Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/300

288 collective name of Meisho Zue. Though by various authors, they are all constructed on a uniform plan, somewhat resembling that of our county histories, though more discursive and better adapted to the practical needs of travellers.

XIII. . Chief works: the Kojiki Den, already mentioned under another heading—for it is one of the corner-stones of Japanese literature—and Hirata's still only half-published magnum opus, entitled Koshi Den. This latter is remarkable for its extraordinary elaborateness and for the vast erudition of its author. Unfortunately Hirata was very bigoted as well as very learned. Consequently the reader must be always on his guard, so as to distinguish how much really belongs to Shintō and how much to Hirata himself; for Hirata never scrupled to garble a sacred text, if he could thereby support his own views as to what the sacred writers ought to mean. Extremely interesting to the specialist are the ancient Shintō rituals termed Norito, round which a mass of modern commentary has gathered. A noteworthy peculiarity of this section of Japanese literature is the attempt made by its authors to use pure Japanese only, without any admixture of the Chinese element.

XIV. . This division comprises singularly few works of merit, Buddhism having found an uncongenial soil in the Japanese mind. Certain sets of hymns (wasan) are, it is true, favourites with the lower class of devotees; but we do not know of any Japanese Buddhist book that occupies, either in literature or popularity, a place at all comparable to that taken among ourselves by the "Imitation of Christ," the English "Prayer-Book," or the "Pilgrim's Progress." Shintō, though immeasurably inferior to Buddhism as a religion, must be admitted to have carried off from its rival all the literary laurels on Japanese soil. Besides the Buddhists proper, there is a school of moralists calling themselves Shingakusha, founded partly on Buddhism, partly on Confucianism, partly on utilitarian commonsense. Some of their Dōwa, or "Moral Discourses," which