Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 1, 2025
On the other hand, we are yet in doubt as to whether many of the poorer converts servants and other common folk possessed a domestic ancestor-cult. The outcast classes, among whom many converts were made, need not be considered, of course, in this relation. Before the matter can be fairly judged, much remains to be learned about the religious condition of the heimin during the sixteenth century.
In 1897 there were 191,962 Shinto temples; in 1901 there were 195,256. It seems probable that such changes as must occur in the near future will be social rather than religious; and there is little reason to believe that these changes however they may tend to weaken filial piety in sundry directions will seriously affect the ancestor-cult itself.
Now when the Japanese race first established itself in Japan, it does not appear to have brought with it any civilization of the kind which we would call settled, nor any well-developed ancestor-cult. The cult certainly existed; but its ceremonies would seem to have been irregularly performed at graves only.
Both Shinto cults have their particular feast-days; and, in the case of the ancestor-cult, the feast-days are occasions of religious assembly, when the relatives of the family should gather to celebrate the domestic rite .... The Shintoist must also take part in the celebration of the festivals of the Ujigami, and must at least aid in the celebration of the nine great national holidays related to the national cult; these nine, out of a total eleven, being occasions of imperial ancestor-worship.
One should bear in mind that, from a sociological point of view, it is no more correct to speak of the existing ancestor-cult in Japan as "primitive," than it would be to speak of the domestic cult of the Athenians in the time of Pericles as "primitive."
The domestic cult proper may not have been established until about the eighth century, when the spirit-tablet is supposed to have been introduced from China. The earliest ancestor-cult, as we shall presently see, was developed out of the primitive funeral-rites and propitiatory ceremonies.
And nevertheless there was no real fusion; after ten centuries of such contact they separated again, as lightly as if they had never touched. It was only in the domestic form of the ancestor-cult that Buddhism really affected permanent modifications; yet even these were neither fundamental nor universal.
It appears that the early emperors of Japan the "heavenly sovereigns," as they are called in the old records were not emperors at all in the true meaning of the term, and did not even exercise universal authority. They were only the chiefs of the most powerful clan, or Uji, and their special ancestor-cult had probably in that time no dominant influence.
Now the Japanese ancestor-cult though representing the beliefs of a non-Aryan people, and offering in the history of its development various interesting peculiarities still embodies much that is characteristic of ancestor-worship in general. There survive in it especially these three beliefs, which underlie all forms of persistent ancestor-worship in all climes and countries:
The explanation is not difficult. Needless attacks upon the ancestor-cult are necessarily attacks upon the constitution of society; and Japanese society instinctively resists these assaults upon its ethical basis. For it is an error to suppose that this Japanese society has yet arrived even at such a condition as Roman society presented in the second or third century of our era.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking