The Religions of Japan Part 1

The Religions of j.a.pan.

by William Elliot Griffis.

PREFACE

This book makes no pretence of furnishing a mirror of contemporary j.a.panese religion. Since 1868, j.a.pan has been breaking the chains of her intellectual bondage to China and India, and the end is not yet. My purpose has been, not to take a snap-shot photograph, but to paint a picture of the past. Seen in a lightning-flash, even a tempest-shaken tree appears motionless. A study of the same organism from acorn to seed-bearing oak, reveals not a phase but a life. It is something like this--"_to_ the era of Meiji" (A.D. 1868-1894+) which I have essayed.

Hence I am perfectly willing to accept, in advance, the verdict of smart inventors who are all ready to patent a brand-new religion for j.a.pan, that my presentation is "antiquated."

The subject has always been fascinating, despite its inherent difficulties and the author's personal limitations. When in 1807, the polite lads from Satsuma and Ki[=o]to came to New Brunswick, N.J., they found at least one eager questioner, a soph.o.m.ore, who, while valuing books, enjoyed at first hand contemporaneous human testimony.

When in 1869, to Rutgers College, came an application through Rev. Dr.

Guido F. Verbeck, of T[=o]ki[=o], from f.u.kui for a young man to organize schools upon the American principle in the province of Echizen (ultra-Buddhistic, yet already so liberally leavened by the ethical teachings of Yokoi Heishiro), the Faculty made choice of the author.

Accepting the honor and privilege of being one of the "beginners of a better time," I caught sight of peerless Fuji and set foot on j.a.panese soil December 29, 1870. Amid a cannonade of new sensations and fresh surprises, my first walk was taken in company with the American missionary (once a marine in Perry's squadron, who later invented the jin-riki-sha), to see a hill-temple and to study the wayside shrines around Yokohama. Seven weeks' stay in the city of Yedo--then rising out of the debris of feudalism to become the Imperial capital, T[=o]ki[=o], enabled me to see some things now so utterly vanished, that by some persons their previous existence is questioned. One of the most interesting characters I met personally was f.u.kuzawa, the reformer, and now "the intellectual father of half of the young men of ... j.a.pan." On the day of the battle of Uyeno, July 11, 1868, this far-seeing patriot and inquiring spirit deliberately decided to keep out of the strife, and with four companions of like mind, began the study of Wayland's Moral Science. Thus were laid the foundations of his great school, now a university.

Journeying through the interior, I saw many interesting phenomena of popular religions which are no longer visible. At f.u.kui in Echizen, one of the strongholds of Buddhism, I lived nearly a year, engaged in educational work, having many opportunities of learning both the scholastic and the popular forms of Shint[=o] and of Buddhism. I was surrounded by monasteries, temples, shrines, and a landscape richly embroidered with myth and legend. During my four years' residence and travel in the Empire, I perceived that in all things the people of j.a.pan were _too_ religious.

In seeking light upon the meaning of what I saw before me and in penetrating to the reasons behind the phenomena, I fear I often made myself troublesome to both priests and lay folk. While at work in T[=o]ki[=o], though under obligation to teach only physical science, I voluntarily gave instruction in ethics to cla.s.ses in the University. I richly enjoyed this work, which, by questioning and discussion, gave me much insight into the minds of young men whose homes were in every province of the Empire. In my own house I felt free to teach to all comers the religion of Jesus, his revelation of the fatherhood of G.o.d and the ethics based on his life and words. While, therefore, in studying the subject, I have great indebtedness to acknowledge to foreigners, I feel that first of all I must thank the natives who taught me so much both by precept and practice. Among the influences that have helped to shape my own creed and inspire my own life, have been the beautiful lives and n.o.ble characters of j.a.panese officers, students and common people who were around and before me. Though freely confessing obligation to books, writings, and artistic and scholastic influences, I hasten first to thank the people of j.a.pan, whether servants, superior officers, neighbors or friends. He who seeks to learn what religion is from books only, will learn but half.

Gladly thanking those, who, directly or indirectly, have helped me with light from the written or printed page, I must first of all gratefully express my especial obligations to those native scholars who have read to me, read for me, or read with me their native literature.

The first foreign students of j.a.panese religions were the Dutch, and the German physicians who lived with them, at Deshima. Kaempfer makes frequent references, with test and picture, in his Beschryving van j.a.pan. Von Siebold, who was an indefatigable collector rather than a critical student, in Vol. V. of his invaluable _Archiv_ (Pantheon von Nippon), devoted over forty pages to the religions of j.a.pan. Dr. J.J.

Hoffman translated into Dutch, with notes and explanations, the Butsu-z[=o]-dzu-i, which, besides its 163 figures of Buddhist holy men, gives a bibliography of the works mentioned by the native author. In visiting the j.a.panese museum on the Rapenburg, Leyden, one of the oldest, best and most intelligently arranged in Europe, I have been interested with the great work done by the Dutchmen, during two centuries, in leavening the old lump for that transformation which in our day as New j.a.pan, surprises the world. It requires the shock of battle to awaken the western nations to that appreciation of the racial and other differences between the j.a.panese and Chinese, which the student has already learned.

The first praises, however, are to be awarded to the English scholars, Messrs. Satow, Aston, Chamberlain, and others, whose profound researches in j.a.panese history, language and literature have cleared the path for others to tread in. I have tried to acknowledge my debt to them in both text and appendix.

To several American missionaries, who despite their trying labors have had the time and the taste to study critically the religions of j.a.pan, I owe thanks and appreciation. With rare acuteness and learning, Rev. Dr.

George Wm. Knox has opened on its philosophical, and Rev. Dr. J.H.

DeForest on its practical side, the subject of j.a.panese Confucianism. By his lexicographical work, Dr. J.C. Hepburn has made debtors to him both the native and the alien. To our knowledge of Buddhism in j.a.pan, Dr.

J.C. Berry and Rev. J.L. Atkinson have made noteworthy contributions. I have been content to quote as authorities and ill.u.s.trations, the names of those who have thus wrought on the soil, rather than of those, who, even though world-famous, have been but slightly familiar with the ethnic and the imported faith of j.a.pan. The profound misunderstandings of Buddhism, which some very eminent men of Europe have shown in their writings, form one of the literary curiosities of the world.

In setting forth these Morse lectures, I have purposely robbed my pages of all appearance of erudition, by using as few uncouth words as possible, by breaking up the matter into paragraphs of moderate length, by liberally introducing subject-headings in italics, and by relegating all notes to the appendix. Since writing the lectures, and even while reading the final proofs, I have ransacked my library to find as many references, notes, ill.u.s.trations and authorities as possible, for the benefit of the general student. I have purposely avoided recondite and inaccessible books and have named those easily obtainable from American or European publishers, or from Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, of Yokohama, j.a.pan. In using oriental words I have followed, in the main, the spelling of the Century Dictionary. The j.a.panese names are expressed according to that uniform system of transliteration used by Hepburn, Satow and other standard writers, wherein consonants have the same general value as in English (except that initial g is always hard), while the vowels are p.r.o.nounced as in Italian. Double vowels must be p.r.o.nounced double, as in Meiji (m[=a]-[=e]-j[=e]); those which are long are marked, as in [=o] or [=u]; i before o or u is short. Most of the important j.a.panese, as well as Sanskrit and Chinese, terms used, are duly expressed and defined in the Century Dictionary.

I wish also to thank especially my friends, Riu Watanabe, Ph.D., of Cornell University, and William Nelson n.o.ble, Esq., of Ithaca. The former kindly a.s.sisted me with criticisms and suggestions, while to the latter, who has taken time to read all the proofs, I am grateful for considerable improvement in the English form of the sentences.

In closing, I trust that whatever charges may be brought against me by competent critics, lack of sympathy will not be one. I write in sight of beautiful Lake Cayuga, on the fertile and sloping sh.o.r.es of which in old time the Iroquois Indian confessed the mysteries of life. Having planted his corn, he made his pregnant squaw walk round the seed-bed in hope of receiving from the Source of life increased blessing and sustenance for body and mind. Between such a truly religious act of the savage, and that of the Christian sage, Joseph Henry, who uncovered his head while investigating electro-magnetism to "ask G.o.d a question," or that of Samuel F.B. Morse, who sent as his first telegraphic message "What hath G.o.d wrought," I see no essential difference. All three were acts of faith and acknowledgment of a power greater than man. Religion is one, though religions are many. As Princ.i.p.al Fairbairn, my honored predecessor in the Morse lectureship, says: "What we call superst.i.tion of the savage is not superst.i.tion _in him_. Superst.i.tion is the perpetuation of a low form of belief along with a higher knowledge....

Between fetichism and Christian faith there is a great distance, but a great affinity--the recognition of a supra-sensible life."

"For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of G.o.d.... The creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of G.o.d."

W.E.G.

ITHACA, N.Y., October 27, 1894.

CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

"The investigation of the beginnings of a religion is never the work of infidels, but of the most reverent and conscientious minds."

"We, the forty million souls of j.a.pan, standing firmly and persistently upon the basis of international justice, await still further manifestations as to the morality of Christianity,"--Hiraii, of j.a.pan.

"When the Creator [through intermediaries that were apparently animals] had finished treating this world of men, the good and the bad G.o.ds were all mixed together promiscuously, and began disputing for the possession of this world."--The Aino Story of the Creation.

"If the j.a.panese have few beast stories, the Ainos have _apparently_ no popular tales of heroes ... The Aino mythologies ... lack all connection with morality.... Both lack priests and prophets.... Both belong to a very primitive stage of mental development ... Excepting stories ... and a few almost metreless songs, the Ainos have no other literature at all."--Aino Studies.

"I asked the earth, and it answered, 'I am not He;' and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deep and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, 'We are not thy G.o.d; seek higher than we.' ... And I answered unto all things which stand about the door of my flesh, 'Ye have told me concerning my G.o.d, that ye are not he; tell me something about him.' And with a loud voice they explained, 'It is He who hath made us!'"--Augustine's Confessions.

"Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name."--Amos.

"That which hath been made was life in Him."--John.

CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

The Morse Lectureship and the Study of Comparative Religion.

As a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, in the Cla.s.s of 1877, your servant received and accepted with pleasure the invitation of the President and Board of Trustees to deliver a course of lectures upon the religions of j.a.pan. In that country and in several parts of it, I lived from 1870 to 1874. I was in the service first of the feudal daimi[=o] of Echizen and then of the national government of j.a.pan, helping to introduce that system of public schools which is now the glory of the country. Those four years gave me opportunities for close and constant observation of the outward side of the religions of j.a.pan, and facilities for the study of the ideas out of which worship springs. Since 1867, however, when first as a student in Rutgers College at New Brunswick, N.J., I met and instructed those students from the far East, who, at risk of imprisonment and death had come to America for the culture of Christendom, I have been deeply interested in the study of the j.a.panese people and their thoughts.

To attempt a just and impartial survey of the religions of j.a.pan may seem a task that might well appall even a life-long Oriental scholar.

Yet it may be that an honest purpose, a deep sympathy and a gladly avowed desire to help the East and the West, the j.a.panese and the English-speaking people, to understand each other, are not wholly useless in a study of religion, but for our purpose of real value. These lectures are upon the Morse[1] foundation which has these specifications written out by the founder:

The general subject of the lectures I desire to be: "The Relation of the Bible to any of the Sciences, as Geography, Geology, History, and Ethnology, ... and the relation of the facts and truths contained in the Word of G.o.d, to the principles, methods, and aims of any of the sciences."

Now, among the sciences which we must call to our aid are those of geography and geology, by which are conditioned history and ethnology of which we must largely treat; and, most of all, the science of Comparative Religion.

This last is Christianity's own child. Other sciences, such as geography and astronomy, may have been born among lands and nations outside of and even before Christendom. Other sciences, such as geology, may have had their rise in Christian time and in Christian lands, their foundation lines laid and their main processes ill.u.s.trated by Christian men, which yet cannot be claimed by Christianity as her children bearing her own likeness and image; but the science of Comparative Religion is the direct offspring of the religion of Jesus. It is a distinctively Christian science. "It is so because it is a product of Christian civilization, and because it finds its impulse in that freedom of inquiry which Christianity fosters."[2] Christian scholars began the investigations, formulated the principles, collected the materials and reared the already splendid fabric of the science of Comparative Religion, because the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify this. Jesus bade his disciples search, inquire, discern and compare.

Paul, the greatest of the apostolic Christian college, taught: "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." In our day one of Christ's loving followers[3] expressed the spirit of her Master in her favorite motto, "Truth for authority, not authority for truth." Well says Dr.

James Legge, a prince among scholars, and translator of the Chinese cla.s.sics, who has added several portly volumes to Professor Max Muller's series of the "Sacred Books of the East," whose face to-day is bronzed and whose hair is whitened by fifty years of service in southern China where with his own hands he baptized six hundred Chinamen:[4]

The more that a man possesses the Christian spirit, and is governed by Christian principle, the more anxious will he be to do justice to every other system of religion, and to hold his own without taint or fetter of bigotry.[5]

It was Christianity that, in a country where the religion of Jesus has fullest liberty, called the Parliament of Religions, and this for reasons clearly manifest. Only Christians had and have the requisites of success, viz.: sufficient interest in other men and religions; the necessary unity of faith and purpose; and above all, the brave and bold disregard of the consequences. Christianity calls the Parliament of Religions, following out the Divine audacity of Him who, so often, confronting worldly wisdom and priestly cunning, said to his disciples, "Think not, be not anxious, take no heed, be careful for nothing--only for love and truth. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

Of all places therefore, the study of comparative religion is most appropriate in a Christian theological seminary. We must know how our fellow-men think and believe, in order to help them. It is our duty to discover the pathways of approach to their minds and hearts. We must show them, as our brethren and children of the same Heavenly Father, the common ground on which we all stand. We must point them to the greater truth in the Bible and in Christ Jesus, and demonstrate wherein both the divinely inspired library and the truth written in a divine-human life fulfil that which is lacking in their books and masters.

To know just how to do this is knowledge to be coveted as a most excellent gift. An understanding of the religion of our fellow-men is good, both for him who goes as a missionary and for him who at home prays, "Thy kingdom come."

The theological seminary, which begins the systematic and sympathetic study of Comparative Religion and fills the chair with a professor who has a vital as well as academic interest in the welfare of his fellow-men who as yet know not Jesus as Christ and Lord, is sure to lead in effective missionary work. The students thus equipped will be furnished as none others are, to begin at once the campaign of help and warfare of love.

It may be that insight into and sympathy with the struggles of men who are groping after G.o.d, if haply they may find him, will shorten the polemic sword of the professional converter whose only purpose is destructive hostility without tactics or strategy, or whose chief idea of missionary success is in statistics, in blackening the character of "the heathen," in sensational letters for home consumption and reports properly cooked and served for the secretarial and sectarian palates.

Yet, if true in history, Greek, Roman, j.a.panese, it is also true in the missionary wars, that "the race that shortens its weapons lengthens its boundaries."[6]

Apart from the wit or the measure of truth in this sentence quoted, it is a matter of truth in the generalizations of fact that the figure of the "sword of the spirit, which is the word of G.o.d," used by Paul, and also the figure of the "word of G.o.d, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of the soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart," of the writer to the Hebrews, had for their original in iron the victorious _gladium_ of the Roman legionary--a weapon both short and sharp. We may learn from this substance of fact behind the shadow of the figure a lesson for our instant application.

The disciplined Romans scorned the long blades of the barbarians, whose valor so often impetuous was also impotent against discipline. The Romans measured their blades by inches, not by feet. For ages the j.a.panese sword has been famed for its temper more than its weight.[7]

The Christian entering upon his Master's campaigns with as little impediments of sectarian dogma as possible, should select a weapon that is short, sure and divinely tempered.