There is another difference of recognition between monotheism with sacred books and Japanese polytheism concerning this world. The Holy Bible indicates the judgment Day when all virtuous persons will be saved and all wicked persons punished and ruined finally, and encourages people to live rightly and honestly according to the intention of the God. On the other hand, in both of the Chronicle of Japan and the Kojiki, we cannot find such a statement as that of the Revelation, but as a general inclination the Shinto praise the eternity of this world, although the Buddhism introduced the idea that a corrupt and helpless age will come 1500 years after the death of Buddha and last during 10000 years. Sometimes, this difference has been another reason why polytheists are unconscious of a sense of morality.
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2008年7 月
2008年7 月21日 (月)
2008年7 月20日 (日)
The Moral Sense and The Japanese Polytheism
For a long time, monotheists have condemned that polytheists are lacking in the moral sense founded by Almighty God who gave human-beings religious precepts in the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran and so on. In place of the explicit and scripted commandments given by the God, the Japanese must deliberate in their hearts the Heaven itself which would be genuine and pure existence and be source of a good conscience and a spiritual virtue of everybody necessary to ethical behaviors and sound societies.
2008年7 月19日 (土)
The Japanese Myth and the Universe
Even in the modern time when enormous scientific knowledge has been accumulated, we cannot explain satisfactorily how the universe appeared and how and when life came into existence. In a sense, however, the explanation regarding the process of the separation of the Heaven and the Earth described in the Japanese myth is not contrary to scientific observations on space. Setting aside the Big Bang, every stars and planets formed their figures attracting matter in space and made a cosmos wherein lives with spirits have been varying through an evolutional process, whether God or some ultimate spirit was concerned in it or not.
2008年7 月18日 (金)
The Shinto and the Buddism in Japan
The idea that there would be something perpetual origin of universe is common to the Buddhism preaching people to be spiritually awakened and to be conscious of the provision of nature through being buried in meditation. This may be one of the reasons why the Japanese has accepted the Buddhism gradually, though a conflict happened between Mononobe family and Soga family in 6th century when the Buddism was introduced into Japan.
2008年7 月17日 (木)
The Japanese Myths and The Greek Philosophy
Sometimes it has been pointed out that the Japanese myths resemble to those of the Greek on the ground of polytheism and active deities with human nature. As far as the stage, however, on which the first deities would appear, it is rather similar to ancient Greek philosophy wherein philosophers, particularly Milesians, eagerly inquired into cosmos, the origin of the universe[i]. As of old, Japanese people have expressed it in imaging the eternal universe by a conventional phrase “the time when the Heaven and Earth separated,” and they have recited this phrase in Shinto prayers or have composed poems, Uta, the traditional style of Japanese poetry, ever and again.
2008年7 月16日 (水)
The First Deities of the Universe
With regard to each of the first three or seven deities, both of the historical books remain silent and leave no description about their Persons as deities, but only admire the preciousness of their own existences. On the other hand, the editor of the Kojiki, Yasumaro Oono, said in that preface that they are relating to any nascence after the separation of the Heaven and the Earth.
2008年7 月15日 (火)
Concealment of the first Deities
Moreover, the Kojiki added a mysterious sentence that these seven deities would have concealed themselves, that is lacked in The Chronicle of Japan. This expression admits various interpretations. Some Shintoists have insisted that the concealment should be signified as invisible and hidden reign of these first deities. Indeed, in the Japanese, the term of concealment sometimes is supposed to mean going to the world to come, or to land of the dead, so to speak the genuine spiritual world.
2008年7 月14日 (月)
Two Japanese Religious Texts
Aside from the difference of the deities’ names, it is certain that since the ancient age, the Japanese has ever taken care of nature worshiping the sacred spiritual source and its derivative deities of every life and phenomena indicated in the first chapters of these two history books. In this context, both of the Chronicle of Japan and the Kojiki has been not only history books or national chronicles recording historical events in Japan, but also religious texts for the Shinto much the same as the holy bible.
2008年7 月13日 (日)
The Confusion of Deities Names in Japanese History Books
If Heavenly Deities, Amatu-kami, 天神, means names of deities believed by people of Tumo-koku or of Kuna-koku, Kuni-no-tokotachi-no-kami or -mikoto and Toyokumo-no-kami or -mikoto would be those of Na-no-kuni. While if Amatu-kami are deities of Na-koku, the sixth and the seventh deities in the Kogiki would be those of Tumo-koku or of Kuna-koku. To our regrets, we cannot distinguish correctly which of three tribe sates embraced which of deities severally, but this confusion of deities’ names would be a subtle trace left in the Chronicle of Japan and the Kojiki suggesting the fact that these three main tribe states had been integrated in the real Japanese history finally.
2008年7 月12日 (土)
The Chronicle of Japan and The Kojiki
A recent Japanese historian, Yuuko Kuranishi, formulates a hypothesis explaining the mysterious difference on names of deities between in The Chronicle of Japan and in The Kojiki. She pays attention to the fact that there were three powerful tribe states in the age of Yayoi, Na-no-kuni, Tumo-koku and Kuna-koku. According to her theory, The Chronicle of Japan would be compiled mainly based on documents transmitted from Na-no-kuni or Kuna-koku which were located in the Kyusyu region at least in the first stage, while the Kojiki would be edited standing for Tumo-koku, pre-Izumo, which was in the Sun-in region or that Kuna-koku. In the age of Yayoi, these three had struggled for supremacy for a long time each other, as it were a triangular fight.
