Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/139

Rh teru (Heaven-shining, earth-shining). I am disposed to regard this personage as the Sun-deity of the earlier Yamato Japanese, from whom their chieftains were feigned to be descended. Even in Shōjiroku times many noble families traced their descent from him, as the Mikados did from Hirume. There are a good many other names suggestive of solar deities. But here caution is necessary, in view of the habit, common to the Japanese with other nations, of borrowing solar epithets for the adornment of human beings. There is a Take-hi (brave-sun) in the Nihongi who is unquestionably a mere mortal. And what could be more solar than Takama no hara hiro nu hime (high-heaven-plain-broad-moor-princess), the last word meaning etymologically "sun-female"? Yet this is indubitably the name of an historical Empress who came to the throne A.D. 687. The Mikado Kōtoku's Japanese name was Ame-yorodzu-toyo-hi (heaven-myriad-abundant-sun).

Although Shinto contains no formal system of ethics, moral elements are not wanting in the character of the Sun-Goddess as delineated in the ancient myths. She exhibits the virtues of courage and forbearance in her dealings with her mischievous younger brother Susa no wo. She is wroth with the Moon-God when he slays the Goddess of Food, and banishes him from her presence. Her loving care for mankind is shown by her preserving for their use the seeds of grain and other useful vegetables, and by setting them the example of cultivating rice. There is a recognition of her beneficent character in the joy of Gods and men when she emerged from the Rock-cave.

The circumstance that, according to one story, the Sun-Goddess was produced from the left and the Moon-God from the right eye of Izanagi is suggestive of the influence of China, where the left takes precedence of the right. Compare the Chinese myth of P'anku: "P'anku came into being in the great waste; his beginning is unknown. In