The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of MéijiGriffis, William Elliot
Religion
The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji
Griffis, William Elliot
Japan -- Religion
"My dear elder brother's augustness shall rule the upper
country; I will rule the lower country," she deigned to hide in
the rocks; and having come to the flat hills of darkness, she
thought and said: "I have come hither, having borne and left a
bad-hearted child in the upper country, ruled over by my
illustrious elder brother's augustness," and going back she bore
other children. Having borne the water-goddess, the gourd, the
river-weed, and the clay-hill maiden, four sorts of things, she
taught them with words, and made them to know, saying: "If the
heart of this bad-hearted child becomes violent, let the
water-goddess take the gourd, and the clay-hill maiden take the
river-weed, and pacify him."
In consequence of this I fulfil his praises, and say that for
the things set up, so that he may deign not to be awfully quick
of heart in the great place of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S
augustness, there are provided bright cloth, glittering cloth,
soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things; as
to things which dwell in the blue-sea plain, there are things
wide of fin and narrow of fin, down to the weeds of the shore;
as to LIQUOR, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging in
rows the bellies of the beer-jars, piling the offerings up, even
to rice in grain and rice in ear, like a range of hills, I
fulfil his praises with the great ritual, the heavenly ritual.
Izanagi, after shedding tears over his consort, whose death was caused
by the birth of the fire-god, slays the fire-god, and follows her into
the Root-land, or Hades, whereupon begins another round of wonderful
stories of the birth of many gods. Among these, though evidently out of
another cycle of legends, is the story of the birth of the three
gods--Fire-Shine, Fire-Climax and Fire-Fade, to which we have already
referred.
The fire-drill mentioned in the "Kojiki" suggests easily the same line
of thought with the myths of cosmogony and theogony, and it is
interesting to note that this archaic implement is still used at the
sacred temples of Isé to produce fire. After the virgin priestesses
perform the sacred dances in honor of local deities the water for their
bath is heated by fires kindled by heaps of old _harai_ or amulets made
from temple-wood bought at the Mecca of Japan. It is even probable that
the retention of the fire-drill in the service of Shintō is but a
survival of phallicism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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