National Faith of Japan

THE NATIONAL FAITH OF JAPAN By D. C. Holtom THE NATIONAL FAITH OF JAPAN The Entrance to ft Mount THE NATIONAL FAITH OF JAPAN A Study in Modern Shinto By D. C. HOLTOM Ph.D., D.D. Author of The Political Philosophy of Modern Shinto and The Japanese Enthronement Ceremonies Routledge R Taylor &. Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published in 1965 by Kegan Paul International This edition first published in 2010 by Roudedge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Roudedge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Roudedge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1965 by Paragon Book Reprint Corp. Transferred to Digital Printing 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-7103-0521-4 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-7103-0521-3 (hbk) Publisher's Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent. The publisher has made every effort to contact original copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace. Contents Page Foreword xi Part I. State Shinto I. Some Primary Aspects 3 II. Early and Mediaeval Forms of Shinto 21 III. Modern Shinto : Adjustments with Buddhism 53 IV. Modern Shinto : The Legal Separation of the State System 67 V. The Official History 77 VI. The Fundamental Myth 93 VII. Sky Father and Earth Mother 109 VIII. The Worship of the Sun Goddess 123 IX. History and the Sun Goddess 139 X. Ceremonies and Charms 153 XI. Gods and Goddesses 171 Part II. Sect Shinto XII. The Pure Shinto Sects 189 XIII. The Confucian Sects 205 XIV. The Mountain Sects 215 XV. The Purification Sects 233 XVI. The Faith-healing Sects : Kurozumi Kyo 245 XVII. The Faith-healing Sects : Konko Kyo 257 XVIII. The Faith-healing Sects : Tenri Kyo 267 Part III. XIX. Some Problems and Conclusions 289 General Index 317 List of Illustrations Entrance to a mountain shrine Frontispiece Facing page Sketches of the Grand Imperial Shrine of Ise 6 Rural wayside shrines 8 Sketch of a primitive shrine 14 Diagram of a large Shinto shrine 20 The Iseyama Shrine of Yokohama 30 The approach to the Itsuku-shima shrine at high tide 50 The approach to the Nikkd shrines 56 Torii and pagoda of the Toshogu at Nikkd 66 Torii of the shrine at Itsuku-shima 92 A Shinto procession no The Great Gate at Nikko 120 The Sacred Palanquin 138 A lintel placard for protection against earthquakes 152 A lintel placard for protection against fire and burglary 162 Personal amulets 166 Luck-bringing lintel placards 170 The approach to the Yasukuni Jinja 178 A Shinto dedication ceremony 186 A mountain-top shrine 216 A priest of one of the modern Shinto sects 234 The national headquarters of Konko Kyo 256 The altars of a Konko Kyo church 264 Tenri Kyo Lecture Hall 274 Tenri Kyo Guest House at Nara 286 The mausoleum of Emperor Meiji at Momoyama 306 FOREWORD Justification for the writing of this book lies in the two fold fact of the existence of a practically open field and the special importance of a knowledge of Shinto in reaching an adequate understanding of contemporary Japan—politically, so cially and religiously. Since the publication in 1905 of W. G. Aston's notable work, Shinto, The Way of the Gods, no study of this subject, aiming at comprehensiveness of design, has ap peared in the English language. Special aspects have been dealt with by different writers but no attempt at a historical survey such as would place the salient facts of the total situation in the hands of the serious Western student of Oriental affairs has been made. Aston's book is still standard but it is not easy to procure and deals mainly with the Old Shinto of the classical age. It antedates some of the most important modern develop ments. The present volume is offered in the humble hope that it may assist in the meeting of a genuine need in the sphere of interest of which it treats. In 1922 the Asiatic Society of Japan published as Volume XLIX, Part II, of their Transactions (Tokyo) my study of the contemporary Japanese politico-religious situation entitled, The Political Philosophy of Modern Shinto. The great earthquake and fire of 1923 followed shortly afterwards and completely de stroyed the stock of this Society. As a result the book went quickly out of print. Since then I have been repeatedly urged by various people interested in the subject to issue a reprint of the 1922 volume and, as a matter of fact, not long after the 1923 earthquake the Council of the Asiatic Society of Japan sanctioned such an undertaking. In view, however, of what appears to be a growing desire in the West to avail itself of the data for a wider understanding of the field, it has seemed advisable to await the arrival of an opportunity for publishing a more gen eral study of modern Shinto. XI FOREWORD Meanwhile, both on the side of its immediate affiliations with the Japanese state and on that of relations with the ordinary religious life of the people, Shinto has not stood still. In rec ognition of this fact it has been deemed the course of better judgment to undertake a new study which would recognize change and progress, make use of the most recent documents available and at the same time permit a survey of the Thirteen Sects, a subject omitted from the 1922 volume and likewise a matter in great need of clarification among Occidental students of the Far East. My thanks are due the Council of the Asiatic Society of Japan for permission to make use of the material which I have pub lished in the Transactions. In the limited areas where this has been done in the present volume the earlier treatment has been entirely rewritten and redocumented with translations of the most recent original sources in the Japanese language. It is not possible for me to make adequate statement of my indebtedness to all those who have aided me in the preparation of this book, especially to those who have read the manuscript and offered various suggestions regarding form and contents. I wish, however, to make particular acknowledgment of my indebtedness to Mr. C. P. Garman through whose constant aid and advice the publication of the volume has been made possible. I wish also to express my gratitude to Prof. Eva R. Price and Mrs. M. D. Farnum for their generous assistance in reading the proof. My thanks are due Dr. Genchi Kato of Tokyo for per mission to use from his book, A Study of Shinto, The Religion of the Japanese Nation, the sketches of the Grand Imperial Shrine of Ise shown in the plate facing page six of my book. For other photographs I am especially indebted to Mr. Enami of Yokohama. Difficulty has often been experienced in discovering a middle road between too great detail, on the one hand, and the un warranted injection of personal interpretative material, on the other. At all times the primary purpose has been to be objec tive and historical and while it has been necessary to make the data representative rather than exhaustive, it is hoped that the xii FOREWORD treatment may be found sufficiently inclusive to provide a fair view of the make-up of the whole. A word should be added in explanation of the order used in printing Japanese personal and family names. Conforming to ordinary Japanese procedure, the surname is given first with the personal name following, e.g., Kawate (surname) Bunjiro (per sonal name). Some might see fit to make an issue of the preference shown for the form Shinto rather than Shintoism. The former is to be accepted, partly, because it conforms to the proper Japanese original, and, partly, because, as Aston has well said, Shintoism is, as a matter of fact, tautological, since to and ism are prac tically identical in meaning. D. C. Holtom November i, 1937 PART I STATE SHINTO CHAPTER I SOME PRIMARY ASPECTS The study of the sources from which a great people derive the inspiration of their major ideals and loyalties must ever be of importance to the rest of the world. The appropriate ness and even the necessity of such study become especially clear in the case of the relationship of Shinto to the Japanese national life. For, whether or not we regard Shinto as a religion, the fact remains that no other great nation of the present shows a more vital dependence on priestly rituals and their concomitant beliefs than does modern Japan. To find really pertinent parallels in the historical stream that has fed directly the culture of the West one must go back beyond the church-state liaison of the middle ages of Christendom to the hierarchies of classical Rome and Greece, or even farther back into the past to the sacerdotal communities of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. It is an extraordinary fact of contemporary civilization that among the great powers of the world one can find a nation which is attempting to secure social and political cohesion through the strength of a ceremonial nexus that was normal in occidental culture between two and four thousand years ago.

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