Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/43

Rh ''Imperial Palace. It is unquestionably their mitama-shiro which are spoken of as if they were the real bodies...... Again, when we are told in the history of the same reign that the Mikado assembled the eighty myriads of Gods on the plain of Kami-asachi and inquired of them by divination, this is not like the assembly in the divine age of the real Gods in the Plain of High Heaven. The invitation is to their mitama."''

The same writer says that of the attendant deities who came down from Heaven with Ninigi, some came in their real bodies, some as mitama. Among the former he naturally classes all those who are represented as having human descendants. Hirata regards this as a discovery which will endure to all ages.

The following quotation from Hirata's Koshiden (vi. 9) illustrates further the ideas of this school of theology regarding the spiritual nature of the Gods:—

"Both this God (Chigaheshi) and Kunado were produced by the great mitama of the great God Izanagi applying itself earnestly to preventing the entrance into this world of the things coming furiously from the Land of Yomi, and which accordingly became separated from him and adhered to a staff and a stone. Remaining there, it (the mitama) did good service in both cases. These Gods, moreover, sometimes reveal their real bodies and dispense blessings. This may not be doubted. We find below that Kunado no Kami acted as a guide to Futsunushi, and that Chigaheshi no Oho-Kami was two deities distinguished as hiko and hime (prince and princess)."

Hirata thinks that Gods (and men too) have two doubles, the nigi-tama and an aratama mentioned above. These he distinguishes from the Zentai no mitama, or "spirit of the entire body." But he admits that these distinctions are not recognized in the old Shinto. There is