Moral Code.—Shinto has hardly anything in the shape of a code of morals. The Ohoharahi, a service in which the Mikado, by divine authority, declared to his ministers and people the absolution of their offences against the gods, makes no mention of any one of the sins of the Decalogue. M. Revon, the author of a valuable treatise on Shinto, challenges this statement, which I had already made in my History of Japanese Literature. He maintains that from a comparison of the Decalogue and the Ohoharahi, ‘Il rÉsulte avec Évidence que tous les commandements essentiels du DÉcalogue (sur le meurtre, le vol, la fornication, etc.), se retrouvent dans notre rituel.’2 In view of the importance of the subject, and of M. Revon’s acknowledged competence as a writer on Shinto, it is desirable to examine this assertion more closely. His ‘etc.’ puzzles me. I am unable to find in the Ohoharahi the smallest trace of any of the seven commandments which it covers, and can only suppose that it is a mere flourish of M. Revon’s exuberant imagination. It will be seen that for the ‘adultery’ of the Decalogue M. Revon has substituted ‘fornication.’ Is it not a cas pendable to tamper with the ten commandments in this way? But neither adultery nor fornication are mentioned in the Ohoharahi. Incest is included in the latter’s schedule of offences, but, pace M. Revon, incest and adultery are distinct offences. Theft is not mentioned in the Ohoharahi. The planting of skewers (of offerings in rice-fields) is one of its offences, but even if the commentator is right who conjectures that this was done for a dishonest purpose, I submit that so highly specific an offence is by no means the same thing as the far more general theft of the Decalogue. The case of ‘murder’ of the Mosaic code, and ‘the cutting of living bodies’ of the Ohoharahi is more complicated. Murder is at the same time more and less comprehensive than the corresponding Shinto offence. The Jewish prohibition is more extensive, as it includes murder by poison, strangling, drowning, etc., and it is more restricted as it omits minor injuries. But there is a profound difference between the motives which prompted the two prohibitions. It is the crime of taking away human life which is condemned in the Decalogue: the Ohoharahi objects to wounds as nasty, unsightly things, unmeet for a God to look upon or to be in any way associated with. Self-inflicted wounds, the cutting of dead bodies, or wounds inflicted by others, caused uncleanness just as much as the wounding of others. Justifiable homicide required absolution equally with felonious murder. In a word, the Japanese offence was ritual, the Jewish moral.
There are moral elements in the Ohoharahi, but they are scanty, and M. Revon greatly overestimates their importance. Not only does it contain no explicit mention of any of the sins of the Decalogue—which is all that I contended for—but it has hardly anything which even implicitly condemns them. Shintoists do not deny this feature of their religion, but claim that the absence of a code of ethics is a proof of the superior natural goodness of the Japanese nation. It needs no such artificial aids to virtuous conduct.
Purity.—But if ethics are conspicuously absent from Shinto, the doctrine of uncleanness holds a prominent position. Actual personal dirt was obnoxious to the gods, as is evidenced by the frequent mention of bathing and putting on fresh garments before the discharge of religious functions. Sexual acts of various kinds, such as the consummation of a marriage, incest (within narrow limits), interference with virgin priestesses, menstruation and child-birth, were accompanied with disabilities for the service of the gods. Curiously enough, adultery, though cognisable by the courts of justice, did not entail religious uncleanness. Disease, especially leprosy (as in the Mosaic legislation), wounds and sores involved various degrees of pollution. The death of a relative, attendance at a funeral, touching a dead body, pronouncing or executing a capital sentence, all incapacitated a man temporarily for the discharge of religious duties. Lafcadio Hearn thought that the miya or shrine was a development of the moya or mourning house, where the dead bodies of sovereigns and nobles were deposited until their costly megalithic tombs could be got ready. This view harmonises nicely with Herbert Spencer’s well-known theories, but an ancient Shintoist would have considered it not only erroneous, but blasphemous. As in ancient Greece, the gods had nothing to do with such a polluting thing as death. Shinto funerals, of which we have heard a good deal of late, were unknown in ancient Japan. They date from 1868. Shinto shrines have no cemeteries attached to them. Eating flesh was formerly not considered offensive to the gods, but later, under Buddhist influence, it fell under prohibition. The fire with which impure food was cooked also contracted impurity. To avoid the danger of such defilement, fresh fire was made by a fire-drill for all the more important ceremonies. Everything Buddhist, rites, terms, etc., were at one time placed under a Shinto tabu. When a festival was approaching, the intending participant was specially careful to avoid (imi) all possible sources of pollution. He shut himself up in his house, refrained from speech and noise and ate food cooked at a pure fire. A special imi of one month was observed by the priests before officiating at the greater festivals. An imi-dono (sacred hall) was a hall in which purity was observed, imi-axes and imi-mattocks were used to cut the first tree and turn the first sod when a sacred building was to be erected. If, in spite of all precaution, defilement took place, consciously or unconsciously, various expedients were resorted to for its removal. Lustration was the most common. After a funeral, it has been the rule at all periods of Japanese history for the relatives of the deceased to purify themselves in this way. Izanagi, after his visit to Hades, washed in the sea. Salt is sometimes dissolved in the water used for this purpose, and is employed in other ways to avert evil influences. Spitting, rinsing the mouth, and breathing on an object to which the impurity is communicated, are familiar practices. Human figures were sometimes breathed upon and flung into the sea in order to carry off pollution. In modern times a gohei is shaken over the person to be purified.
Ceremonial is the combination for some specific purpose of the various elements of worship described above. The great ceremony of the Shinto religion is that known as the Ohonihe or DaijÔwe, which means ‘great-food-offering.’ It is the equivalent of our coronation, and its cardinal feature was the Mikado’s offering in person to the god or gods, represented by a cushion, the first rice of the new harvest, and of sake brewed from it. A modern Japanese writer says:—
‘Anciently the Mikado received the auspicious grain from the Gods of Heaven, and therewithal nourished the people. In the DaijÔwe (or Ohonihe) the Mikado, when the grain became ripe, joined unto him the people in sincere veneration, and, as in duty bound, made return to the Gods of Heaven. He thereafter partook of it along with the nation. Thus the people learnt that the grain which they eat is no other than the seed bestowed on them by the Gods of Heaven.’
The Ohonihe was a most elaborate and costly function. The preparations were begun months in advance. In times of scarcity, it had to be omitted as too great a burden on the nation.
The Nihiname, or new-tasting, is the annual harvest festival when the new season’s rice was first tasted by the Mikado. The Ohonihe was only a more sumptuous form of it. The English counterpart of the Nihiname is Lammas, i.e. loaf-mass, in which bread made from the new season’s wheat was used for the first time in the Holy Communion. There was, in former times, a household as well as an official celebration of this rite. Strict people will not eat the new rice until it is over.
The Toshigohi (praying for harvest) was another important ceremony of the state religion. Not only the special gods of harvest, but practically all the divinities were propitiated by offerings, and a norito recited in their honour, of which the following is a passage:—
‘If the Sovran Gods will bestow in ears many a hand’s breadth long and ears abundant the latter harvest which they will bestow, the latter harvest produced by the labour of men from whose arms the foam drips down, on whose opposing thighs the mud is gathered, I will fulfil their praises by humbly offering first fruits, of ears a thousand, of ears many a hundred, raising up the tops of the sake-jars, and setting in rows the bellies of the sake-jars, in juice and in ear will I present them, of things growing in the great moor-plain, sweet herbs and bitter herbs, of things that dwell in the blue sea-plain, the broad of fin and the narrow of fin, edible seaweed, too, from the offing and seaweed from the shore, of clothing, bright stuffs and shining stuffs, soft stuffs and coarse stuffs—with these I will fulfil your praises.’
Kiu no matsuri (praying for rain) was a service in which the gods of eighty-five shrines were asked to send rain. To some of these a black horse was offered as a suggestion that black rain-clouds would be welcome.
Ohoharahi, great purification or absolution. This is one of the most curious and interesting of the great ceremonies of the state religion. It is often called the Nakatomi no Ohoharahi, because a member of the Nakatomi priestly clan performed it on behalf of the Mikado. It was celebrated twice a year, on the last day of the sixth and of the twelfth month, with the object of purifying the ministers of state, officials, and people from their ceremonial offences committed during the previous half year. It was also celebrated on occasions of national calamity, such as an outbreak of pestilence, or the sudden death of a Mikado. The offerings made were thrown into a river or the sea, and were supposed, like the scapegoat of Israel, to carry with them the sins of the people. The offences more specifically referred to are various mischievous interferences with agricultural operations, flaying animals alive, flaying backwards, cutting living or dead bodies, leprosy and other loathsome disease, incest, calamities from the high gods and from high birds, and killing animals by bewitchment. There were also local and individual purifications. In the latter case, the person to be purified had to pay the expenses of the celebration, and so a regular system of fines for such offences came into existence.
Ho-shidzume no matsuri, or fire-calming-ceremony. The object of this rite was to deprecate the destruction of the Imperial Palace by fire. The Urabe made fire with a fire-drill and worshipped it. The service read is anything but reverent. The Fire-god is reminded that he is ‘an evil-hearted child’ who caused his mother’s death when he came into the world, and that she had come back from Hades purposely to provide the means of keeping him in order. If, however, he would be on his good behaviour, he should have offerings of the various kinds specified.
Numerous other services are mentioned in the Yengishiki, such as the ‘Luck-wishing of the Great Palace,’ the Michiahe, which is a phallic ritual for the prevention of pestilence, a festival in honour of the Food-goddess, one in honour of the Wind-gods, etc.
Modern ceremonies.—At the present day, most of the former elaborate ritual of Shinto is neglected or shorn of its ancient magnificence. One of the most important state ceremonies which is still kept up is the Naishidokoro, so-called from the chamber in the palace where it is performed. It is here that the regalia are kept, consisting of a mirror which represents the Sun-goddess, a sword, and a jewel or jewels. The ceremony, which is performed by the Mikado in person, was formerly in honour of these sacred objects, but is now apparently addressed to the tablets of the Emperors from Jimmu downwards—an instance of the progressive development of ancestor-worship in Shinto. In many private dwellings there is a Kami-dana (god-shelf) where a harahi, consisting of a piece of wood from the Ise shrine, and tickets with the names of any gods whom the household has any special reason for worshipping, are kept. Lafcadio Hearn says that nowadays there is also a Mitamaya (august-spirit-dwelling), which is a model Shinto shrine placed on a shelf fixed against the wall of some inner chamber. In this shrine are placed thin tablets of white wood inscribed with the names of the household dead. Prayers are repeated and offerings made before them every day. The annual festivals (matsuri) of the Ujigami or local patron-deity are everywhere important functions. Offerings are made, and the god, or rather his emblem, is promenaded in a procession which reminds one of the carnivals of Southern Europe. There are Kagura performances which go on all day and late into the night. There are also booths for the sale of toys and sweetmeats, wrestling, fireworks, races, conjurors and tumblers’ performances. In short, the matsuri is not unlike an English fair. With the pilgrimages, it does much to help to keep alive the not very ardent flame of Shinto piety.
