The Religions of Japan | Page 9

life of the ancient
Japanese, we note that their first system of government was a rude sort
of feudalism imposed by the conquerors and was synchronous with
aboriginal fetichism, nature worship, ancestral sacrifices, sun-worship
and possibly but not probably, a very rude sort of monotheism akin to
the primitive Chinese cultus.[9] Almost contemporary with Buddhism,
its introduction and missionary development, was the struggle for
centralized imperialism borrowed from the Chinese and consolidated in
the period from the seventh to the twelfth century. During most of this
time Shint[=o], or the primitive religion, was overshadowed while the
Confucian ethics were taught. From the twelfth to this nineteenth
century feudalism in politics and Buddhism in religion prevailed,

though Confucianism furnished the social laws or rules of daily
conduct. Since the epochal year of 1868, with imperialism
reestablished and the feudal system abolished, Shint[=o] has had a
visible revival, being kept alive by government patronage. Buddhism,
though politically disestablished, is still the popular religion with recent
increase of life,[10] while Confucianism is decidedly losing force.
Christianity has begun its promising career.
The Amalgam of Religions.
Yet in the imperial and constitutional Japan of our day it is still true of
probably at least thirty-eight millions of Japanese that their religion is
not one, Shint[=o], Confucianism or Buddhism, but an amalgam of all
three. There is not in every-day life that sharp distinction between these
religions which the native or foreign scholar makes, and which both
history and philosophy demand shall be made for the student at least.
Using the technical language of Christian theologians, Shint[=o]
furnishes theology, Confucianism anthropology and Buddhism
soteriology. The average Japanese learns about the gods and draws
inspiration for his patriotism from Shint[=o], maxims for his ethical
and social life from Confucius, and his hope of what he regards as
salvation from Buddhism. Or, as a native scholar, Nobuta
Kishimoto,[11] expresses it,
In Japan these three different systems of religion and morality are not
only living together on friendly terms with one another, but, in fact,
they are blended together in the minds of the people, who draw
necessary nourishment from all of these sources. One and the same
Japanese is both a Shint[=o]ist, a Confucianist, and a Buddhist. He
plays a triple part, so to speak ... Our religion may be likened to a
triangle.... Shint[=o]ism furnishes the object, Confucianism offers the
rules of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation; so you see
we Japanese are eclectic in everything, even in religion.
These three religious systems as at present constituted, are "book
religions." They rest, respectively, upon the Kojiki and other ancient
Japanese literature and the modern commentators; upon the Chinese
classics edited and commented on by Confucius and upon Chu Hi and

other mediaeval scholastics who commented upon Confucius; and upon
the shastras and sutras with which Gautama, the Buddha, had
something to do. Yet in primeval and prehistoric Nippon neither these
books nor the religions growing out of the books were extant.
Furthermore, strictly speaking, it is not with any or all of these three
religions that the Christian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest
in contact. In ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student
notices a great undergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all
religions, though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it
fetichism, shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad
forms, it is there in awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, as
hard to kill as the scrub bamboo which both efficiently and sufficiently
takes the place of thorns and thistles as the curse of Japanese ground.
The book-religions can be more or less apprehended by those alien to
them, but to fully appreciate the depth, extent, influence and tenacity of
these archaic, unwritten and unformulated beliefs requires residence
upon the soil and life among the devotees. Disowned it may be by the
priests and sages, indignantly disclaimed or secretly approved in part
by the organized religions, this great undergrowth of superstition is as
apparent as the silicious bamboo grass which everywhere conditions
and modifies Japanese agriculture. Such prevalence of mental and
spiritual disease is the sad fact that confronts every lover of his
fellow-men. This paganism is more ancient and universal than any one
of the religions founded on writing or teachers of name and fame. Even
the applied science and the wonderful inventions imported from the
West, so far from eradicating it, only serve as the iron-clad man-of-war
in warm salt water serves the barnacles, furnishing them food and hold.
We propose to give in this our first lecture, a general or bird's-eye view
of this dead level of paganism above which the systems of Shint[=o],
Confucianism and Buddhism tower like mountains. It in by this
omnipresent superstition that the respectable religious have been
conditioned in