A Brief History of Shinto (part 3)

Academic Post #3

A Brief History of Shinto (part 3): Shinto Is the Greatest but Jesus Was Bad at Learning It

Where we last left off, there were a whole bunch of conflicting theories of Shinto, but one of the last ones to emerge was that Shinto had been “polluted” by foreign ideas.

So now we reach 国学 (Kokugaku).  There are actually a lot of names for this school of thought, both in English and Japanese.  Some Japanese names I’ve seen include 国学、古道、and 復古神道, and some English ones include National Learning, National Studies, and Ancient Studies.  I’m going to use 国学 and National Learning, because a) that’s what I used in my thesis and b) that’s what I’ve seen used most commonly in English-language literature.  (More conservative studies in Japanese seem to favor 復古神道, though.)

But first, a little bit of background on what was happening at this point in time.  Japan was in its era of isolation; with very few exceptions, there were no foreigners or foreign goods coming to Japan.  Leaving Japan (and then coming back) was also strictly prohibited, so there really wasn’t much exchange of ideas going on.  Meanwhile, the Tokugawa shogunate had basically seized control of the government, completely cutting the emperor out of any decision-making.  The imperial court and the shogunate even had different capitals; the imperial court was in Kyoto while the shogun was in Tokyo.  The shogunate was becoming more and more corrupt/complacent/generally bad at handling things, and increased pressure was coming from the West for Japan to reopen its ports to trade.  Many people saw The Really Bad Stuff Happening in China (like the Opium War) when the Chinese government refused to cooperate with Western trade-related demands, and were afraid that Japan, which at this point was severely militarily behind the West, would be the next target.  So at this point in history you have an intense fear of Western conquest, general discontentment with the government, and an intense urge to discover where China went so horribly wrong.

National Learning sprang out of this miasma of fear and discontentment, which explains a lot about some of its more…ah…interesting ideas.  The general concept behind most National Learning writings is that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong in Japan; ancient Japan had been a place of peace, where the emperor ruled over the whole land and no one dared question him.  But what could have gone wrong, and how could whatever it was be fixed?  What the National Learning scholars did was go back to the oldest written works in Japanese—the Nihon Shoki (a “history” of Japan, stretching from the beginning of time to about the 8^th century), the Manyoushuu (a book of ancient poetry), and, of course, the Kojiki.  These scholars proposed that the main issue with Japan was that the “ancient way of the gods” (also known as Shinto) had been horribly polluted by “foreign doctrines,” namely those from China.  They insisted that if the government were to “reclaim the ancient way,” and separate “pure” Shinto from the foreign pollutants, the land would once again be in a state of harmony.

With me so far?  Here’s where it gets interesting.

First off, the National Learning guys (yes, they were all guys) believed that Shinto was was “enacted by the ruler” and so “subjects should not privately interpret and carry it out.”  Shinto was described by Motoori Norinaga, one of the main National Learning guys, as “the just and public Way with which the emperor governs the world.”  He thought funerals, festivals, memorial services, and, in fact, most of the major rites that were commonly performed at shrines by priests as well as the general populace as “unorthodox rites.”  Rather than being “ceremonies of the Way of the Gods,” they were imitations of Confucian and Buddhist rites merely disguised to appear as Shinto, and “by no means the genuine ancient practices of our imperial land.”[1]  Basically, he thought that Shinto was a way of governance, not a religion.  He, and many other National Learning thinkers, wanted to see Shinto used practically.

But wait, there’s more!  The following are some of the other arguments National Learning scholars came up with:

Japan is the source of all the everythings ever.  Remember how before Japan was the trunk of the tree while China was the branches and India was the fruit?  Well, the National Learning guys took it a step farther to say that Japan was the source of all life and all religion ever.  Yes, even Christianity.  Jesus came to Japan to study, you know.  So did the Buddha.  However, since Jesus and the Buddha were apparently pretty bad at learning Shinto correctly, they transmitted a messed up version of it to their followers.  Therefore, Shinto should be spread to all peoples so that they will be able to partake in the correct way of the gods!

…I hope you are all noticing the foreshadowing going on here.

China sucks.  A lot.  If you ever want to read some astoundingly racist stuff, go check out a lot of later National Learning works.  My personal favorite “oh geez you have got to be kidding me” moment is when one of them argues that the reason China has so many fantastic schools of thought is because the Chinese people are, by nature, lazy and horrible human beings, so they need Confucianism and Daoism to lead them toward being actually productive members of society.  Japanese people, on the other hand, are naturally perfect, which is why they only have Shinto.

When you die, you are dead.  Motoori Norinaga, after his wife’s death, became so depressed by the prospect of her going to Yomi* that he spent a good deal of the rest of his life arguing that Yomi didn’t actually exist.  What happens after you die?  Well, you’re dead.  There is NOTHING.  (If he admitted that the Buddhist paradises or reincarnation existed, he would have kind of negated all his previous arguments.)

If you haven’t noticed the foreshadowing, lemme make it a teensy bit clearer:

IT’S FORESHADOWING STATE SHINTO AND THE START OF THE PACIFIC WAR.

…which we’ll save for next time.

Further reading

Sources of Japanese Tradition volume 2

Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religion

Shinto and the State, 1868-1988

*The Shinto underworld.  It’s a pretty depressing place, to be honest.  As far as anyone can really tell, all that happens is that it’s pretty dark, your body rots, and you’re surrounded by impurity.  YAY.

---

[1] Motoori Norinaga, “First Steps into the Mountains (Uiyamabumi),” 413.  P.S. I totally copy and pasted part of this section from my thesis. 

A Brief History of Shinto (part 2)

And now it's time for...

Academic Post #2

A Brief History of Shinto (part 2): Buddhas Are Leveled-Up Kami, Kami Are Leveled-Up Buddhas, All of Them are Confucian, STOP SCREWING UP MY SHINTO

Where we left off last time, the Imperial Line had been linked to the Sun Goddess by way of the Kojiki and nobody outside of the court really knew.

Then Buddhism showed up.  

Well, actually Buddhism showed up before that—the “official” account of Buddhism’s arrival in Japan dates it to the mid-6^th century.  I mostly left it out of the equation beforehand to keep things from getting needlessly complicated.  

In any case, suddenly there was Buddhism!  Bam!  Buddhism, unlike the kami-worship Japan was used to, had a body of sacred texts and temples and a priesthood and rituals and doctrine.  Buddhism was shiny and awesome and famous throughout East Asia by this point, and kami worship was kind of amorphous and not particularly flashy.  Needless to say, Buddhism was embraced almost universally.  The imperial court adopted a Buddhist ritual calendar...and performed rituals to the kami as well, but these rituals were almost always subordinate to the Buddhist ones.

This is a perfect illustration of one of the interesting qualities of East Asian religions: they tend not to be exclusive.  While you can’t be both Muslim and Christian, there was (and still is) no problem with worshiping both Buddhas and kami.  In fact, Buddhism pretty much integrated kami-worship into it.  Many Buddhist temples had shrines for kami on their precincts, and some kami were even integrated into the Buddhist pantheon.  People worshiped kami and Buddha side by side, and almost all of the time they didn’t (or couldn't) differentiate them from each other.

Of course, there had to be an explanation for why the kami and Buddhas could be worshiped together, and the prevailing theory for a very long time was called honji suijaku (本地垂迹), which is generally translated as “original essence, manifest traces.”  The basic idea of this theory was that the kami were incarnations or manifestations of the Buddha, whereas the Buddha and bodhisattvas* were the “original” or “pure” essence of divinity.  Other prevailing theories included that the kami were also stuck in the cycle of death and rebirth,** and they needed people to pray to them (and Buddhist priests to perform ceremonies for them) so they could “level-up” to being Buddhas and escape the cycle.

Of course, there were a lot of people who came up with different theories. Some of these people even started calling kami worship Shinto, so I can finally start using that word a little.  Instead of being boring, like the boring book I have to read for class, and listing all of the different schools of thought without telling you anything important about them, I’ll give some general trends that occurred.

Reverse honji suijaku!  It’s not that kami are lame versions of Buddhas, it’s actually that Buddhas are lame versions of kami!  Buddhas have to become enlightened, but kami are born divine.  Clearly the kami are better!

Japan is the source of all the everythings!  Sort of like reverse honji suijaku on steroids.  Not only are kami the true essence while the Buddhas are the manifest traces, Japan is the trunk of the tree while China is the branches and India is the flowers.  Using this analogy, clearly all religion came from Japan!***

Shinto is Neo-Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism is Shinto.  Due to a lot of complicated stuff that I don’t have time to get into, Neo-Confucianism**** rose in popularity starting in the 17^th century.  The Neo-Confucians recognized a potential ally against Buddhism (which was pretty clearly crazily powerful; I might talk about this at some point, but you should all go read about it either way) in the Shinto theorists, and so there was a lot of reimagining Shinto in a Confucian light (and reimagining Confucianism in a Shinto light).  A lot of theorists would pick single qualities (like “honestly” or “sincerity”) which they felt exemplified “traditional” Japanese values and write extensively about those.  Ironically, given the intense amount of mixing with Confucianism going on, this focus on “traditional” Japanese values in Shinto helped to reinforce the idea (later emphasized by the National Learning scholars) that it had existed unchanged since time immemorial.

Ew, there's all this other stuff my Shinto!  Once people began to gain an awareness of Shinto as a separate entity from Buddhism (although exactly what that entity was comprised of…nobody was quite sure), there were, of course, people who were horrified at how polluted Shinto had become.  They wanted to cut the Buddhist and Confucian influences out…but, of course, what exactly these influences were, nobody could agree on.  But everyone knew they were bad and they should be gotten rid of.

And then National Learning showed up, but I'll save them for next time.

…meanwhile, the common people had very little idea of the debates going on, and continued to worship the kami and Buddhas as they always had.

Further Reading

Nanzan Guide to Japanese Religions by a whole slew of people

Shinto in History by a whole slew of people

Sources of Japanese Tradition, Volume One edited by William Theodore de Bary
Sources of Japanese Tradition Volume Two edited by William Theodore de Bary
Because everything is better in two volumes.
Pretty much anything by Kuroda Toshio, but especially "Shinto in the History of Japanese Religion," which can be found in Religion and Society in Modern Japan, among other books

Seriously, the first thing my advisor gave me to read when I was writing my thesis was one of Kuroda's papers.  His work has so much controversy surrounding it (more in Japan than in the US) and upsets some people terribly, which is a good reason to read it in and of itself.

Shinto and the State, 1868-1988 by Helen Hardacre

Although the focus of the book is the Meiji, War, and Post-War periods, the introduction has some information on kami worship in the Tokugawa period. 

Confucianism and Tokugawa Culture, especially the chapter entitled “Masuho Zankō (1655-1742): A Shinto Popularizer Between Nativism and National Learning.” 

...yes, half of those titles are in italics while the other half are underlined.  Blogger is being dumb at me.  Thus the sudden font change.  Grr, Blogger, grr.

*For anyone unfamiliar with Buddhism, a bodhisattva is someone who gains enlightenment but decides to stay on Earth to help other people gain enlightenment instead of moving on and becoming a Buddha.

**Super fast Buddhism explanation 101!  Everybody’s stuck in the cycle of death and rebirth. You die, and then you’re reborn as something different. If you were a good person, you’re reborn at a higher level, like as an emperor if you were previously a peasant. If you were a bad person, you’re reborn at a lower level, like as a worm or a fly.  Being trapped in the cycle is bad because you keep dying and being reborn and it’s all so very pointless.  However, if you gain enlightenment, you can escape the cycle forever!

***If you think this sounds crazy, wait ‘til I get to National Learning and how Jesus came to Japan to study.

****A branch of Confucianism inspired mostly by the writings of Zhu Xi.  You should read about it.