SHINTO – the way of the Kami

On Tuesday the 20^th of June Jenny Raper presented this introductory paper for the Spiritual Reading Group at the Carmelite Library on the ancient Japanese religion of Shinto.

Our ancient forebears, all over the world, seemed to have had the same understanding about the universe and their special place in it.  The question we now ask is 'is the DNA of humans designed to include spiritual beliefs and longings?'  Three scholars, each one of them standing outside the theological arguments and influential in their own time in the debates tell us the following:

Frederic Myers, a pioneer in psychical research in the 19^th century in England is quoted by William James, the American pioneer psychologist and brother of Henry James.

“First consider what are the facts.  There exists around us a spiritual universe, and that universe is in actual relation with the material.  From the spiritual universe comes the energy which maintains the material; the energy which makes the life of each individual spirit.  Our spirits are supported by a perpetual indrawal of this energy, and the vigour of that indrawal is perpetually changing, much as the vigour of absorption of material nutriment changes from hour to hour.”

Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, came to say that all the great myths, 'regardless of origin or time of creation shared a common pattern.  He believed in the 'psychic unity of mankind'.  He wrote in 2000: 

“God is a metaphor for a mystery that transcends all human categories of thought, even the categories of being and non-being.”

He argued

“Whether it is putting you in touch with the mystery that's the ground of your own being.”  (Depends on how much you want to think about it!)

Karen Armstrong, who calls herself a religious historian, not a theologian, writes the following in the introduction to her book The Case for God (2009). She quotes Martin Heidegger (1899-1976)

 “'Being', a fundamental energy that supports and animates everything that exists.  Being is transcendent...From the documents of later Neolithic and pastoral societies, we know that Being rather than a being was revered as the ultimate sacred power. ….Certain objects became eloquent symbols of the power of Being... a stone or a rock (frequent symbols of the sacred) expressed the stability and durability of Being; the moon, its power of endless renewal; the sky, its towering transcendence.  None of these symbols was worshipped for in itself.  People did not bow down and worship a rock..., the rock was simply a focus to the mysterious essence of life.  Being bound all things together, humans, animals, plants, insects, stars and birds all shared the divine life that sustained the entire cosmos. 

People felt it natural to imagine a race of spiritual beings of a higher nature than themselves that they called 'gods'.  ….unseen forces at work in the world – wind, heat, emotion and air – these were often identified with gods. 

The sacred place was one of the earliest and most ubiquitous symbols of the divine.  ….it brought heaven and earth together and where the divine potency seemed particularly effective.  …...imagining this fructifying, sacred energy welling up like a spring... people settled close to these places so as to live as closely as possible to the wellspring of Being.

There was no gulf separating the gods from the rest of the cosmos, everything had emerged from the same sacred stuff.  All beings shared the same predicament and had to participate in a ceaseless battle against the destructive lethargy of chaos.”

An up-to-date description of Shinto comes from a Shinto priest (The Essence of Shinto Tokyo 2000) who writes:

“The essence of Shinto is found in our relationship and interdependence with Kami. … Shinto is the path through which we seek to realise ourselves fully as human beings by acquiring the noble characteristics of Kami. This is open to all men and women, but first we must become attuned to the spirit of Kami, which, in itself, is identical to Shinto.” 

Ko-Shinto – the way of spirits was the ancient form of Shinto practised in the period known as the Jomon Period from C11000-300 BCE.  The Japanese people followed this nature-based religion without any doctrine or creeds because they had no written texts. A pantheon of goddesses and gods – kami - were everywhere in their creation myths and they believed that every natural feature was imbued with spirits – kami- which were to be worshipped and attended to at certain times and for celebrations. Kami  had both good and evil powers; just as nature is both creative and destructive and life brings both harmony and conflict, war and peace.

The Japanese had no writing system prior to the introduction of the Chinese texts.  The first record of Japan comes from the Chinese dynastic histories, (C56CE). The earliest known examples of Japanese writing, dating back to the 5th and 6th Centuries A.D., are proper names inscribed with Chinese characters on a sacred mirror and a sword.  We have had to rely on Chinese and Korean observations and much later (circa 712CE) Records of Ancient Matters and the Chronicles of Japan (circa 720 CE), written by Japanese scholars. 

So, we are left with writings that are far from reliable, but which attempt to provide an historic background   Some of the Chinese and Korean observations though are  helpful in gaining an insight into Japanese life and culture, albeit seen from another cultural point of view.

Helpfully, the Chinese describe the country – 'The people of Wa live on mountainous islands in the ocean.” (De Bary p. 5).  So, we can understand why precious natural features to the Japanese are water – the ocean, rivers and springs; the mountains and the sky, in particular, the sun.  These natural elements are the foundation of the ancient myths that underpin Shinto.  Scholars have discovered that Shinto is an amalgam of several ancient forms of religion – shamanistic and animistic practices which seem to stem from the mainland, and other very local beliefs and practices which are related to place . The Chinese also observed, with interest, that women in Japan seemed to be equal to men in the way they lived, worked and practised Shinto.

For these ancient Japanese people, living on islands (around 6,800 of them) shaped their spiritual beliefs and practices.  As hunter gathers they took much of their food from the sea and thousands of rivers; they took natural vegetation and it is believed they grew some small crops; hunting for animals such as deer, hares, boars and eating birds such as pheasant.  Their world was full of potential disasters though, tsunami, earthquakes and typhoons which caused flooding. Japan's natural environment provided the people with rich sustenance, and thus the people felt they were instruments of the kami who worked through them in whatever they did.

Probably the most sacred sites for these early residents of Japan were the mountains where great rocks and great forests were to be found.  These natural wonders were filled with kami and the most sacred mountains, rocks, caverns and forest trees were set aside by specially knotted ropes (made from plants) and with simple gateways or square arches to designate their separateness from the secular life of the people.  These places became known as 'shrines' and the 'gates' are known as tor ii. Probably certain men and women acted as shamans at these shrines offering simple rituals for the people – we know that ritual washing was vital to any Shinto practice for purification purposes. Modern Shinto practice is to wash the hands and mouths before a shrine.

What is unsure is the question of sorcery or witchcraft to deal with evil kami or demons.  The Chinese visitors noted that a certain empress was a witch and practised sorcery. There is also no evidence of sacrifices, such as existed in other ancient religious practices.

We know that certain life events, such as birth, illness and death were all unclean in some way.  People tainted by these events could go to their local sacred 'shrine' and carry out cleansing rituals using water and prayers to the local kami.  In ancient times a shaman or priest was not required for these rituals.  Japan's natural environment provided the people with rich sustenance, and they believed they were instruments of the kami who worked through them in whatever they did. What we would call 'religion' was, for these people, about living and practising simultaneously.

The Kami are not necessarily good – they have both good and evil powers.  They understood that the forces of nature are both constructive and destructive and life brings both harmony and conflict; war and peace.

Evil spirits are known as oni and are responsible for a variety of human problems.  Because of the oneness of all things, (nothing is one thing or the other) they can be ambivalent.  For example, the oni fox spirit, is closely related to the rice god, Inari, who is popular and charitable.  The god Susano after being expelled from heaven, became a positive figure who slayed a dragon and saved a maiden in distress.  The misfortunes attributed to Oni are seen as temporary disruption of the natural order of things and not simple evil forces. (The Sacred East, ed, C. Scott Littleton.1966)

Ancient Shinto was closely connected with a system of clans and local Kami found around their lands. “Each person was born with a kami originating in the three creator Kami who transformed themselves and created all phenomena in the universe.” (The Essence of Shinto)

Out of this ancient world came a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. The most important of these is Amaterasu (The person who makes the Heavens shine– the Sun Goddess and divine ancestor of the imperial family. She was the daughter of the Izagani-no-mikoto (August Male) who descended from Heaven to procreate with his wife and sister Izanami-no-mikoto and create the islands of Japan and then a series of gods and goddesses.  Amaterasu was born from her father's left eye, Tsukiyomi, the moon god was born from his right and the god of storms, Susano (Raging Male) emerged from his nose.  Amaterasu was given sovereignty over heaven and earth.  She sent her grandson, to earth bearing the three sacred symbols – a sacred mirror, a magical sword and a wonderful, green fertility jewel.

Her grandson (Jimmu – tenno) is believed to have been the first ruler of Japan and right up until the end of World War II, the Emperors and Empresses of Japan were considered to be in direct line to Jimmu and so divine.  They are holders of the sacred

symbols and only the Emperor or his maiden daughter or niece, can officiate at the most sacred shrine to Amaterasu at Ise.  The inner shrine is designed in the ancient

style of a rice-barn and is situated within a compound that only designated people can enter.  It is rebuilt every 20 years to exact design and using the exact timbers as the original by builders from the ancient families who have rebuilt the Shrine for generations. Within the inner shrine the sacred mirror of the Goddess is held.  An outer shrine is dedicated to the rice goddess. The grounds around this shrine are spread with many special stones of differing colours and sizes for different areas.  The gardens are designed to reflect the natural environment surrounding the shrine and the forests outside the walls of the shrine are considered to be most sacred and few are allowed to enter them.

There is evidence that around the 3^rd century CE, ideas about the afterlife were more defined – some legends claim that the dead go to a place called yomi that is very like the Greek Hades and which is separated from the earth by a river.  Later myths speak of resurrection and descriptions of the heavenly place.  Shinto tends to be negative about death, which is a source of pollution called kegare. However after death many special individuals are enshrined after death, for example the Emperor Ojin (200-312 CE) was enshrined as the Hachiman the God of War.

It is difficult to describe Ko-Shinto because (apart from traditional practices and beliefs) the records we have come down to us as reports from other cultures. However, because some reports are detailed they do show curiosity and wonder of some aspects of the beliefs and practices of the ancient Japanese.  The courts of China and the Korean Kingdoms were remote from the Japanese islands, but archaeology shows that there was seepage of beliefs and customs from the mainland before the formal visits of court envoys.  Evidence of hydrology, rice growing and thus a gradual changing of how people actually lived, exists now. 

“Shinto, however, certainly has its own way of thinking and feeling as well as its own distinctive world view that cannot be adequately contained within the western concept of religion.  Underneath an array of expressions that ostensibly have no pattern, Shinto is filled with a world of faith.”  The Essence of Shinto  Motohisa Yamakage, Tokyo 2000.

References:  

                   Japanese Religions,   Michiko Yusa

                   The Essence of Japan   Motohisa Yamakage

                   The Sacred East  ed. C ScottLittleton  London 1999

                   Sources of Japanese Tradition. Compiled by Theodore de Bary, Donald             Keen, George Tanabe, Paul Varley.   New York 2001

Shinto – Norito prayers

On Tuesday the 20^th of June Jenny Raper presented an introductory paper for the Spiritual Reading Group on the ancient Japanese religion of Shinto. This included a reading and discussion of Norito prayers, reprinted below.

Norito – Words or prayers addressed by worshippers to a deity.  The efficacy of the prayer is founded on the concept of koto-dama, the spiritual power of words.  Words that are beautiful and correct bring about good.  Words that are coarse or ugly bring about evil.  So, the words used are profoundly important. Words that were classical and elegant were always used. 

Here are some prayers from the Engi-shiki (927 CE) written from the Heian court.  They are highly 'formulaic, ritualized and repetitive.  They consist of an invocation of a god or gods, a recollection of the founding of the shrine.....an identification of the recitant and his status; a list of offerings, a petition for certain benefits or blessings, a promise of recompense to be made in return; and a final salutation.’  (Sources of Japanese Tradition, edited by Theodore de Bary,  page 31)

Here are excerpts from The Great Exorcism of the last days of the sixth months.

First, the heavenly sins:

   Breaking down the ridges.

   Covering up the ditches,

   Releasing the irrigation sluices,

   Double planting,

   Setting up stakes,

   Skinning alive, skinning backwards,

   Defecation –

    …..are called the heavenly sins.

The earthly sins:

   Cutting living flesh, cutting death flesh,

   White leprosy, skin excrescences,

   The sin of violating one's own mother,

   The sin of violating one's own child,

   The of violating a mother and her child,

   The sin of violating a child and her mother.

   The sin of transgression with animals,

   Woes from creeping insects,

   Woes from the deities on high,

   Woes from the birds on high,

   Killing animals, the sin of witchcraft -

   Many sins (such as these) shall appear.

When they thus appear,

By the Heavenly Shrine usage,

   Pronounce the heavenly ritual, the solemn ritual words.

When he thus pronounces them......the Heavenly deities

   Will hear and receive these words.

When they thus hear and receive,

Then, beginning with the court of the Sovereign Grandchild,

   In the lands of the four quarters under the Heavens,

   Each and every sin will be gone.

As the gusty winds blows apart the myriad layers of Heavenly clouds,

   As the morning mist, the evening mist is blown away by the

   morning winds, the evening wind....

As a result of the exorcism and the purification,

   There will be no sins left.

They will be taken into the great ocean

   By the goddess called Se-ori-tsu-hime,

   Who dwells in the rapids of the rapid-running rivers

     Which fall surging perpendicular

     From the summits of the high mountains and the summits of the low mountains.

When she thus takes them,

   They will be swallowed with a gulp

   By the goddess called Haya-aki-tsu-hime...

When she thus swallows them with a gulp,

    The deity called Ibuli-do-nushi,

     Who dwells in the Ibuki-do   (breath blowing entrance)

   Will blow them away with his breath into the land of Hades,

   The underworld.

When she finally loses them,

   Beginning with the many officials serving in the Emperor’s court,

   In the four quarters under the heavens,

   Beginning from today,

   Each and every sin will be gone.

After the great exorcism come the propitiatory offerings.

With this prayer I present offerings,

   Providing garments of coloured cloth, radiant cloth, plain cloth and coarse cloth,

   A mirror as something to see clearly with,

   A jewel as something to play with,

   A bow and arrow as something to shoot with,

   A sword as something to cut with,

   A horse as something to ride on;

   Wine, raising high the soaring necks

     Of the countless wine vessels, filled to the brim;

In rice and in stalks;

That with lives in the mountains -

   The soft-furred and the coarse furred animals -

That with grows win the vast fields and plains -

   The sweet herbs and the bitter herbs -

As well as that which dwells in the blue ocean -

   The wide-finned and the narrow-finned fishes,

   The sea-weeds of the deep and the sea-weeds of the shore-

I place these noble offerings in abundance upon tables

   Like a long mountain range and present them

Praying that the Sovereign Deities

   Will with a pure heart receive them tranquilly

     As offerings of ease,

     As offerings of abundance,

   And will not seek vengeance and not ravage,

But will move to a place of wide and lovely mountains and rivers,

   And will as deities dwell there pacified.

With this prayer, I fulfill your praises.  Thus I humbly speak.

FOUND Warning against Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A Library member, reading our copy of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's 'The Phenomenon of Man' (Collins, 1959), found this Warning inside the book. It is a notice translated from the Latin of the Holy Office that appeared in L'Osservatore Romano on the 1st of July, 1962. Written on the Eve of the Second Vatican Council, the words read curiously now in a time when Teilhard de Chardin has been acclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI and others for his visionary writing. Scholars are discovering that he also had a strong influence on the thinking of many attendees at the Council. The things you find in books.

Synopsis to the new impression of the ANZTLA Festschrift (1995)

https://books.atla.com/index.php/atlapress/catalog/book/10

In 1995 the Australian and New Zealand Theological Library Association published a Festschrift in honour of Dr Lawrence McIntosh, librarian of the Joint Theological Library (now the Dalton McCaughey Library) in Parkville, Melbourne. This book has just been given a new lease of life online, due to the good graces of the American Theological Library Association. I was asked to write a foreword to the new impression, which follows here.

The year that this Festscrift was published is now seen as a time of great sea change, from a library world based firmly on the book to a world of almost infinite resource variety. Librarians were caught right in the middle. The signs of this change had been coming for some time, engendered by technology’s genius for new forms of information storage and retrieval. The change did not make the book outmoded, despite the many fears expressed at the time in the form of Gutenberg elegies. Rather, the sea change brought new formats, rich and strange, and with them the challenge to find our own imaginative responses. Belonging to an association of like minds, albeit not all of them digitally native, was a blessing as we progressed from our card-carrying card catalogue days into a time of diversification and information overload.

From its inception, the Australian and New Zealand Theological Library Association thrived, based on meeting the professional needs of its members. Sensitivity to presenting issues has always happened in an environment where the value and meaning of our collective inheritances have been upheld. The necessarily ecumenical nature of the Association has been a main cause of its success. The sharing of different traditions, with their varying purposes and styles, has been educational for all librarians who have encountered it; they have joined in with the possibilities. A creative exchange has been established and maintained. The consequent creation of quality products with the ANZTLA brand has been one practical and fruitful outcome.

The Association was never going to fit into the special interest group categories of a national library association: our numbers were always too large, our needs multiple and complex. Nor would it fit in as an adjunct to any theological association, something satisfactorily explained in the existing histories: theologians were never going to fully understand or appreciate the expectations of their librarians, or give them the indefinite time and attention required adequately to address those expectations. The Association came into being by launching itself free of any parental body, making its own way and developing its own character.

Browsing through the Festschrift today one is sensitive to the great achievements made by the Association in that short space of time since the landmark consultation of 1983. Raised consciousness about collection development, special collections, specialist religious issues in acquisition, cataloguing, reference and so forth had been reached quickly by close collaboration and a growing trust in our mutual endeavours. The Association has always had the knack of identifying the main issues at stake in our work, then acting to solve them within its limited means. This talent emerged early.

One also notices more work to be done. Trevor Zweck’s admirable history of ANZTLA describes how several people seemed to have the idea for ANZTLA, or at least saw the need, at about the same time. However, subsequent research has revealed that different cities of mainland Australia now lay claim to the genesis moment, with agreement nowhere in sight. Cards may see this as a typical symptom of Australian life, an opportunity for argument deep into the night in defence of local claims. More than likely though, as with most things, it was a New Zealander who actually first had the idea.

The Festschrift contains useful histories of theological libraries. It reminds us there is still much work to be done too on the history of the book in the Antipodes and its relation both to religious learning and theological education. There is still much work to be done on the history of religious publishing in this part of the world and how it expresses the life of nations with sometimes ambivalent attitudes about religion in public life. Patterns of educational reform across church traditions and their meaning in regard to faith life is another subject for our consideration.

One is amazed all over again at the work of researchers like Coralie Jenkin, who put together directories of theological and religious libraries with meticulous attention to detail. Detail, indeed, that one sometimes wonders is there online, now that library directories rely on the individual input of the institutions themselves. Her lists include records of private collections of scholars, clergy and enthusiasts that were a decisive subject guide for individual researchers. The concrete nature of the Book made such lists possible, they were locatable in time and space. One wonders if the same can be said for the mercurial nature of online directories and repositories.     

The Association thrives today because of the willingness of its members to ask the hard questions about their work needs and demands in the reality of a changing resource environment. Also, their ready willingness to work together and serve each other in the interests of common objectives, which continues due to the enabling existence of an energetic and committed Association. The friendly annual conference is where so much of this is recognised and the tasks addressed. The lively sharing of information on the e-list ANZTLA-Forum and at chapters meetings is essential to our forward purpose. This Festschrift is one basic resource for anyone wanting to know about ANZTLA. It is good news, and we are grateful indeed, that the American Theological Library Association sees fit to make it available here as well.   

--- Philip Harvey