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The so-called 'Revival of Pure Shinto' an effort, aided by Government, to restore the cult to its archaic simplicity, by divesting it of foreign characteristics, and especially of every sign or token of Buddhist origin resulted only, so far as the avowed purpose was concerned, in the destruction of priceless art, and in leaving the enigma of origins as complicated as before.
The purchaser buys one for every member of the family the priest writing upon each the age and sex of the person for whom it is intended. These hitogata are then taken home and distributed; and each person slightly rubs his body or her body with the paper, and says a little Shinto prayer.
I am inclined to think that the Japanese mind, as expressed in the simple tenets of the Shinto religion, was particularly open to the reception of Yang Ming's precepts.
Much more interesting to me than the ofuda of the Miojinja are the yoraku, the pendent ex-votos in the Hojinji, a temple of the Zen sect which stands on the summit of the beautiful hill above the great Shinto shrine.
Thus has modern Shinto, so far as it is organized and has a mouth with which to speak, following the abdicating proclivities of the ancient social order, excommunicated itself from its religious heritage, aspiring to be nothing more than a gate-keeper of cemeteries. The sources of the power of the Shinto sanctions lies in the nature of its conception of the universe.
The various doctrines taught under the name of Shinto are without authority, Human beings, having been produced by the spirit of the two creative deities, are naturally endowed with the knowledge of what they ought to do, and what they ought to refrain from doing. It is unnecessary for them to trouble their heads with systems of morality.
Moreover, there are families in Izumo particularly in Kitzuki whose members do not profess Buddhism in any form, and a very few, belonging to the Shin-shu or Nichirenshu, whose members do not practise Shinto. But the domestic cult of the dead is maintained, whether the family be Shinto or Buddhist.
This text is interesting as an example of what Shinto's greatest expounder thought a Shinto prayer should be; and, excepting the reference to So-ho-do-no-Kami, the substance of it is that of the morning prayer still repeated in Japanese households.
Indeed, the old conception of the Deity of Rice-fields has been overshadowed and almost effaced among the lowest classes by a weird cult totally foreign to the spirit of pure Shinto the Fox-cult. The worship of the retainer has almost replaced the worship of the god.
The former is Buddhist, and the latter Shinto. Exclusive Shintoists, who are rare, have the latter alone. Where both are found, the "I-hai," ancestral memorial tablets, are placed on the "Butsu-dan"; otherwise they are placed on the "Kami-dana." The Kami-dana are always quite simple, as are all Shinto charms and utensils.
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