Note 18 — Chapter XXI · Ancient Mikados and Heroes

In the eighteenth century began the movement known as the “Revival of Pure Shinto”. It was promoted chiefly by Motöori and his disciple Hirata. In time it did much to bring about the revolution which restored to supreme political power, as the hereditary high priest and living representative of the sun-goddess, the Mikado of Japan. Shinto is the official religion of modern Japan; but Buddhism, impregnated with Shinto elements, is the religion of the masses. “Pure Shinto”, however, was not “pure” in the sense that Motöori and Hirata professed to believe. It was undoubtedly a product of culture mixing in early times. “The Ko-ji-ki and Nihon-gi,” as Laufer says, “do not present a pure source of genuine Japanese thought, but are retrospective records largely written under Chinese and Korean influence, and echoing in a bewildering medley continental-Asiatic and Malayo-Polynesian traditions.”18 In China, Korea, Polynesia, &c., a similar process of culture mixing can be traced. Buddha and Mohammed were not the earliest founders of cults which have left their impress on the religious systems of the Far East. Vast areas were influenced by the cultures of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.