Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 18

Japanese mythology opens at the beginning of "the heaven and the earth." But it makes no attempt to account for the origin of things. It introduces us at once to a "plain of high heaven," the dwelling place of these invisible* Kami, one of whom is the great central being, and the other two derive their titles from their productive attributes. But as to what they produced or how they produced it, no special indication is given. Thereafter two more Kami are born from an elementary reedlike substance that sprouts on an inchoate earth. This is the first reference to organic matter. The two newly born Kami are invisible like their predecessors, and like them are not represented as taking any part in the creation. They are solitary, unseeable, and functionless, but the evident idea is that they have a more intimate connexion with cosmos than the Kami who came previously into existence, for one of them is named after the reed-shoot from which he emanated, and to the other is attributed the property of standing eternally in the heavens.

*The expression here translated "invisible" has been interpreted in the sense that the Kami "hid their persons," i.e., died, but the true meaning seems to be that they were invisible.

Up to this point there has not been any suggestion of measuring time. But now the record begins to speak of "generations." Two more solitary and invisible beings are born, one called the Kami who stands eternally on earth, the other the "abundant integrator." Each of these represents a generation, and it will be observed that up to this time no direct mention whatever is made of sex. Now, however, five generations ensue, each consisting of two Kami, a male and a female, and thus the epithet "solitary" as applied to the first seven Kami becomes intelligible. All these generations are represented as gradually approximating to the exercise of creative functions, for the names* become more and more suggestive of earthly relations. The last couple, forming the fifth generation, are Izanagi and Izanami, appellations signifying the male Kami of desire and the female Kami of desire. By all the other Kami these two are commissioned to "make, consolidate, and give birth to the drifting land," a jewelled spear being given to them as a token of authority, and a floating bridge being provided to carry them to earth. Izanagi and Izanami thrust the spear downwards and stir the "brine" beneath, with the result that it coagulates, and, dropping from the spear's point, forms the first of the Japanese islands, Onogoro. This island they take as the basis of their future operations, and here they beget, by ordinary human processes—which are described without any reservations—first, "a great number of islands, and next, a great number of Kami." It is related that the first effort of procreation was not successful, the outcome being a leechlike abortion and an island of foam, the former of which was sent adrift in a boat of reeds. The islands afterwards created form a large part of Japan, but between these islands and the Kami, begotten in succession to them, no connexion is traceable. In several cases the names of the Kami seem to be personifications of natural objects. Thus we have the Kami of the "wind's breath," of the sea, of the rivers, of the "water-gates" (estuaries and ports), of autumn, of "foam-calm," of "bubbling waves," of "water-divisions," of trees, of mountains, of moors, of valleys, etc. But with very rare exceptions, all these Kami have no subsequent share in the scheme of things and cannot be regarded as evidence that the Japanese were nature worshippers.

*The Kami of mud-earth; the Kami of germ-integration; the Kami of the great place; the Kami of the perfect exterior, etc.

A change of method is now noticeable. Hitherto the process of production has been creative; henceforth the method is transformation preceded by destruction. Izanami dies in giving birth to the Kami of fire, and her body is disintegrated into several beings, as the male and female Kami of metal mountains, the male and female Kami of viscid clay, the female Kami of abundant food, and the Kami of youth; while from the tears of Izanagi as he laments her decease is born the female Kami of lamentation. Izanagi then turns upon the child, the Kami of fire, which has cost Izanami her life, and cuts off its head; whereupon are born from the blood that stains his sword and spatters the rocks eight Kami, whose names are all suggestive of the violence that called them into existence. An equal number of Kami, all having sway over mountains, are born from the head and body of the slaughtered child.

At this point an interesting episode is recorded. Izanagi visits the "land of night," with the hope of recovering his spouse.* He urges her to return, as the work in which they were engaged is not yet completed. She replies that, unhappily having already eaten within the portals of the land of night, she may not emerge without the permission of the Kami** of the underworld, and she conjures him, while she is seeking that permission, not to attempt to look on her face. He, however, weary of waiting, breaks off one of the large teeth of the comb that holds his hair*** and, lighting it, uses it as a torch. He finds Izanami's body in a state of putrefaction, and amid the decaying remains eight Kami of thunder have been born and are dwelling. Izanagi, horrified, turns and flees, but Izanami, enraged that she has been "put to shame," sends the "hideous hag of hades" to pursue him. He obtains respite twice; first by throwing down his head-dress, which is converted into grapes, and then casting away his comb, which is transformed into bamboo sprouts, and while the hag stops to eat these delicacies, he flees. Then Izanami sends in his pursuit the eight Kami of thunder with fifteen hundred warriors of the underworld.**** He holds them off for a time by brandishing his sword behind him, and finally, on reaching the pass from the nether to the upper world, he finds three peaches growing there with which he pelts his pursuers and drives them back. The peaches are rewarded with the title of "divine fruit," and entrusted with the duty of thereafter helping all living people***** in the central land of "reed plains"****** as they have helped Izanagi.

*It is unnecessary to comment upon the identity of this incident with the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.

**It will be observed that we hear of these Kami now for the first time.

***This is an obvious example of a charge often preferred against the compilers of the Records that they inferred the manners and customs of remote antiquity from those of their own time.

****Again we have here evidence that the story of creation, as told in the Records, is not supposed to be complete. It says nothing as to how the denizens of the underworld came into existence.

*****The first mention of human beings.

******This epithet is given to Japan.

This curious legend does not end here. Finding that the hag of hades, the eight Kami of thunder, and the fifteen hundred warriors have all been repulsed, Izanami herself goes in pursuit. But her way is blocked by a huge rock which Izanagi places in the "even pass of hades," and from the confines of the two worlds the angry pair exchange messages of final separation, she threatening to kill a thousand folk daily in his land if he repeats his acts of violence, and he declaring that, in such event, he will retaliate by causing fifteen hundred to be born.

In all this, no mention whatever is found of the manner in which human beings come into existence: they make their appearance upon the scene as though they were a primeval part of it. Izanagi, whose return to the upper world takes place in southwestern Japan,* now cleanses himself from the pollution he has incurred by contact with the dead, and thus inaugurates the rite of purification practised to this day in Japan. The Records describe minutely the process of his unrobing before entering a river, and we learn incidentally that he wore a girdle, a skirt, an upper garment, trousers, a hat, bracelets on each arm, and a necklace, but no mention is made of footgear. Twelve Kami are born from these various articles as he discards them, but without exception these additions to Japanese mythology seem to have nothing to do with the scheme of the universe: their titles appear to be wholly capricious, and apart from figuring once upon the pages of the Records they have no claim to notice. The same may be said of eleven among fourteen Kami thereafter born from the pollution which Izanagi washes off in a river.

*At Himuka in Kyushu, then called Tsukushi.

But the last three of these newly created beings act a prominent part in the sequel of the story. They are the "heaven-shining Kami" (Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami), commonly spoken of as the "goddess of the Sun;" the Kami of the Moon, and the Kami of force.* Izanagi expresses much satisfaction at the begetting of these three. He hands his necklace to the Kami of the Sun and commissions her to rule the "plain of heaven;" he confers upon the Kami of the Moon the dominion of night, and he appoints the Kami of force (Susanoo) to rule the sea-plain. The Kami of the Sun and the Kami of the Moon proceed at once to their appointed task, but the Kami of force, though of mature age and wearing a long beard, neglects his duty and falls to weeping, wailing, and fuming. Izanagi inquires the cause of his discontent, and the disobedient Kami replies that he prefers death to the office assigned him; whereupon he is forbidden to dwell in the same land with Izanagi and has to make his abode in Omi province. Then he forms the idea of visiting the "plain of high heaven" to bid farewell to his sister, the goddess of the Sun.

*Mr. Chamberlain translates the title of this Kami "brave, swift, impetuous, male, augustness."

But his journey is attended with such a shaking of mountains and seething of rivers that the goddess, informed of his recalcitrancy and distrusting his purpose, makes preparations to receive him in warlike guise, by dressing her hair in male fashion (i.e. binding it into knots), by tying up her skirt into the shape of trousers, by winding a string of five hundred curved jewels round her head and wrists, by slinging on her back two quivers containing a thousand arrows and five hundred arrows respectively, by drawing a guard on her left forearm, and by providing herself with a bow and a sword.

The Records and the Chronicles agree in ascribing to her such an exercise of resolute force that she stamps her feet into the ground as though it had been soft snow and scatters the earth about. Susanoo, however, disavows all evil intentions, and agrees to prove his sincerity by taking an oath and engaging in a Kami-producing competition, the condition being that if his offspring be female, the fact shall bear condemnatory import, but if male, the verdict shall be in his favour. For the purpose of this trial, they stand on opposite sides of a river (the Milky Way). Susanoo hands his sword to Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami, who breaks it into three pieces, chews the fragments, and blowing them from her mouth, produces three female Kami. She then lends her string of five hundred jewels to Susanoo and, he, in turn, crunches them in his mouth and blows out the fragments which are transformed into five male Kami. The beings thus strangely produced have comparatively close connexions with the mundane scheme, for the three female Kami—euphoniously designated Kami of the torrent mist, Kami of the beautiful island, and Kami of the cascade—become tutelary goddesses of the shrines in Chikuzen province (or the sacred island Itsuku-shima), and two of the male Kami become ancestors of seven and twelve families, respectively, of hereditary nobles.

On the "high plain of heaven," however, trouble is not allayed. The Sun goddess judges that since female Kami were produced from the fragments of Susanoo's sword and male Kami from her own string of jewels, the test which he himself proposed has resulted in his conviction; but he, repudiating that verdict, proceeds to break down the divisions of the rice-fields laid out by the goddess, to fill up the ditches, and to defile the palace—details which suggest either that, according to Japanese tradition, heaven has its agriculture and architecture just as earth has, or that the "plain of high heaven" was really the name of a place in the Far East. The Sun goddess makes various excuses for her brother's lawless conduct, but he is not to be placated. His next exploit is to flay a piebald horse and throw it through a hole which he breaks in the roof of the hall where the goddess is weaving garments for the Kami. In the alarm thus created, the goddess* is wounded by her shuttle, whereupon she retires into a cave and places a rock at the entrance, so that darkness falls upon the "plain of high heaven" and upon the islands of Japan,** to the consternation of the Kami of evil, whose voices are heard like the buzzing of swarms of flies.

*According to the Records, it is the attendants of the goddess that suffer injury.

**Referring to this episode, Aston writes in his Nihongi: "Amaterasu-o-mi-Kami is throughout the greater part of this narrative an anthropomorphic deity, with little that is specially characteristic of her solar functions. Here, however, it is plainly the sun itself which witholds its light and leaves the world to darkness. This inconsistency, which has greatly exercised the native theologians, is not peculiar to Japanese myth."

Then follows a scene perhaps the most celebrated in all the mythological legends; a scene which was the origin of the sacred dance in Japan and which furnished to artists in later ages a frequent motive. The "eight hundred myriads" of Kami—so numerous have the denizens of the "plain of high heaven" unaccountably become—assemble in the bed of the "tranquil river"* to confer about a means of enticing the goddess from her retirement. They entrust the duty of forming a plan to the Kami of "thought combination," now heard of for the first time as a son of one of the two producing Kami, who, with the "great central" Kami, constituted the original trinity of heavenly denizens. This deity gathers together a number of barn-yard fowl to signal sunrise, places the Kami of the "strong arm" at the entrance of the cave into which the goddess has retired, obtains iron from the "mines of heaven" and causes it to be forged into an "eight-foot" mirror, appoints two Kami to procure from Mount Kagu a "five-hundred branched" sakaki tree (cleyera Japonica), from whose branches the mirror together with a "five-hundred beaded" string of curved jewels and blue and white streamers of hempen cloth and paper-mulberry cloth are suspended, and causes divination to be performed with the shoulder blade of a stag.

*The Milky Way.

Then, while a grand liturgy is recited, the "heaven-startling" Kami, having girdled herself with moss, crowned her head with a wreath of spindle-tree leaves and gathered a bouquet of bamboo grass, mounts upon a hollow wooden vessel and dances, stamping so that the wood resounds and reciting the ten numerals repeatedly. Then the "eight-hundred myriad" Kami laugh in unison, so that the "plain of high heaven" shakes with the sound, and the Sun goddess, surprised that such gaiety should prevail in her absence, looks out from the cave to ascertain the cause. She is taunted by the dancer, who tells her that a greater than she is present, and the mirror being thrust before her, she gradually comes forward, gazing into it with astonishment; whereupon the Kami of the "strong arm" grasps her hand and drags her out, while two other Kami* stretch behind her a rope made of straw, pulled up by the roots,** to prevent her return, and sunshine once more floods the "plain of high heaven."

*These two are the ancestors of the Kami of the Nakatomi and the Imibe hereditary corporations, who may be described as the high priests of the indigenous cult of Japan.

**This kind of rope called shime-nawa, an abbreviation of shiri-kume-nawa may be seen festooning the portals of any Shinto shrine.

The details of this curious legend deserve attention for the sake of their close relation to the observances of the Shinto cult. Moreover, the mythology now takes a new departure. At the time of Izanagi's return from hades, vague reference is made to human beings, but after Susanoo's departure from the "plain of high heaven," he is represented as holding direct converse with them. There is an interlude which deals with the foodstuffs of mortals. Punished with a fine of a great number of tables* of votive offerings, his beard cut off, and the nails of his fingers and toes pulled out, Susanoo is sentenced to expulsion from heaven. He seeks sustenance from the Kami of food, and she responds by taking from the orifices of her body various kinds of viands which she offers to him. But he, deeming himself insulted, kills her, whereupon from her corpse are born rice, millet, small and large beans, and barley. These are taken by one of the two Kami of production, and by him they are caused to be used as seeds.

*The offerings of food in religious services were always placed upon small, low tables.

Thereafter Susanoo descends to a place at the headwaters of the river Hi (Izumo province). Seeing a chop-stick float down the stream, he infers the existence of people higher up the river, and going in search of them, finds an old man and an old woman lamenting over and caressing a girl. The old man says that he is an earthly Kami, son of the Kami of mountains, who was one of the thirty-five Kami borne by Izanami before her departure for hades. He explains that he had originally eight daughters, but that every year an eight-forked serpent has come from the country of Koshi and devoured one of the maidens, so that there remains only Lady Wonderful, whose time to share her sisters' fate is now at hand. It is a huge monster, extending over eight valleys and eight hills, its eyes red like winter cherries, its belly bloody and inflamed, and its back overgrown with moss and conifers. Susanoo, having announced himself as the brother of the Sun goddess, receives Lady Wonderful and at once transforms her into a comb which he places in his hair. He then instructs the old man and his wife to build a fence with eight gates, placing in every gate a vat of rice wine.

Presently the serpent arrives, drinks the wine, and laying down its heads to sleep, is cut to pieces by Susanoo with his ten-span sabre. In the body of the serpent the hero finds a sword, "great and sharp," which he sends to the Sun goddess, at whose shrine in Ise it is subsequently found and given to the famous warrior, Yamato-dake, when he is setting out on his expedition against the Kumaso of the north. The sword is known as the "Herb-queller." Susanoo then builds for himself and Lady Wonderful a palace at Suga in Izumo, and composes a celebrated verse of Japanese poetry.* Sixth in descent from the offspring of this union is the "Kami of the great land," called also the "Great-Name Possessor," or the "Kami of the reed plains," or the "Kami of the eight thousand spears," or the "Kami of the great land of the living," the last name being antithetical to Susanoo's title of "Ruler of Hades."

*"Many clouds arise,

On all sides a manifold fence,

To receive within it the spouse,

They form a manifold fence

Ah! that manifold fence."

Several legends are attached to the name of this multinominal being—legends in part romantic, in part supernatural, and in part fabulous. His eighty brethren compel him to act as their servant when they go to seek the hand of Princess Yakami of Inaba. But on the way he succours a hare which they have treated brutally and the little animal promises that he, not they, shall win the princess, though he is only their baggage-bearer. Enraged at the favour she shows him, they seek in various ways to destroy him: first by rolling down on him from a mountain a heated rock; then by wedging him into the cleft of a tree, and finally by shooting him. But he is saved by his mother, and takes refuge in the province of Kii (the Land of Trees) at the palace of the "Kami of the great house."* Acting on the latter's advice, he visits his ancestor, Susanoo, who is now in hades, and seeks counsel as to some means of overcoming his eighty enemies. But instead of helping him, that unruly Kami endeavours to compass his death by thrusting him into a snake-house; by putting him into a nest of centipedes and wasps, and finally by shooting an arrow into a moor, sending him to seek it and then setting fire to the grass. He is saved from the first two perils through the agency of miraculous scarves given to him by Princess Forward, Susanoo's daughter, who has fallen in love with him; and from the last dilemma a mouse instructs him how to emerge.

*A son of Susanoo. Under the name of Iso-Takeru he is recorded to have brought with him a quantity of seeds of trees and shrubs, which he planted, not in Korea, but in Tsukushi (Kyushu) and the eight islands of Japan. These words "not in Korea" are worthy of note, as will presently be appreciated.

A curious episode concludes this recital: Susanoo requires that the parasites shall be removed from his head by his visitor. These parasites are centipedes, but the Great-Name Possessor, again acting under the instruction of Princess Forward, pretends to be removing the centipedes, whereas he is in reality spitting out a mixture of berries and red earth. Susanoo falls asleep during the process, and the Great-Name Possessor binds the sleeping Kami's hair to the rafters of the house, places a huge rock at the entrance, seizes Susanoo's life-preserving sword and life-preserving bow and arrows as also his sacred lute,* and taking Princess Forward on his back, flees. The lute brushes against a tree, and its sound rouses Susanoo. But before he can disentangle his hair from the rafters, the fugitives reach the confines of the underworld, and the enraged Kami, while execrating this visitor who has outwitted him, is constrained to direct him how to overcome his brethren and to establish his rule firmly. In all this he succeeds, and having married Princess Yakami, to whom he was previously engaged,** he resumes the work left unfinished by Izanagi and Izanami, the work of "making the land."

*Sacred because divine revelations were supposed to be made through a lute-player.

**In the story of this Kami, we find the first record of conjugal jealousy in Japan. Princess Forward strongly objects to her husband's excursions into novel fields.

The exact import of this process, "making the land," is not discernible. In the hands of Izanagi and Izanami it resolves itself into begetting, first, a number of islands and, then, a number of Kami. At the outset it seems to have no more profound significance for the Great-Name Possessor. Several generations of Kami are begotten by him, but their names give no indication of the parts they are supposed to have taken in the "making of the land." They are all born in Japan, however, and it is perhaps significant that among them the one child—the Kami of wells—brought forth by Princess Yakami, is not included. Princess Forward has no children, a fact which doubtless augments her jealousy of her husband's amours; jealousy expressed in verses that show no mean poetic skill. Thus, the Great-Name Possessor on the eve of a journey from Izumo to Yamato, sings as he stands with one hand on his saddle and one foot in the stirrup:—

Though thou sayest thou willst not weep

If like the flocking birds, I flock and depart,

If like the led birds, I am led away and

Depart; thou wilt hang down thine head like

A single Eulalia upon the mountain and

Thy weeping shall indeed rise as the mist of

The morning shower.

Then the Empress, taking a wine-cup, approaches and offers it to

him, saying:

Oh! Thine Augustness, the Deity-of-Eight-Thousand-Spears!

Thou, my dear Master-of-the-Great-Land indeed,

Being a man, probably hast on the various island headlands thou

seest,

And on every beach-headland that thou lookest on,

A wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas!

Being a woman, I have no man except thee; I have no spouse except

thee.

Beneath the fluttering of the ornamented fence,

Beneath the softness of the warm coverlet,

Beneath the rustling of the cloth coverlet,

Thine arms, white as rope of paper-mulberry bark softly patting

my breast soft as the melting snow,

And patting each other interlaced, stretching out and pillowing

ourselves on each other's arms,

True jewel arms, and with outstretched legs, will we sleep.*

*B. H. Chamberlain.

"Having thus sung, they at once pledged each other by the cup with their hands on each other's necks." It is, nevertheless, from among the children born on the occasion of the contest between the Sun goddess and Susanoo that the Great-Name Possessor first seeks a spouse—the Princess of the Torrent Mist—to lay the foundation of fifteen generations of Kami, whose birth seems to have been essential to the "making of the land," though their names afford no clue to the functions discharged by them. From over sea, seated in a gourd and wearing a robe of wren's feathers, there comes a pigmy, Sukuna Hikona, who proves to be one of fifteen hundred children begotten by the Kami of the original trinity. Skilled in the arts of healing sickness and averting calamities from men or animals, this pigmy renders invaluable aid to the Great-Name Possessor. But the useful little Kami does not wait to witness the conclusion of the work of "making and consolidating the country." Before its completion he takes his departure from Cape Kumano in Izumo to the "everlasting land"—a region commonly spoken of in ancient Japanese annals but not yet definitely located. He is replaced by a spirit whose coming is thus described by the Chronicles:

After this (i.e. the departure of Sukuna), wherever there was in the land a part which was imperfect, the Great-Name Possessor visited it by himself and succeeded in repairing it. Coming at last to the province of Izumo, he spake and said: "This central land of reed plains had always been waste and wild. The very rocks, trees, and huts were all given to violence … But I have now reduced it to submission, and there is none that is not compliant." Therefore he said finally: "It is I, and I alone, who now govern this land. Is there, perchance, anyone who could join with me in governing the world?" Upon this a divine radiance illuminated the sea, and of a sudden there was something which floated towards him and said: "Were I not here, how couldst thou subdue this land? It is because I am here that thou hast been enabled to accomplish this mighty undertaking." Then the Great-Name Possessor inquired, saying, "Then who art thou?" It replied and said: "I am thy guardian spirit, the wonderous spirit." Then said the Great-Name Possessor: "True, I know therefore that thou art my guardian spirit, the wonderous spirit. Where dost thou now wish to dwell?" The spirit answered and said, "I wish to dwell on Mount Mimoro in the province of Yamato." Accordingly he built a shrine in that place and made the spirit go and dwell there. This is the Kami of Omiwa.*

*Aston's Translation of the Nihongi.

After the above incident, another begetting of Kami takes place on a large scale, but only a very few of them—such as the guardian of the kitchen, the protector of house-entrances, the Kami of agriculture, and so forth—have any intelligible place in the scheme of things.