ii. 20, says, "The Lord is in his holy temple," the Targums have,

"Jehovah was pleased to cause his Shekinah to dwell in his holy temple." I cannot see that the Shekinah and _Mitama_ owe anything to the analogous doctrine of the separability of the human soul and body. The ghost is not the parent of either.[10]

The unavoidable assumption that an anthropomorphic God can act at a distance from his own abode in Heaven or elsewhere really involves the doctrine of spiritism, though time and thought are required for its development. It is clearly not the Sun-Goddess herself who lives in Ise. Her true place is in Heaven; but she is present in some way on earth, as is proved by her answering the prayers which are addressed to her at her shrine. The explanation which is ultimately forthcoming is that it is the _Mitama_, or spirit, of the Goddess which resides there. We have here a foreshadowing of the doctrine of the omnipresence of deity.

The etymology of the word _Mitama_ will repay examination. _Mi_ is simply a honorific prefix. _Tama_ contains the root of the verb _tabu_, to give, more often met with in its lengthened form _tamafu_. _Tama_ retains its original signification in _tama-mono_, a gift thing, and _toshi-dama_, a new year's present. _Tama_ next means something valuable, as a jewel. Then, as jewels are mostly globular in shape, it has come to mean anything round. At the same time, owing to its precious quality, it is used symbolically for the sacred emanation from the God which dwells in his shrine, and also for that most precious thing, the human life or soul.[11]

The meaning of _tama_ is illustrated by the following story, which is related in the _Nihongi_ of Ohonamochi, the Creator or Kosmos-deity of Idzumo myth:--

"_Coming at last to the province of Idzumo, he spake and said; 'This Central Land of Reed-plains had been always waste and wild. The very rocks, trees, and herbs were all given to violence. But I have now reduced them 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 any one who could join with me in governing the world?' Upon this a divine radiance_[12] _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 of my presence that thou hast been able to accomplish this mighty task! 'Who art thou?' asked Ohonamochi. It replied and said: 'I am thy spirit (tama) of good luck, the wondrous spirit.' Then said Ohonamochi: 'True; I know, therefore, that thou art my spirit (tama) of good luck, the wondrous 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 to go and dwell there. This is the God of Oho-miwa."_

The distinction between the God and his spiritual double so clearly indicated in this extract is often neglected and the deity of Miwa spoken of simply as Ohonamochi. The same uncertainty as to the spiritual character of the God is reflected in his names Oho-kuni-nushi (great-country-master) and Oho-kuni-dama (great-country-spirit), and in a legend told of him in the _Kojiki_, where he is corporeal enough to have a child by a mortal woman and yet sufficiently spiritual to pass through a keyhole.

In the _Idzumo Fudoki_, Susa no wo speaks of the village of Susa as the place where his _mitama_ was settled, that is to say, where a shrine was dedicated to him. The _Nihongi_ states that Izanami's _mitama_ was worshipped at Kumano with music and offerings of flowers. In a modern book the Hi no mitama (spirit of the Sun) is not the Sun-Goddess, but a separate deity of a lower class.

The element _tama_ enters into the names of several deities. The Food-Goddess is called either Ukemochi no Kami or Uka no mitama.[13] But the meaning "spirit" is not applicable in every case in which a God's name contains this element. Futo-dama, for example, the name of the supposed ancestor of the Imbe priestly corporation, probably means "great gift or offering." Yorodzu-dama no Kami is not the God of ten thousand spirits, but the God of ten thousand offerings.

It is a curious circumstance that in later times the _mitama_ par excellence were the phallic Sahe no Kami. Their festival was formerly called the _mitama matsuri_. It is now known by the Chinese equivalent _Goriōye_.

In a few cases the _mitama_ is in duplicate, a _nigi-mitama_, or gentle spirit, and an _ara-mitama_, or rough spirit.[14] In the _Idzumo Fudoki_ a man who is praying for revenge calls upon the _nigi-tama_ of the _Oho-kami_ (great deity) to remain quiet, and asks the _ara-tama_ to attend to his petition. The legendary Empress Jingo was attended on her expedition to Korea by two such sea-god _mitama_, one to guard her person, the other to lead the van of her army. But we hear little of this distinction in the older records. The _aragami-matsuri_ (rough-God-festival) of later days was a sort of saturnalia when license was permitted to servants.

The _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_ do not theorize about the _mitama_. Hirata's statement that they do not distinguish between the _utsushi-mi-mi_ (real-august-body)[15] and the _mitama_ of the Gods is, as the case of Ohonamochi shows, not quite correct. But there is much foundation for it. In one myth, for example, the Sun-Goddess in handing over the divine mirror to Ninigi, enjoins on him to regard it as her _mitama_, and in another version of the story to look upon it as herself.

Another indication of an advance towards spirituality in the older Shinto literature is the distinction which is made between _araha-goto_ (public things) and _kakure-goto_ (hidden things), the former term being applied to temporal and the latter to spiritual matters, namely, the service of the unseen Gods. Mystery is not the vital element of religion. It depends on what we know, not on what we do not know. Still, there perhaps never was a religion which did not betray some feeling that what we know is only an infinitesimal portion of that infinite sum of knowledge for which mankind is possessed with an eternal yearning. Religion, though not based in mystery, must always proceed, like other knowledge, from the known towards the unknown. A good deal, however, that is mysterious in religion is of our own making. Hirata, when he can find no way out of the difficulties arising from his crude, literal-minded anthropomorphism, constantly resorts to the time-honoured expedient of declaring his problems mysteries which transcend human intelligence, exclaiming, "Oh! how wonderful! Oh! how strange! Oh! how strange! Oh! how wonderful!"

Motoöri and Hirata account for the invisibility of such Gods as Musubi, the God of Growth, by the theory that since the Age of the Gods they have removed further from the earth, so that they are now beyond the scope of human vision. In other respects, however, they have, under unacknowledged Chinese influence, greatly developed the hints of the spiritual nature of the Gods which are found in the _Kojiki_ and _Nihongi_. Of the _mitama_, Motoöri says[16]:--

_"In general, when such or such a God is mentioned in the old scriptures, we must distinguish between the real God and his mitama. The real God is his actual body; the mitama is his divine spirit: the mitama-shiro (spirit-token) is the thing, be it a mirror or aught else, to which the divine spirit attaches itself. It is commonly called the Shintai (God-body). Now both the real body and the spirit are spoken of simply as the God. Thus when we are told that Amaterasu no Ohokami was entrusted to Toyo-suki-iri-bime and Yamato no Oho-kuni-dama to Nunaki-iri-bime, it is not to be supposed that the real bodies of these two deities were in the Imperial Palace. It is unquestionably their mitama-shiro which are spoken of as if they were the real bodies.... Again, when we are told in the history of the same reign that the Mikado assembled the eighty myriads of Gods on the plain of Kami-asachi and inquired of them by divination, this is not like the assembly in the divine age of the real Gods in the Plain of High Heaven. The invitation is to their mitama."_

The same writer says that of the attendant deities who came down from Heaven with Ninigi, some came in their real bodies, some as _mitama_. Among the former he naturally classes all those who are represented as having human descendants. Hirata regards this as a discovery which will endure to all ages.

The following quotation from Hirata's _Koshiden_ (vi. 9) illustrates further the ideas of this school of theology regarding the spiritual nature of the Gods:--

_"Both this God(Chigaheshi) and Kunado[17] were produced by the great mitama of the great God Izanagi applying itself earnestly to preventing the entrance into this world of the things coming furiously from the Land of Yomi, and which accordingly became separated from him and adhered to a staff and a stone. Remaining there, it (the mitama) did good service in both cases. These Gods, moreover, sometimes reveal their real bodies and dispense blessings. This may not be doubted. We find below that Kunado no Kami acted as a guide to Futsunushi; and that Chigaheshi no Oho-Kami was two deities distinguished as hiko and hime (prince and princess)."_

Hirata thinks that Gods (and men too) have two doubles, the _nigi-tama_ and an _aratama_ mentioned above. These he distinguishes from the _Zentai no mitama_, or "spirit of the entire body." But he admits that these distinctions are not recognized in the old Shinto. There is no limit to the subdivision of the _mitama_. Hirata explains that the deity is like a fire, which may be communicated to a lamp or to firewood while the original fire remains the same. "But the world knows not this." In other words, this is a philosophic refinement too subtle for the popular taste.

While the old records rarely distinguish between the God's real body and his _mitama_, in later times the _mitama_ is often confounded with the _mitama-shiro_ (spirit-token), or _shintai_ (god-body) as the concrete representative of the God is called. Even in the _Nihongi_ there is a case in which a sword is called Futsu no mitama. The _Kiujiki_ calls the mirror of the Sun-Goddess her _mitama_. The _Shinto Miōmoku_ (1699) says that Futsu no mitama is the sword of the great deity of Kashima, and speaks of the Toyo-uka no mitama (the Food-spirit) as being, or residing in, a stone. Hirata himself calls a stone idol the _mitama_ of the God, and speaks of the Sun-Goddess's _mitama_ as going backward and forward between Ise and the sky. The unspiritual vulgar naturally find it hard to distinguish between the spirit of the God and its concrete representative.

The doctrine of the separability of the human body and soul, and of the continued existence of the latter after death, whether in a material or semi-material form, or as a pure spirit, may have been a factor in the spiritualizing of the cruder anthropomorphic conceptions of deity. But there is little or no evidence to this effect in the old Shinto scriptures, and the above pages show that other important influences were at work in producing this result. Whether the idea of God had its origin in the doctrine of separable human souls is a question which may be left to the discerning reader's judgment.

=Gods of Classes and Qualities=.--No language is possible without some exercise of the powers of generalization and abstraction. In Japanese, however, we miss many of the more general, and especially of the more abstract, conceptions embodied in European languages, a circumstance which limits the scope of the personifying faculty, none too vigorous in itself. Supposing that we take the series of conceptions beginning with the concrete individual tree, and passing through evergreen oak, oak, tree, and vegetable, to the definitive generalization of the universe. The Japanese language has no word for vegetable except _sōmoku_, a recent compound of Chinese origin. The word for universe is _Ame-tsuchi_ (Heaven + earth) which is almost certainly a translation of the Chinese _ten-chi_. The consequence is that neither the class of vegetables nor the universe is recognized in the Japanese scheme of nature-deities. Individual trees are deified, and there is a God of trees, but that is all. The neglect of grammatical number in the Japanese language often obscures the distinction between the Gods of individual objects and of classes. _Ki no Kami_ means equally the God of the tree and the God of trees.[18]

There is a marked poverty of abstract terms in the Japanese language, and the personification of abstract qualities is correspondingly restricted. There is scarcely anything in Shinto to compare with the numerous personified abstractions of Greek and Roman mythology. Izanagi and Izanami, embodiments of the creative or generative powers of nature, are probably not originally Japanese, but an echo of the _Yin_ and _Yang_ of Chinese philosophy. I have a suspicion that Musubi, the God of Growth, may yet be traced to a Chinese source.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] At the festival of Nifu Miōjin in Kiī, when the procession bearing offerings arrives before the shrine, the village chief calls out in a loud voice, "According to our annual custom, let us all laugh." To which a hearty response is given. This is because this God does not go to Idzumo for an annual visit like the others.

[2] 'Sociology,' p. 153.

[3] Compare with this the following description of the _huacas_ of the ancient Peruvians. "All those things which from their beauty and excellence are superior to other things of a like kind; things that are ugly and monstrous or that cause horror and fright; things out of the usual course of nature."

[4] In the spirit of Wordsworth's

"Listen, the mighty being is awake And doth with his eternal motion make A noise like thunder everlastingly."

[5] M. Goblet d'Alviella says: "I maintain that neither of these two forms of worship necessarily presupposes the other; but that man having been led by different roads to personify the souls of the dead on the one hand and natural objects and phenomena on the other, subsequently attributed to both alike the character of mysterious superhuman beings. Let us add that this must have taken place everywhere, for there is not a people on earth in which we do not come upon these forms of belief side by side and intermingled." Dr. Pfleiderer's view is substantially identical.

[6] Max Müller speaks of "that ancient stratum of thought which postulated an agent in the sky, the sun, &c." This is really a secondary conception.

[7] It was not unknown in ancient Greece and Rome. Zeus, Hercules, and other deities became divided up in this way.

[8] "Mr. Tyler has justly observed that the true lesson of the new science of Comparative Mythology is the barrenness in primitive times of the faculty which we most associate with mental fertility, the imagination.... Among these multitudes (the millions of men who fill what we vaguely call the East) Literature, Religion, and Art--or what correspond to them--move always within a distinctly drawn circle of unchanging notions.... This condition of thought is rather the infancy of the human mind prolonged than a different maturity from that most familiar to us."--Maine, 'Early History of Institutions,' pp. 225-6. This characteristic of the mental development of the races of the Far East is discussed in 'A Comparative Study of the Japanese and Korean Languages,' by W. G. Aston, in the _Transactions_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, August, 1879, and more fully by Mr. Percival Lowell, in his 'Soul of the Far East,' 1888. See also Mr. B. H. Chamberlain's' Kojiki,' Introd., lxvi.

[9] Homer implicitly denies the spirituality of his Gods when he says that the Hercules which was summoned up by Ulysses was only his _eidolon_, or phantom, the real man being in Olympus among the happy Gods.

[10] See an instructive article on 'Shekinah' in Dr. Hastings's 'Dictionary of the Bible'.

[11] "And mine eternal jewel given to the common enemy of man."--'Macbeth,' Act III. scene i.

[12] The Shekinah was also associated with a divine radiance, or glory.

[13] _Mi mi_ (august body) in the names of others involves a more material conception of deity.

[14] Corresponding to the _mo acha_, uncle of peace, and _ski acha_, rough uncle, of the Ainus.

[15] Homer's άντός

[16] _Sakitake no Ben, 21_.

[17] See Index.

[18] For deities of classes consult Dr. Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' ii. 242.