The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume XIII, 1917
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THE SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF THE EAST WITH HISTORICAL SURVEYS OF THE CHIEF WRITINGS OF EACH NATION Translations, Bibliographies, etc., by the following Leading Orientalists: IN AMERICA: MORRIS JASTROW. LL.D., Professor of Semitic Languages, University of Penn- sylvania; JAMES H. BREASTED, LL.D., Professor of Egyptology, University of Chicago; CHARLES C. TORREY, D.D., Professor of Semitic Languages, Yale University; A. V. W. JACKSON, LL.D., Professor of Indo-Iranian, Columbia Uni- versity; CHARLES R. LANMAN, LL.D., Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard University; REV. CHARLES F. AIKEN, S.T.D., Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Catholic University; FRIEDRICH HIRTH, LL.D., Professor of Chinese, Columbia Uni- versity; REV. WILLIAM E. GRIFFIS, D.D., former Professor at the Imperial University, Tokio. IN EUROPE: E. A. W. BUDGE, F.S.A., Director of Egyptology in the British Museum; SIR GASTON MASPERO, D.C.L., Member of the Royal Institute of France; REV. A. H. SAYCE, LL.D., Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford University; W. FLINDERS-PETRIE, LL.D., Professor of Egyptology, University College, London; STEPHEN LANGDON, Ph.D., Professor of Assyriology, Oxford University, SIR ERNEST SATOW, LL.D., G.C.M.G., British Minister to Japan; H. OLDENBERG, LL.D., Professor of Sanskrit, Kiel University; T. W. RHYS-DAVIDS. LL.D., Librarian of the Royal Asiatic Society; ARMINIUS VAMBÊRY, LL.D., Professor of Oriental Languages, University of Budapest. IN ASIA: SIR M. COOMARA SWAMY, Legislative Council of Ceylon; ROMESH CHUNDER DUTT, CLE., Author of the History of Civilization in Ancient India; DARAB D. P. SANJANA, Educational Society of Bombay; VISCOUNT KENCHO SUYE- MATSU, LL.M., Japanese Minister of the Interior; SHEIK FAIZ-ULLAH-BHAI, Head Master of the Schools of Anjuman-i-Islam; RALPH T. GRIFFITH, President Benares College, India; JIVANJI JAMSHEDJI MODI, Fellow of Bombay Uni- versity, Officier de l'Académie Française. Under the editorship of a staff of specialists directed by PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D. PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC. NEW YORK LONDON This Volume is one of a complete set of the Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, consisting of fourteen volumes. In Volume I of the series will be found a cer- tificate as to the limitation of the edition and the registered number of this set. Copyright, 1917, Parke, Austin, and Lipscomb, Inc. THE GOD OF CHILDREN. This Japanese God of Children is known as Jizo or Jesu. THE SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF THE EAST —————— VOLUME XIII —————— JAPAN In Translations by REV. WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D., former Professor of the Japanese College, Tokio, Chairman of the St. Louis Congress of Re- ligions; SIR ERNEST SATOW, LL.D., G.C.M.G., former British Min- ister to Japan; VISCOUNT KENCHO SUYEMATSU, LL.M., Japanese Minister of the Interior; BASIL H. CHAMBERLAIN, former Professor of Japanese, Imperial University of Tokio; W. G. ASTON, Litt.D., C.M.G.; and REV. TIMOTHY RICHARDS, D.D., Litt.D. With a Brief Bibliography by PROF. WM. ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D.D., L.H.D. —————— With an Historical Survey and Descriptions by PROF. CHARLES F. HORNE, PH.D. PARKE, AUSTIN, AND LIPSCOMB, INC. NEW YORK LONDON "Let there be light."—GENESIS I, 3. ———— "There never was a false god, nor was there ever really a false religion, unless you call a child a false man."—MAX MÜLLER. CONTENTS OF VOLUME XIII ————————— JAPAN PAGE INTRODUCTION—The Youngest Civilized Race and Its Revelations of Primitive Religious Thought………… 1 I.—THE KOJIKI, or "Records of Ancient Matters" (A.D. 712)............................................................ 9 The Birth of the Deities .......................................... 14 Quarrel of the Gods Izanagi and Izanami ………… 23 Ama-terasu, the Sun-Goddess................................. 30 The Beast Legends.................................................. 43 The Champion of Japan.......................................... 51 II.—THE NIHONGI, or "Chronicles of Japan" (A.D. 720)….. 63 The Age of the Gods............................................... 67 Conquest of Japan .................................................. 76 Laws of Kotoku (A.D. 645) ..................................... 101 The Later Rulers ..................................................... 147 III.—THE YENGISHIKI, or Shinto Rituals (A.D. 927) ……… 161 The Harvest Ritual.................................................. 165 Ritual for the Wind Gods ....................................... 166 Ritual for Evil Spirits.............................................. 169 The Road God's Ritual............................................ 171 Rituals to the Sun-Goddess..................................... 172 Purification Ritual .................................................. 174 IV.—THE MAN-YOSHU, or "Myriad Leaves," Japan's Oldest Poetry (A.D. 760) ..................................... 177 v vi CONTENTS PAGE V.—THE KOKINSHU, or "Collection of Odes" (A.D. 905) 219 The Most Polished Poetry...................................... 223 The National Anthem ............................................. 227 VI.—GENJI MONOGATARI, the Foremost Japanese Novel (about A.D. 980) ................................................. 229 VII.—THE MEDIEVAL DRAMA OF JAPAN (about A.D. 1400) 347 The Death Stone..................................................... 352 Life Is a Dream ...................................................... 360 VIII.—BASHO, the Chief Japanese Poet (A.D. 1644-1694) 369 The Hokku or Epigram Verses .............................. 372 IX.—MODERN BUDDHISM IN JAPAN.................................... 393 The Gospel of the White Lotus............................... 396 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................ 415 ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME XIII ———————— FACING PAGE Jesu, the God of Children ............................................ Frontispiece The Japanese Angel Spirit, Kichijo ..................................... 168 A Japanese Poet.................................................................. 224 Nicheren Shonin, a Portrait ................................................ 320 The Great Bronze Buddha of Tokio ................................... 400 vii SACRED BOOKS AND EARLY LITERATURE OF JAPAN ——— INTRODUCTION THE YOUNGEST CIVILIZED RACE AND ITS REVELATIONS OF PRIMITIVE RELIGIOUS THOUGHT MID all the wonderment expressed by our generation over A Japan's sudden acceptance of modern conditions and her enormous stride into the foremost place among Asiatic nations, it has been seldom noted that this is the second time the Japanese have thus seized upon an advanced civilization, recognized its worth, and forcefully made it their own. Ex- actly what they are doing now, they did some thirteen hundred years ago with the Chinese civilization. Before that time the Japanese could neither read nor write. They are thus the youngest among modern great nations. The Americans and Australians were colonists, the vigorous heirs of an older civilization; the Japanese have grown from the childhood — almost from the infancy — of barbarism within the sight, within reach of the study, of our older races. It is this fact which makes the examination of Japan's literature and her religious thought so specially interesting. It is due to this fact that, while her literature is the youngest, her books are the oldest among eastern Asiatic nations. The Japanese treasured their early books with an almost super- stitious reverence. As a matter of actual manuscripts, there is no Chinese book so old, no book among any of the yellow or Turanian races so old, as the volumes now treasured in the l 2 THE SACRED BOOKS shrines of Japan. Here then, if anywhere, we may watch literature as it is first born. This primitive character of the early Japanese books must be insisted on, lest the reader feel himself disappointed when he compares the sacred books of Japan with those we have previously examined. Not even the "Pyramid Texts" of Egypt, not even the first Babylonian legends of the Hood, show man in such a primitive state of physical life and spir- itual culture as is revealed in the ancient rituals of "Shinto," the original religion of Japan. Even the legends of the Japanese only date back the earthly origin of the race to some six hundred years before Christ. At about that date, the old books say, the Sun-goddess Ama- terasu sent down her grandchildren from Heaven to invade and occupy Japan. Their leader was the god, or chief grand- child of the goddess, now known as the first Mikado of Japan. Both as god and man he is highly honored under the Chinese name, given him many centuries after his death, of Jimmu or Jimmu Tenno. We do not really know if the mighty Jimmu ever existed, and the date of his conquest of Japan has no authority that European chronology would accept for a moment. All that we positively know is that a thousand years later the Japanese race were in control of the land, and then, in the fifth or sixth century A.D., there came to them Chinese scholars bringing the Chinese civilization and the Chinese writing. The Jap- anese welcomed these things; they absorbed their value as completely as they have absorbed modern civilization to-day. Almost immediately they began writing books of their own; and the earliest of these books to be preserved were the now celebrated "Kojiki" and "Nihongi," which thus present to us the statements of the first civilized Japanese as to the tra- ditions of their past. THE "KOJIKI" AND "NIHONGI" The "Kojiki" and "Nihongi" are the books which tell us of the invading