Читать книгу The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji - William Elliot Griffis - Страница 16

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Of the first species the ki is the male, the lin is the female, hence the name Kilin. The Japanese having no l, pronounce this Kirin. Its appearance on the earth is regarded as a happy portent of the advent of good government or the birth of men who are to prove virtuous rulers. It has the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, and a single, soft horn. As messenger of mercy and benevolence, the Kirin never treads on a live insect or eats growing grass. Later philosophy made this imaginary beast the incarnation of those five primordial elements—earth, air, water, fire and ether of which all things, including man's body, are made and which are symbolized in the shapes of the cube, globe, pyramid, saucer and tuft of rays in the Japanese gravestones. It is said to attain the age of a thousand years, to be the noblest form of the animal creation and the emblem of perfect good. In Chinese and Japanese art this creature holds a prominent place, and in literature even more so. It is not only part of the repertoire of the artist's symbols in the Chinese world of ideas, but is almost a necessity to the moulds of thought in eastern Asia. Yet it is older than Confucius or the book-religions, and its conception shows one of the nobler sides of Animism.

The Feng-hwang or Phoenix, Japanese H[=o]-w[=o], the second of the incarnations of the spirits, is of wondrous form and mystic nature. The rare advent of this bird upon the earth is, like that of the kirin or unicorn, a presage of the advent of virtuous rulers and good government. It has the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the features of the dragon and fish. Its colors and streaming feathers are gorgeous with iridian sheen, combining the splendors of the pheasant and the peacock. Its five colors symbolize the cardinal virtues of uprightness of mind, obedience, justice, fidelity and benevolence. The male bird H[=o], and female w[=o], by their inseparable fellowship furnish the artist, poet and literary writer with the originals of the ten thousand references which are found in Chinese and its derived literatures. Of this mystic Phoenix a Chinese dictionary thus gives description:

The Phoenix is of the essence of water; it was born in the vermilion cave; it perches not but on the most beautiful of all trees; it eats not but of the seed of the bamboo; its body is adorned with the five colors; its song contains the five notes; as it walks it looks around; as it flies hosts of birds follow it.

Older than the elaborate descriptions of it and its representations in art, the H[=o]-w[=o] is one of the creations of primitive Chinese Animism.

The Kwei or Tortoise is not the actual horny reptile known to naturalists and to common experience, but a spirit, an animated creature that ages ago rose up out of the Yellow River, having on its carapace the mystic writing out of which the legendary founder of Chinese civilization deciphered the basis of moral teachings and the secrets of the unseen. From this divine tortoise which conceived by thought alone, all other tortoises sprang. In the elaboration of the myths and legends concerning the tortoise we find many varieties of this scaly incarnation. It lives a thousand years, hence it is emblem of longevity in art and literature. It is the attendant of the god of the waters. It has some of the qualities and energies of the dragon, it has the power of transformation. In pictures and sculptures we are familiar with its figure, often of colossal size, as forming the curb of a well, the base of a monument or tablet. Yet, whatever its form in literature or art, it is the later elaborated representation of ancient Animism which selected the tortoise as one of the manifold incarnations or media of the myriad spirits that populate the air.

Chief and leader of the four divinely constituted beasts is the Lung, Japanese Ri[=o], or Dragon, which has the power of transformation and of making itself visible or invisible. At will it reduces itself to the size of a silk-worm, or is swollen until it fills the space of heaven and earth. This is the creature especially preeminent in art, literature and rhetoric. There are nine kinds of dragons, all with various features and functions, and artists and authors revel in their representation. The celestial dragon guards the mansions of the gods and supports them lest they fall; the spiritual dragon causes the winds to blow and rain to descend for the service of mankind; the earth dragon marks out the courses of rivers and streams; the dragon of the hidden treasures watches over the wealth concealed from mortals, etc. Outwardly, the dragon of superstition resembles the geological monsters brought to resurrection by our paleontologists. He seems to incarnate all the attributes and forces of animal life—vigor, rapidity of motion, endurance, power of offence in horn, hoof, claw, tooth, nail, scale and fiery breath. Being the embodiment of all force the dragon is especially symbolical of the emperor. Usually associated with malevolence, one sees, besides the conventional art and literature of civilization, the primitive animistic idea of men to whose mind this mysterious universe had no unity, who believed in myriad discordant spirits but knew not of "one Law-giver, who is able both to save and to destroy." An enlargement, possibly, of prehistoric man's reminiscence of now extinct monsters, the dragon is, in its artistic development, a mythical embodiment of all the powers of moisture to bless and to harm. We shall see how, when Buddhism entered China, the cobra-de-capello, so often figured in the Buddhistic representations of India, is replaced by the dragon.

Yet besides these four incarnations of the spirits that misrule the world there is a host, a menagerie of mythical monsters. In Korea, one of the Asian countries richest in demonology, beast worship is very prevalent. Mythical winged tigers and flying serpents with attributes of fire, lightning and combinations of forces not found in any one creature, are common to the popular fancy. In Japan, the kappa, half monkey half tortoise, which seizes children bathing in the rivers, as real to millions of the native common folk as is the shark or porpoise; the flying-weasel, that moves in the whirlwind with sickle-like blades on his claws, which cut the face of the unfortunate; the wind-god or imp that lets loose the gale or storm; the thunder-imp or hairy, cat-like creature that on the cloud-edges beats his drums in crash, roll, or rattle; the earthquake-fish or subterranean bull-head or cat-fish that wriggles and writhes, causing the earth to shiver, shudder and open; the ja or dragon centipede; the tengu or long-nosed and winged mountain sprite, which acts as the messenger of the gods, pulling out the tongues of fibbing, lying children; besides the colossal spiders and mythical creatures of the old story-books; the foxes, badgers, cats and other creatures which transform themselves and "possess" human beings, still influence the popular mind. These, once the old kami of the primitive Japanese, or kamui of the aboriginal Aino, show the mental soil and climate¹⁶ which were to condition the growth of the seed imported from other lands, whether of Buddhism or Christianity. It is very hard to kill a god while the old mind that grew and nourished him still remains the same. Banish or brand a phantom or mind-shadow once worshipped as divine, and it will appear as a fairy, a demon, a mythical animal, or an oni; but to annihilate it requires many centuries of higher culture.

As with the superstitions and survival of Animism and Fetichism from our pagan ancestors among ourselves, many of the lingering beliefs may be harmless, but over the mass of men in Japan and in Chinese Asia they still exert a baleful influence. They make life full of distress; they curtail human joy; they are a hindrance, to spiritual progress and to civilization.