discord reigned, wTiich the sun-goddess seeing resolved to correct by sending her grandson, Ninigi, to earth to rule over it. She gave him a mirror — the emblem of her own soul — a sword of divine temper taken by Su- sanoii from the tail of an eight-headed dragon which he had slain, and a seal or ball. Accompanied by a great retinue of deities, he descended by means of the fioat- ing bri<lge of heaven on which the divine first pair had stood to JMount Kirishima (which lies between Hiuga and Satsuma\ After bis descent, heaven and earth, which had already separated to a considerable distance, receded utterly, and further communication ceased. Ninigi was received with due honors by the earthly kami, and began to rule without much opposition. His grandson, whose mother was a dragon in the form of a woman, was Jimmu Tenno (as he is usually styled), the first mikado of Japan. At this point the first vol- ume of the Kojiki ends. Thenceforth the narratives of the Kojiki (with NUiow/i) form the history of Japan to the time of Suiko (empress), who reigned A.D. 593- ()">8, and on these books all subsequent works are based.
The KojiH and Nihonr/i form the historic and doctri- nal basis of Shinto, and from them we gather its char- acteristics. Its cosmogony and thcogony is evolution. In it is no Supreme God, Creator, or Trinity (as some foreign writers have said). Its highest gods were once creatures before being creators, and all its lower grades of deities were once men. The Shinto earth is Japan; its heaven is immediately above the mikado's realm. The literal meaning of the names of the several pairs of deities jireceding the first having sex, and the com- ments of the native writers, show that they are merely names descriptive of the various stages through which they passed before arriving at the perfection of exist- ence. Thus, some of the names of these rudimentarj- deities are " First Mud," " Sand and Mud," " Body with- out Hands, Feet, or Head — fa?tus," "Beginning of Breath," " Complete Perfection," " Awful One," etc. Thus, out of the mud, through a series of protoplastic deities, the first creative pair evolved unto perfection.
So far we have given an outline of the Kojiki and Kihowji texts, refraining from any but the most neces- sary explanations or comment. From the acknowl- edged native orthodox commentators, who add much more in works which are the richest mines for tlie stu- dent of Ja])anese archaeologj' and religion, we add further explanation. The description of the act of Izanagi and Izanami in creating Japan is only a euphemism for tlie sexual act. The jewelled spear, Hirata thinks, was in the form of a lingo. The worship of the phallus has from prehistoric times been nearly universal in Japan (77/e Mikudo's Empire, p. 33, note). The point of the spear became the axis of the earth. That "the mo- tion imparted to the fluid mass of earth was the origin of its daily revolutions" is a statement showing how the acipiisition of European knowledge enables a Shinto commentator to accominodate an ancient text to mod- ern notions. The island formed by the congeale<l drops was once at the north pole, but has since taken its present position in the Inland Sea. Japan lies on the top of the globe, which accounts for the fact that she escaped the flood which took place in China in the reign of Vao (B.C. 2356), and by which Occidental countries were drowned, China and Corca siitt"ering less, because near Japan. The stars were formed when Izanagi's spear was drawn out of the earth ; the muck which was inilit to enter into the composition of the world flew off in hniips into space and became the stars. After the birth of the Japan islands (Yezo and Saghalin not be- ing mentioned, as these were not discovered till long after tln^ writing of the Kojiki) by ordinary generation, the remaining small islands and foreign countries were formed by the sjiontancous consolidation of the foam of the sea; hence their immeasurable iiiferinrily. Hence .lapan is the Holy Country — the hand of the (iods^and the mikado is the 'I'cnno (heavenly king) and the Ten-
SHINTO
689
SHINTO
shi (son of heaven) whom all Japanese must reverently obey.
Shinto contains no moral codes. The duty of the Shintoist is to live in fear and reverence of the mem- ories of the dead, to imitate the example of the gods and ilhistrious ancestors. Shinto prescribes no ritual, formulates no dogmas, contains no argument, teaches no immortality, commands no polemic propagation. These two latter doctrines may be easily developed from its Scriptures, as in practice they have been, since all men are derived from gods who are immortal, and the heav- enly kami made war upon the earthly, and the mikados by divine right slew the disobedient rebels. The pre- scribed ecclesiastical machinery and personnel are ex- tremely simple. Its temples {miya, " house worthy of honor") are thatched or shingled edifices o( kinokiviood, about which there should be no paint, gilding, or gaudy decoration. The type of Shinto architecture, easily recognised, is the primitive hut with ridge-pole and cross-beams. Within are no idols or emblems. Noth- ing is visible save the strips of notched white paper called the gohei, which depend from a wand of hinoki wood, or are fixed in a pair of vases. A mirror — em- blem of the purity of the sun-goddess — a closet of hinoki containing a paper on which a prayer is written, and, on occasions, the offerings of fruit, fish, and various foods, which become the property of the shrine-keepers, are the appurtenances of a Shinto temple. Outside, at the entrance of the path leading to the shrine, is the toy-ii (bird-rest), or portal, now serving to the common mind as a gateway, but anciently used as a perch for the sacred fowls who proclaimed the break of day. Among the most approved of the ancient sacrifices, besides rice, rice-beer, fine cloth and coarse cloth, silk and brocade (now partly symbolized by the qohei), were white horses, boars, and cocks — the first for the per- sonal use of the gods, the second for food, and the third for time-keepers. A pecidiarity concerning the living sacrifices was that they were not slaughtered, but after being hung up by the legs before the shrine were again set free. Sin was recognised, and the need of confes- sion and cleansing recognised. All sin was conceived as pollution. The chief Shinto rite is that of purifica- tion, and its rituals consist almost wholly, besides offer- ings, of pra3'ers for cleansing and actual lustrations. Anciently the mikados commanded public ablutions in the river. Later on. the symbolical cleansing from sin Avas made by the people casting paper figures of men into the river; then the mikado deputed the high-priest at Kioto to perform the symbolical act for the whole na-