REL275: 3rd Test: Shinto/Final Exam



REL275: 3rd Test: Shinto/Final Exam

This is the exact test that will be given on Monday March 17, 10:30-12:20 A.M. You can therefore write drafts for all of your answers, but you will not be able to use your drafts during the exam itself.

Discuss the evolution of the Shinto tradition by explaining the historical significance of each of the following three quotations:

1. So, having been expelled, Susa-no-o descended to a place [called] Torikami at the head-waters of the River Hi in the land of Izumo. [Susa-no o meets an old male and an old female deity who are weeping because they’ve lost 7 daughters to a serpent and now it’s about to take the 8th. Susa-no o leaves the serpent liquor so that it gets intoxicated.] Then Susa-no o drew the ten-grasp saber that was augustly girded on him and cut the serpent in pieces, so that the River Hi flowed on changed into a river of blood. So when he cut the middle tail, the edge of his august sword broke. Then, thinking it strange, he thrust into and split [the flesh] with the point of his august sword and looked, and there was a sharp great sword [within]. So he took this great sword, and thinking it a strange thing, he respectfully informed Amaterasu. This is the Herb-quelling Great Sword. [From the Kojiki in Sources of Japanese Tradition (2nd ed., vol. 1), 25-7]

2. The True Way is one and the same, in every country and throughout heaven and earth. This Way, however, has been correctly transmitted only in our Imperial Land. Its transmission in all foreign countries was lost long ago in early antiquity, and many and varied ways have been expounded, each country representing its own way as the Right Way. But the ways of foreign countries are no more the original Right Way than end-branches of a tree are the same as its root. They may have resemblances here and there to the Right Way, but because the original truth has been corrupted with the passage of time, they can scarcely be likened to the original Right Way…. The “special dispensation of our Imperial Land” means that ours is the native land of the Heaven-Shining Goddess who casts her light over all countries in the four seas. Thus our country is the source and fountainhead of all other countries, and in all matters it excels all the others.” [Motoori Norinaga in Sources of Japanese Tradition (1st ed.), 520-3]

3. Know ye, Our subjects,

Our imperial ancestors have founded Our Empire on a basis broad and everlasting, and subjects ever united in loyalty and filial piety have from generation to generation illustrated the beauty thereof. This is the glory of the fundamental character of Our Empire, and therein also lies the source of Our education. Ye, Our subjects, be filial to your parents, affectionate to your brothers and sisters; as husbands and wives be harmonious, as friends true; bear yourselves in modesty and moderation; extend your benevolence to all; pursue learning and cultivate arts, and thereby develop intellectual faculties and perfect moral powers; furthermore, advance public good and promote common interests; always respect the Constitution and observe the laws; should emergency arise, offer yourselves courageously to the State; and thus guard and maintain the prosperity of Our Imperial Throne coeval with heaven and earth. So shall be not only ye Our good and faithful subjects, but render illustrious the best traditions of your forefathers.

The Way here set forth is indeed the teaching bequeathed by Our Imperial Ancestors, to be observed alike by Their Descendants and the subjects, infallible for all ages and true in all places. It is Our wish to lay it to heart in all reverence, in common with you, Our subjects, that we may all attain to the same virtue. [“The Imperial Rescript on Education” in Shinto and the State, 122-3]

How do these quotations represent the development of Shinto from its “mythological” foundations in the Kojiki, to its “medieval” restoration by thinkers such as Motoori Norinaga, and on to its subsequent role as state-orthodoxy during the “modern” period from the Meiji era (1868-1911) to the end of World War II? What does this line of development suggest about Shinto’s historical connection to the State?

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