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Preserve affection between
husbands and wives, brothers, and all relatives; extend sympathy and
compassion to servants." Further, in a street notice posted in Yedo
during the year 1656, we find it ordained that should any disobey a
parent's directions, or reject advice given by a municipal elder or
by the head of a five-households guild, such a person must be brought
before the administrator, who, in the first place, will imprison him;
whereafter, should the malefactor not amend his conduct, he shall be
banished forever; while for anyone showing malice against his father,
arrest and capital punishment should follow immediately.

In these various regulations very little allusion is made to the
subject of female rights. But there is one significant provision,
namely, that a divorced woman is entitled to have immediately
restored to her all her gold and silver ornaments as well as her
dresses; and at the same time husbands are warned that they must not
fail to make due provision for a former wife. The impression conveyed
by careful perusal of all Tokugawa edicts is that their compilers
obeyed, from first to last, a high code of ethical principles.

ENGRAVING: "INRO," LACQUERED MEDICINE CASE CARRIED CHIEFLY BY SAMURAI

ENGRAVING: TOKUGAWA MITSUKUNI



CHAPTER XLIII

REVIVAL OF THE SHINTO CULT

RYOBU SHINTO

THE reader is aware that early in the ninth century the celebrated
Buddhist priest, Kukai (Kobo Daishi), compounded out of Buddhism and
Shinto a system of doctrine called Ryobu Shinto. The salient feature
of this mixed creed was the theory that the Shinto deities were
transmigrations of Buddhist divinities. Thereafter, Buddhism became
the national religion, which position it held until the days of the
Tokugawa shoguns, when it was supplanted among educated Japanese by
the moral philosophy of Confucius, as interpreted by Chutsz, Wang
Yang-ming, and others.

REVIVAL OF PURE SHINTO

The enthusiasm and the intolerance showed by the disciples of Chinese
philosophy produced a reaction in Japan, and this culminated in the
revival of Shinto, during which process the anomalous position
occupied by the shogun towards the sovereign was clearly
demonstrated, and the fact contributed materially to the downfall of
the Tokugawa. It was by Ieyasu himself that national thought was
turned into the new channel, though it need scarcely be said that the
founder of the Tokugawa shogunate had no premonition of any results
injurious to the sway of his own house.

After the battle of Sekigahara had established his administrative
supremacy, and after he had retired from the shogunate in favour of
Hidetada, Ieyasu applied himself during his residence at Sumpu to
collecting old manuscripts, and shortly before his death he directed
that the Japanese section of the library thus formed should be handed
over to his eighth son, the baron of Owari, and the Chinese portion
to his ninth son, the baron of Kii. Another great library was
subsequently brought together by a grandson of Ieyasu, the celebrated
Mitsukuni (1628-1700), baron of Mito, who, from his youthful days,
devoted attention to Japanese learning, and, assembling a number of
eminent scholars, composed the Dai Nihon-shi (History of Great
Japan), which consisted of 240 volumes and became thenceforth
the standard history of the country. It is stated that the
expenditures involved in producing this history, together with a
five-hundred-volume work on the ceremonies of the Imperial Court,
amounted to one-third of the Mito revenues, a sum of about 700,000
ryo. There can be little doubt that Mitsukuni's proximate purpose in
undertaking the colossal work was to controvert a theory advanced by
Hayashi Razan that the Emperor of Japan was descended from the
Chinese prince, Tai Peh, of Wu, of the Yin dynasty.

Chiefly concerned in the compilation of the Dai Nihon-shi were Asaka
Kaku, Kuriyama Gen, and Miyake Atsuaki. They excluded the Empress
Jingo from the successive dynasties; they included the Emperor Kobun
in the history proper, and they declared the legitimacy of the
Southern Court as against the Northern. But in the volume devoted to
enumeration of the constituents of the empire, they omitted the
islands of Ezo and Ryukyu. This profound study of ancient history
could not fail to expose the fact that the shogunate usurped powers
which properly belonged to the sovereign and to the sovereign alone.
But Mitsukuni and his collaborators did not give prominence to this
feature. They confined themselves rather to historical details.

ENGRAVING: KAMO MABUCHI

ENGRAVING: MOTOORI NOBINAGA

It was reserved for four other men to lay bare the facts of the
Mikado's divine right and to rehabilitate the Shinto cult. These men
were Kada Azumamaro (1668-1736), Kamo Mabuchi (1697-1769), Motoori
Norinaga (1730-1801), and Hirata Atsutane (1776-1834). Associated
with them were other scholars of less note, but these are
overshadowed by the four great masters. Kada, indeed, did not achieve
much more than the restoration of pure Japanese literature to the
pedestal upon which it deserved to stand. That in itself was no
insignificant task, for during the five centuries that separated the
Gen-Hei struggle from the establishment of the Tokugawa family,
Japanese books had shared the destruction that overtook everything in
this period of wasting warfare, and the Japanese language itself had
undergone such change that to read and understand ancient books, like
the Kojiki and the Manyo-shu, demanded a special course of study. To
make that study and to prepare the path for others was Kada's task,
and he performed it so conscientiously that his successors were at
once able to obtain access to the treasures of ancient literature. It
was reserved for Mabuchi to take the lead in championing Japanese
ethical systems as against Chinese. By his writings we are taught the
nature of the struggle waged throughout the Tokugawa period between
Chinese philosophy and Japanese ethics, and we are enabled, also, to
reach a lucid understanding of the Shinto cult as understood by the
Japanese themselves. The simplest route to that understanding is to
let the four masters speak briefly, each for himself:

"Learning is a matter in which the highest interests of the empire
are involved, and no man ought to be vain enough to imagine that he
is able by himself to develop it thoroughly. Nor should the student
blindly adhere to the opinions of his teacher. Anyone who desires to
study Japanese literature should first acquire a good knowledge of
Chinese, and then pass over to the Manyo-shu, from which he may
discover the ancient principles of the divine age. If he resolve
bravely to love and admire antiquity, there is no reason why he
should fail to acquire the ancient style in poetry as well as in
other things. In ancient times, as the poet expressed only the
genuine sentiments of his heart, his style was naturally direct, but
since the practice of writing upon subjects chosen by lot came into
vogue, the language of poetry has become ornate and the ideas forced.
The expression of fictitious sentiment about the relations of the
sexes and miscellaneous subjects is not genuine poetry. [Kada
Azumamaro.]

"Wherein lies the value of a rule of conduct? In its conducing to the
good order of the State. The Chinese for ages past have had a
succession of different dynasties to rule over them, but Japan has
been faithful to one uninterrupted line of sovereigns. Every Chinese
dynasty was founded upon rebellion and parricide. Sometimes, a
powerful ruler was able to transmit his authority to his son and
grandson, but they, in their turn, were inevitably deposed and
murdered, and the country was in a perpetual state of civil war. A
philosophy which produces such effects must be founded on a false
system. When Confucianism was first introduced into Japan, the
simple-minded people, deceived by its plausible appearance, accepted
it with eagerness and allowed it to spread its influence everywhere.
The consequence was the civil war which broke out immediately after
the death of Tenji Tenno, in A.D. 671, between that Emperor's brother
and son, which only came to an end in 672 by the suicide of the
latter.

"In the eighth century, the Chinese costume and etiquette were adopted
by the Court. This foreign pomp and splendour covered the rapid
depravation of men's hearts, and created a wide gulf between the
Mikado and his people. So long as the sovereign maintains a simple
style of living, the subjects are contented with their own hard lot.
Their wants are few and they are easily ruled. But if a sovereign has
a magnificent palace, gorgeous clothing, and crowds of finely dressed
women to wait on him, the sight of these things must cause in others
a desire to possess themselves of the same luxuries; and if they are
not strong enough to take them by force, their envy is excited. Had
the Mikado continued to live in a house roofed with shingles and
having walls of mud, to carry his sword in a scabbard wound round
with the tendrils of some creeping plant, and to go to the chase
carrying his bow and arrows, as was the ancient custom, the present
state of things would never have come about. But since the
introduction of Chinese manners, the sovereign, while occupying a
highly dignified place, has been degraded to the intellectual level
of a woman. The power fell into the hands of servants, and although
they never actually assumed the title, they were sovereigns in fact,
while the Mikado became an utter nullity. . .

"In ancient times, when men's dispositions were straightforward, a
complicated system of morals was unnecessary. It would naturally
happen that bad acts might occasionally be committed, but the
integrity of men's dispositions would prevent the evil from being
concealed and growing in extent. In these days, therefore, it was
unnecessary to have a doctrine of right and wrong. But the Chinese,
being bad at heart, were only good externally, in spite of the
teaching they received, and their evil acts became of such magnitude
that society was thrown into disorder.