Page:Shinto, the Way of the Gods - Aston - 1905.djvu/76

66 of influence, against the pains of parturition. The deity of Inari secures efficacy for prayer and abundance of crops; the Taisha [great shrine of Idzumo] presides over wedlock; the Kompira shares with the Suitengū the privilege of guarding those that 'go down to the deep.' The rest confer prosperity, avert sickness, cure sterility, bestow literary talent, endow with warlike powers, and so on."

Polytheistic Character of Shinto.—A nature-worship, such as the older Shinto was in substance, is inevitably polytheistic. The worship of a single nature-God, as the Sun, is indeed conceivable. But in practice, the same impulse which leads to the personification of one nature object or phenomenon never rests there. The Living Universe is a possible monotheistic nature-deity. But this conception requires a greater amount of scientific knowledge than the ancient Japanese possessed. They had necessarily only imperfect and fragmentary glimpses of the vision splendid.

There is some evidence that Shinto took the place of a still grosser and more indiscriminate polytheism. We are told that Take-mika-tsuchi and Futsunushi prepared Japan for the advent of Ninigi by clearing it of savage deities who in the daytime buzzed like summer flies and at night shone like fire-pots, while even the rocks, trees, and foam of water had all power of speech.

The number of Shinto deities is very great. The Yengishiki enumerates 3,132 officially recognized shrines, and although the same Gods are reckoned more than once, as being worshipped in different places, still their name is legion. They are popularly spoken of as eighty myriads, eight hundred myriads, or fifteen hundred myriads. The number of effective deities fluctuates greatly. Oblivion disposes of many. The identification of distinct deities is another cause of depletion in their ranks. This happens very readily in a country where, to parody Pope's line,