palace of Kiôto. He takes no active part in the ceremonies of the annual festival, but sits on a chair in the middle of the sacred plot of ground and receives the obeisances of the people. This festival is called the mi-hashira-matsuri or "festival of the august pillars." It is so called because instead of a shrine there is only a plot of ground containing a "rock-cave"[148] with a great wooden post at each of the four corners. 3=Hachiman=.--The War-God Hachiman is one of the most conspicuous of the later Shinto deities. His origin is really unknown, but he is placed provisionally among deified human beings in accordance with the accepted tradition which makes him identical with the very legendary Mikado Ôjin. The ultimate authority for this statement is an oracle of the God himself delivered hundreds of years after Ôjin's death. There is no mention of his worship in the Kojiki or Nihongi, and the legends which carry it back to A.D. 570 are unworthy of credence. The original seat of this cult was Usa, in the province of Buzen, an old Shinto centre. Hachiman seems to have first come into notice in 720, when he rendered efficient assistance in repelling a descent of Koreans on Japan. Forty years later Kiyomaro, the founder of the great Minamoto family, made use of his oracles to thwart the ambitious projects of a priest named Dôkiô, the Wolsey of Japanese history. The rise of the Minamoto family carried with it that of the God who had been so useful to them. In Seiwa's reign (859-880) a temple was erected to him at Ihashimidzu near Kiôto, where he received Imperial presents, and even visits. In 1039 he was given a high place in the State religion. 4Hachiman is nominally a Shinto God. His Shinto quality is recognized in various ways, notably by the erection of the distinctive Shinto gateways known as torii, before his shrines. But his cult is deeply tinctured with Buddhism. The numerous inspired utterances ascribed to him are thoroughly Buddhist in character. In several of these he calls himself Bosatsu (Bodhisattwa), which is a Buddhist term something like our saint. He is also credited with giving instructions for the celebration of an annual festival for the release of living things, which is, of course, a humanitarian Buddhist institution, wholly foreign to the rôle of a Japanese War-God. 5The shintai of Hachiman may be a pillow, a fly-brush, an arm-rest, or a white stone. 6Other legendary mortals, who in later times were honoured as War-Gods, are Jimmu, the founder of the Imperial dynasty, Jingō, the conqueror of Korea, Takechi no Sakune, her counsellor, and Prince Yamato-dake, the hero who subdued the east of Japan. None of these are treated as deities in the older Shinto books. 7=Temmangu=, the God of Learning and Calligraphy, is undoubtedly a deified human being. 8"There is nobody in the world, high or low, old or young, man or woman, who does not look up with reverence to the Divine power of Temmangu. More especially children who are learning to read and write, and their teachers, all without exception, enjoy his blessings. Every one is therefore desirous of knowing the exact truth concerning him. But there are many false notions handed down by vulgar tradition. Chinese scholars have wantonly done violence to the history of an awful deity by introducing Chinese ideas, while the Buddhists, on the other hand, have been guilty of disfiguring the story by all manner of forced analogies. Sad to say, there is no book in which the real facts have been set down after investigation." 9The above is the exordium of a preface to a short life of Temmangu, prepared by Shintoists of the Hirata school. Of the work itself the following is a brief summary. The main facts of the story are beyond question. But the reader will see that, notwithstanding the claims put forward in the preface, this work must be taken with not a few grains of salt. 10Temmangu's name as a mortal man was Sugahara Michizane. He was born in 845, and came of a family which had a hereditary reputation for learning. Nomi no Sukune, deified as the patron of wrestlers and potters, was one of his ancestors. Through him Michizane traced his descent up to the Sun-Goddess herself. As a child he was fond of study, and at an early age his knowledge of Chinese was such that he was appointed to entertain an ambassador from China. Being ordered by the Mikado to pray for rain, he observed the rules of ritual purity for several days, and then prepared a form of prayer to the God of Hakusan (Izanagi), which had the desired effect. He established a system of national education, and therefore became known as the "Father of letters." On reaching his fiftieth year he received congratulations and a present of gold dust from a genie. Soon afterwards he was made Prime Minister. In 901, owing to the calumnies of a rival statesman, he fell into unmerited disgrace and was banished to Kiushiu. On his departure he addressed the following lines to a plum tree in his garden:-- 11When the east wind[149] blows, Emit thy perfume Oh thou plum-blossom; Forget not the spring, Because thy master is away. 12A branch of this tree broke off spontaneously and followed him into exile. There it planted itself in the ground and took root. Two years after, Michizane climbed a high mountain and, standing on tiptoe on the summit, prayed with all his heart and all his body for seven days and seven nights to Tentei (the Supreme Lord of Heaven). Whilst doing so his hair and beard turned white. The Tentō (way of Heaven) had doubtless pity on an innocent man, for a cloud overspread the sky and bore up his petition into the Great Void. Michizane, overjoyed that his prayers were answered, made nine obeisances and retired. He died soon after, in his fifty-ninth year, to the great grief of the whole nation. Two years later, in accordance with a divine inspiration, a small shrine was erected to him under the title of Tem-man-ten-jin (the heavenly Kami who fills the heavens). In a few years Michizane's calumniator died by a curse from him. Other members of his family had the same fate. From the ears of one of his enemies small snakes issued who declared themselves the messengers of Michizane. When Prince Yasuaki died, in 923, everybody said that his death was owing to a curse sent by Michizane's spirit. Then the Minister of State Kintada died suddenly. 13Three days after, he came alive again, and informed the Mikado that he had been to the Court of the King of Hades, where he saw Michizane, ten feet high, present a petition for an inquiry into the crime committed by the Mikado in banishing him unjustly. Influenced by Kintada's report, the Mikado burnt the decree of exile, recalled Michizane's children, and conferred posthumous honours upon him. But the angry ghost was still unappeased. In 929 it came down from Heaven and appeared to a former friend of his. Terrible storms, inundations, and other portents ensued. Ministers who tried to stay him from further ravages were burnt or kicked to death. Ultimately the ghost appeared before the Mikado and protested his innocence, after which the Kami, as he is called, ascended. From this day forth the Mikado suffered from a poison which, in spite of prayers of all kinds, grew worse and worse. He abdicated in 930, and died a few days later. 14Michizane's ghost continued to plague the nation. In 943 he appeared to a mean woman of Kiôto, and directed that a shrine should be erected to him in that city. In 947 a boy of six years of age delivered an oracle from him to the following effect: "All the Thunder-Gods and Demons to the number of 168,000 have become my servants. If any one does evil I have him trampled to death by them. Pestilence, eruptive diseases, and other calamities have been placed in my hands by the Supreme Lord of Heaven, and no Kami, however powerful, can control me. But I will give help to those who piously express their sorrow." Eight persons who were present took down this revelation in writing. At this time the shrine of Kitano at Kiôto was erected to him. But his wrath was not yet wholly stayed. Further honours were therefore awarded and gifts made to him. In 1004 the Mikado visited Kitano in person. At the present day Temmangu is one of the most widely worshipped of Shinto deities. In 1820 there were twenty-five shrines to him in Yedo and the neighbourhood. 15"He still hates the wicked, who do not keep the way of filial piety, and withholds his favour from those who dislike learning. You must therefore attend strictly to the commands of your parents and the instructions of your teachers. You must serve your chief with diligence, be upright of heart, eschew falsehood, and be diligent in study so that you may conform to the wishes of Temmangu. If you fail to do so, you will be cursed by him, and sooner or later incur calamity. For although the Kami cannot be seen by men, they will know whether their conduct is good or bad, and whether their hearts are upright or perverted." 16Although the life of Temmangu, from which the above account is taken, was compiled by men of the "Pure Shinto" school, and though in the preface the importation of Buddhist and Chinese ideas is stigmatized, it is itself penetrated with elements of this very kind. The "Supreme Lord of Heaven" is Chinese, and the Hades to which Michizane descended is not the Shinto Yomi, but the Buddhist Jigoku. No doubt the authors found these things in their materials, and were loth to excise edifying incidents, however badly they fitted in with Shinto theology. 17The acquaintance of the Japanese with the Chinese cult of Confucius must have greatly promoted, if it did not originate the worship of a native God of Learning. It will be observed that the attribution of nature-powers to Michizane was a substantial part of the process of deification, which was based on the alternate influence of the emotions of gratitude and fear. 18Nomi no Sukune, the Patron-God of wrestlers, was probably a real human being. Hitomaro, the Poet-God, was undoubtedly so. Another muse of poetry, Sotoöri-hime, belongs to more legendary times, but was probably likewise a real person. Iyeyasu, the founder of the last dynasty of Shöguns, was deified under the title of Töshö Gongen, but this, like many other similar apotheoses, is, in reality, Buddhist rather than Shinto. ‹Previous chapterShinto: The Way of the Gods 14Next chapterShinto: The Way of the Gods 16›Similar passagesBy tradition and source labelFind similarCompare selectedCompare with similarAsk Deep ThoughtSelect passages to search for parallels.Tap any verse to select it, then compare selected passages or ask Deep Thought. Public domain in the United States via Project Gutenberg