Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/144

 the world as a battlefield of demons and angels, as was the belief of mediæval Europe, or to entertain a Manichean belief in the frequent victories of evil spirits.

In the shrines there were no images. The only object exposed to invite the adoration of the worshipper was a mirror, the "spirit substitute" which the Goddess of Light gave to be to her descendants a representative of her presence in their midst. Often the place of the mirror is taken by a pillow for the repose of the guardian deity or by some other "spirit substitute," for the mirror, being the special symbol of the Goddess of Light, is not placed in shrines dedicated to local divinities (uji-gami). Two objects are always openly associated with a Shintō shrine, the go-hei and the torii. The latter, as its name indicates, was originally designed to typify a perch for birds. In Shintō traditions it is associated with the eclipse of the Sun Goddess. Outside the cave into which the goddess had retreated, cocks, collected by the gods, were set crowing to create the impression that even without the rising of the orb of day morn had dawned. Barn-door fowls thus found a place among the offerings to the goddess through all time, and the torii typified the fact. Its degradation in later ages to the rank of a gate is an error for which its shape is doubtless responsible, but it may generally be seen in its true rôle beside the little shrines of Inari, where