Page:Japan by the Japanese (1904).djvu/321

In the Shinto household there is a second god-shelf, or Kamidana, which is dedicated exclusively to the worship of the ancestors of the house. On this second shelf are placed cenotaphs, bearing the names of the ancestors, their ages, and the dates of their deaths. These memorial tablets are called ‘Mitama-shiro,’ which means ‘representatives of souls,’ and they are usually placed in small boxes shaped like Shinto shrines. Offerings of rice, saké, fish, sakaki-tree, and lamps, are made on this second shelf, as on the first.

In the Buddhist household there is, in addition to the Kamidana, a Butsudan, on which are placed cenotaphs bearing on the front posthumous Buddhist names, and on the back the names used by the ancestors during their lifetime. The cenotaph is usually lacquered, and is sometimes placed in a box called ‘Zushi,’ while family crests are often painted both on the tablet and on the box. Offerings of flowers, branches of shikimi-tree (Illicium religiosum), tea, rice, and other vegetable foods, are usually placed before the cenotaphs, while incense is continually burnt, and in the evening small lamps are lighted. The Butsudan take the place of the second god-shelf of the Shinto household, both being dedicated to the worship of family ancestors.

Of these three kinds of ancestor-worship, the worship of the Imperial ancestors, and especially of the first of them, Amaterasu Omi-Kami, or ‘the great Goddess of Celestial Light,’ may be styled the national worship. The places set apart for the worship of the First Imperial Ancestor are three in number: the Temple of Daijingu at Ise, the Kashikodokoro in the sanctuary of the Imperial palace, and the Kamidana, which is to be found in every house. In the two first named the divine mirror represents the Imperial Ancestor. This is the mirror which, according to old histories, Amaterasu Omi-Kami gave to Ameno Oshiomino Mikoto, accompanied by the injunction that her descendants should look upon that mirror as representing her soul, and should worship it as herself. The divine mirror, called ‘Yata-no-Kagami,’ was worshipped in the Imperial household down to the sixth year of the reign of Sujin (B.C. 92), when the Emperor, fearing that familiarity with it might engender disrespect, ordered Princess Toyokuwairihime-no-Mikoto to set up a temple in the village of Yamato, and decreed that the mirror should be honoured and worshipped there. This temple was afterwards removed to various localities, until Ise was finally chosen as its permanent site. The Emperor further caused a duplicate of the mirror to be