Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation

Deference to the sentiment of vassals and retainers was from ancient time a necessary policy with Japanese rulers,--not merely because of the peril involved [398] by needless op...

Almost every Japanese village has its Ujigami; and each district of every large town or city also has its Ujigami. The worship of the tutelar deity is maintained by the whole bo...

To these four revolutionary periods, the social history of Old Japan presents but two correspondences. The first Japanese revolutionary period was represented by the Fujiwara us...

From the sociologist's point of view, Hirata is right: it is unquestionably true that the whole system of Far-Eastern ethics derives from the religion of the household. By aid o...

And for that very reason, when Japan at last found herself face to face with the unexpected peril of Western aggression, the abolition of the dairmates was felt to be a matter o...

Closely related by origin to the rites of purification are sundry ascetic practices of Shinto. It is not an essentially ascetic religion: it offers flesh and wine to its gods; a...

Such is the mythology of the Ko-ji-ki and the Nihongi, stated in the briefest possible way. At first it appears that there were two classes of gods recognized: Celestial and Ter...

I have spoken only of her moral charm: it requires time for the unaccustomed foreign eye to discern the physical charm. Beauty, according to our Western standards, can scarcely...

Few scholars could remember the names of all the greater gods, not to speak of the lesser; and no mortal could have found time to address those greater gods by their respective...

Yet for no generous thinker can the ethical questions involved be thus easily settled. We are not justified in holding that the inevitable is morally ordained,--much less that,...

The foregoing Buddhist positions sufficiently imply that the human consciousness is but a temporary aggregate,--not an eternal entity. There is no permanent self: there is but o...

Iyeyasu's command ended the practice of junshi among his own vassals; but it continued, or revived again, after his death. In 1664 the shogunate issued an edict proclaiming that...

Then began the reign of the Minamoto regents, or rather shogun. I have elsewhere said that the title "shogun" originally signified, as did the Roman military term Imperator, onl...

As the oldest extant Japanese texts--with the probable exception of some Shinto rituals--date from the eighth century, it is only possible to surmise the social conditions of th...

These documents published by Professor Wigmore contain only the regulations issued for the daimiate of Maizuru; but regulations equally [168] minute and vexatious appear to have...

Though, in the present state of our knowledge, the evolution in Japan of these three stages of ancestor-worship is but faintly traceable, we can divine tolerably well, from vari...

[100] How small were the chances in past times for personality to develop and assert itself may be imagined from the foregoing facts. The individual was completely and pitilessl...

The reader should now be able to form an approximately correct idea of the character of the old Japanese society. But the ordination of that society was much more complex than I...

The correspondence of Adams proves that Iyeyasu disdained no means of obtaining direct information about foreign affairs in regard to religion and politics. As for affairs in Ja...

A thousand books have been written about Japan; but among these,--setting aside artistic publications and works of a purely special character,--the really precious volumes will...

Of course the famous paintings and the great statues could be seen at the temples only; but the Buddhist image-makers soon began to people even the most desolate places with sto...

Long training in caution and self-control is indeed an indispensable preparation for official existence; the ability either to keep a position won, or to resign it with honour,...

Speaking of the Greek and Roman marriage, M. de Coulanges observes:--"Une telle religion ne pouvait pas admettre la polygamie." As relating to the highly developed domestic cult...

If this error [or deception?] could have occurred at Yamaguchi, it is reasonable to suppose that it also occurred in other places. Exteriorly the Roman rites resembled those of...

As yet it is difficult to establish any clear distinction between the freedmen and the freemen of ancient Japanese society; but we know that the free population, ranking below t...

How strongly she has been able to develop them in one direction, the present war with Russia bears startling witness. But it is certainly to the long discipline of the past that...

The Supreme Cult is not now the State Religion by request of the chiefs of Shinto, it is not even officially classed as a religion. Obvious reasons of state policy decided this...

The reader scarcely needs to be reminded that a civilization less evolved than our own, and intellectually remote from us, is not on that account to be regarded as necessarily i...

General 500 (50 pounds) 25:00 525:00 Lieutenant-General 333 18:75 351:75 Major-General 263 12:50 275:50 Colonel 179 10:00 189:00 Lieutenant-Colonel 146 8:75 154:75 Major 102 7:5...

Considering that this code which inculcated humanity, repressed moral laxity, prohibited celibacy, and rigorously maintained the family-cult, was drawn up in the time of the ext...

China, date of introduction of spirit-tablet from, 24; religion of filial piety in, 49-50; belief as to the Demon-Gate imported from, 130; penal codes imported from, 176; arts a...

Temples, Shinto, evolved from mourning-houses, 41; Shinto parish dedicated to Uji-gods (Ujigami), 82-84; Shinto, of the first grade, 121; Shinto, classification of, 123; forms o...