Theosophy - The Religions of Japan (Sadasad Vikaramna Sahate)
THE
RELIGIONS OF JAPAN
(SADASAD
VIKARAM NA SAHATE)
ΔΔ
[From The Theosophist,
Oct. 1881.]
as published by The
Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai [Madras]. India 600
020
from
the reprint in “Theosophical Siftings” Volume
1 -
MUCH
interesting and new matter concerning the religious tenets
of Japan comes to us from two sources; from a letter written
by a Fellow of the Theosophical Society from Miako, and
from a paper recently read before a meeting of the Imperial
Geographical Society of St. Petersburg by a Russian missionary,
a resident of Japan of many years' standing. According
to the latter, had we to judge of the intensity of the
religious feeling in a nation by the number of its temples
and religious monuments, then would the Japanese have to
be regarded by the Europeans as the most pious people on
the face of the globe. And, seeing that several great and
entirely disagreeing religions, each of them divided into
many diverging [Page
19] sects,
exist openly and freely in the Empire, not only tolerated
but strongly protected by the latter, we cannot but regard
the Japanese as an exceedingly free-minded, liberal people.
There is no hostility between the different forms of
religions; and invariably the Sintonite, the Confucian,
and the Buddhist profess the same respect for the creed
of their neighbours as for their own — at least,
outwardly. They differ in modes, but agree in essentials — the
difference in their point of view never serving one of
them as a pretext to condemn the others. It is unjust,
therefore, as some writers do, to lay the blame at the
door of the Japanese for the terrible religious persecutions
to which the Christians were subjected in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. These persecutions were entirely
due to the intrigues of the ever-plotting Jesuits. When,
in 1549, Japan was visited by the "Apostle of the
Indies", the famous St.
Francis Xavier, whose great eloquence led him to convert
even three sovereign princes — (who apostatised
afterwards) — and
nearly 7,000 Japanese, the authorities of the State remained
indifferent to the spread of the new doctrine, so long
as the public tranquility was not disturbed. When petitioned
to prohibit the new faith, the Emperor Nobunangua is
said to have inquired of the native kanusi (Sinto
priests or spiritual teachers) how many different creeds
there were in Japan; and when answered that there were
thirty-five, he remarked: "Where thirty-five religions
are tolerated we can easily bear with thirty-six. Leave
the foreigners in peace." In
the days of those persecutions the Protestant Dutch were
left unmolested, and the whole wrath of the Government
was directed against the Roman Catholics, who began to
be suspected of evil doings against the State as early
as the last quarter of the sixteenth century, in 1580.
Taiko Sama having once asked a Spaniard: "How is
it that your king has managed to conquer half of the
world ?" it was boastfully but very imprudently
answered: " He sends priests to win the people;
his troops are sent to join the native Christians, and
the conquest is easy'.' This answer was
never forgotten, and seven years later the
first edict for the banishment of some missionaries
was the result. But it was brought on by the fault
of the Christians and the incessant instigations
of the missionaries, who, instead of taking measures
to pacify the Government, defied it, and began to
overthrow idols, ruin places of worship, and pull
down the Japanese temples. This led to dreadful reprisals,
native converts being put to death, with twenty-three
European missionaries, their schools and churches
destroyed, and Portuguese traders no longer allowed
free access to the country. ... '
After
stating so much, the lecturer passed to the examination
of the three principal religions of Japan. The most important
one, according to Father Anatolig, is that embraced by
the best educated and highest classes
— Confucianism, imported into the country in the middle
of the sixth [Page
20] century
from China, together with the written language. Buddhism,
however, is the most popular creed. It is professed,
without any exception, by all the ladies of the highest
society, even by those belonging to the Imperial family,
as well as by most of the women of the middle and lower
classes, while the male population is more inclined towards
the religions of Sinto, Confucius, and Lao-Tye. To convert
any of the followers of the great Chinese philosophers
to Christianity is next to impossible, the most zealous
attempts in that direction having hitherto sadly failed.
Next to Buddhism and Confucianism stands in importance
the doctrine of Sinto, having, like the two others, its
origin in China. In 872 A.D., after a difficult struggle
with popular Buddhism, it was embraced by the Imperial
family and proclaimed as a State religion. This creed,
professed by the entire body of officials and Government
servants, is based upon the legends of historic personages,
now become deified heroes. Strictly speaking, Sintoism
is no religion, but rather a system strongly upheld by
the State, as it consists in the worship of the Emperors,
who are included in the number of heroes, and thus receive
divine honours. It is the sincere opinion of Father Anatolig
that it is useless for Christianity to wrestle in Japan
with Buddhism, Confucianism, and especially Sintoism,
as neither the philosophy of the two former, nor the
sense of security for the reigning dynasties, involved
in, and dependent upon the latter creed, are likely to
yield to a system whose first requisite is blind faith.
The only means left to the Christian missionary is to
establish as many schools as possible, "wherein
he could imperceptibly infiltrate the teaching of Christ, thus implanting
it among the less intellectually-developed masses
of the people".
The
method is not new, and is now proven to be the only effectual
one in so-called "heathen" countries. It is
but the most grossly ignorant and the poorest in non-Christian
nations that are generally caught with this bait. But what
are we to think of the intrinsic merit of a religion whose divine truths are
able to "come home" but "to the least
intellectually developed"
classes of a nation — a religion, as its representatives
themselves confess, which is utterly powerless to impress
itself on the more educated and philosophic minds ? . . .
Verily, "blessed are the poor in spirit, for
theirs (i.e., the ignorant, the uneducated, the superstitious,
and the simple-minded) is the (Christian) kingdom of Heaven!".
Sincerity and open-heartedness being the most rare virtues
among the padris, we feel really thankful to Father Anatolig
for his unequivocal confession, and will now turn to hear
what our other informant says of the religions of Japan.
As
in all the oldest nations, we find in Japan, as its most
ancient religion — Sun-worship. Nor are the Elements
forgotten, as those are the abodes of all the "minor
gods or spirits" — namely, the Powers or Forces
of Nature. The Sun still receives deific honours; and
its emblem has [Page
21] fully survived
in the Sinto temples, called Maya, [Divine residence.
Hence the name of the ecclesiastical metropolis Myako,
the abode of the Spiritual Emperor] where no idols
or images are to be found, save a bright mirror in the
shape of a disc, before which are placed high metallic
poles, with long and broad slips of paper attached to
them, and mysterious inscriptions on these, traced in
the Nai-den style,
that peculiar sacerdotal written language used only for
religious and mystical subjects. Strange to think, the
Japanese practise in reference to Sun-worship that curious
ceremony so well known in India under the name of the aswamedha,
or sacrifice of the horse. Anciently the horse was considered
by every nation an emblem of the primeval and universal
manifested being, who, when identified with the Sun,
had the horse given him as his attendant.
"The
horses of the Sun" are famous, and were deified in
all the old religious systems, even in the youngest of
the latter — the Mosaic, or Jewish creed. [And
he (Josiah) took away the horses that the Kings of Judah
had given to the Sun, at the entering of the House of the
Lord. (2 Kings, xxiii. II)] Every Sun-God has a horse
(always white) associated with him. Sosiosh, born of a virgin,
is expected to appear at the end of the days upon a white
horse as Redeemer, says the book Bun Dehesh.
Vishnu, or the "Kalanki Avatar", is to come upon
a white horse; and St. John, in the Revelation (xix., 11,
14), sees the heavens opened and the "Faithful and True",
or the coming Christian Messiah, seated on a white horse;
and the "armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses".
The white horse is the horse of the Sun; and Mithra, the
old Medo-Arian Sun-God, reappears everywhere. [ “The
Manicheans held that the Sun, who is Mithra, is Christ himself,”
says St. Augustine (cap 8) who had belonged to that sect] For
the Sun is the fiery source of Spirit-power or Spirit of
LIFE, while the chariot typifies the body, and the horse
its animating principle. And thus in Japan Ten-Zio-Dai-Zen, "he
who darts out his rays" is presented with its emblem,
the horse, at its Temple on certain festive days. A number
of sacred horses in pictures and horses cut out of paper
with sacred inscriptions on them are hung on the walls.
" This
Sinto religion", then, is not mere hero-worship, but
the Sun and Spirit-worship rather, when viewed in its popular
presentation, and something else when considered esoterically.
The Sun and the elements are called the Dia-Zin,
or "Great Spirits", the inferior ones consisting
chiefly of deified heroes, or historical personages canonized
for some great deeds. Fatsman, the sixteenth Emperor of
Japan, is the God of War, yet the Kanusi or spiritual gurus — the
priests attached to the Sinto temples — are, in fact,
no priests at all; for they are neither ordained nor have
they any special privileges, but are very learned men belong
to the highest class of [Page
22] society
and respected above all others. When pressed to give
an explanation of their religion, they evade the question
by answering that it is no religion at all,
but simply a system, a philosophy based on the mysterious
intercourse between the world of the worshippers and
their spiritual chief. That spiritual Emperor, or Dairi,
whose title is better known as that of the Mikado, is
the embodiment of the idea of an absolute, divinely inspired
sovereign, whose office is very similar to that of the
Dalai-Lama of Tibet. Contrary to the statement of the
Russian missionary, Buddhism is so mixed up with Sinto
doctrines that many of the images of Niu Rai,
or Amita (the Japanese names of Gautama Buddha) are to
be found in Sinto temples, for the Sintonites regard
Amita, they say, as the "chief hero", or the
spiritual head of the great army of deceased heroes,
who were all mystics and whom they are said to worship.
As
intimately connected with Buddhism are the doctrines of
Lao-Tye, the most mystical and spiritual of all. Their
followers are called the Yamabusi, or the " Hermit-Brothers". Says
an overwise encyclopaedia: "They pretend to magical
art, and live in the recesses of mountains and craggy steeps,
whence they come forth to tell fortunes, write charms,
and sell amulets. They lead a mysterious life, and admit
no one to their secrets except after a tedious and difficult
preparation by fasting and a species of severe gymnastic exercise." !!
There
are other "Hermit -Brothers" residing nearer
to Bombay than Japan, and occasionally visiting Northern,
Central, and Southern India; but no more than their colleagues,
the Yamabusi, do they "sell" amulets or charms,
though they may occasionally bestow such presents upon
those whom they find worthy of their attention. Were the
proficients of these so-called "magical arts" Christians,
they would be called great saints and prophets, their
phenomena attributed to divine gift, and
they would see themselves forthwith classed among such
miracle-mongers as the Saints of the Golden Legend. But
they are "heathen", hence — devil-worshippers
and impostors. That is why it is as difficult to
meet one of such "Hermits"
away from his "craggy steeps" as "for a yak
to thrust its tail into the hole of a plank adrift on the
ocean", to use a Tibetan expression.
But
to return to the Mikado. The Spiritual Emperor claims direct
descent from Sin Mee, a hero who was the first to
establish a regular Government in Japan, in the year 666
B.C., just about the time of the birth of Gautama Buddha
in India. He is believed to be an incarnation of some mysterious
power, like the never-dying Buddha, which emigrates from
one Grand Lama to the other. He is called the "Son
of Kanon", the Goddess of Mercy, who is exceedingly
honoured in Japan. Her image is found in every house, and
she is called "the Mother of God", an appellation
which became the pretext with the Christian missionaries,
never too bashful before an anachronism, to claim that
her worship [Page
23] originated
in an idea of the Virgin Mary carried at an early age
from the West through China to Japan, whereas she is one
of the most ancient deities of Japan, and far older than
Christianity. Maya,
Buddha's mother, is also called the "Saviour's Mother"
by the Buddhists, and Guatama himself is claimed as a
Catholic Saint by the authors of the Golden Legend.
The
Mikado, though nominally the supreme ruler of the Empire,
has, in reality, no political power at all; nor does he
claim it, leaving — to the Tykoon, or temporal emperor,
the whole burden of the State affairs. "Never do
we hear of any religious dispute among the Japanese, much
less discover that they bear each other any hate on religious
grounds", says
Meylan in his Sketches of the Manners and Customs
of the Japanese. They esteem it, on the contrary,
an act of courtesy to visit from time to time each other's
gods and do them reverence. While the Koboe sends an
embassy to the Sinto temple at Isye to offer prayers
in his name, he assigns at the same time a sum for the
erection of temples to Confucius; and the spiritual
emperor allows strange gods, imported from Siam or China,
to be placed, for the convenience of those who may feel
a call to worship them, in the same temples with the
Japanese. If it be asked whence this tolerance originates,
or by what it is maintained, we reply that worshippers
of all persuasions in Japan acknowledge and obey one superior,
namely, the Dairi, or Spiritual Emperor. As the representative
and lineal descendant of Buddha on earth, he is himself
an object of worship, and as such he protects equally
all whose object it is to venerate the Deity (?) the
mode of their doing so being indifferent to him. After
taking exception to the word "deity" and
God, which the Japanese use no more in connection with
Buddha than the Sinhalese Buddhists, the inference seems
very correct, and our Popes, Metropolitans, and Bishops
would lose nothing by following the example of the heathen
Japanese.
To
conclude, our correspondent (the F. T. S. in Japan) has
come to the strange conviction that Sintoism and Lamaism
are twin sisters, which represent two esoteric systems,
and at the same time two spiritualised "heresies" so
to say, of that abstruse and for the masses too grandly philosophical
and metaphysical system known as "Buddhism" pure
and simple; the latter being now represented but by the
Nepaulese school of the Svabhavikas, and the Siamese sect
of the Buddhist priests of Ceylon,
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