CHAPTER III. 



CAUSING RAIN. 

 § i. Shinto gods. 



The ancient annals of Japan very frequently speak of heavy 

 droughts which threatened the country with hunger and misery. 

 They were considered to be punishments, or at any rate plagues, 

 from the gods, which could only be stopped by earnest prayers 

 and offerings to the same divinities. The old, dragon-shaped 

 river-gods (the "river-uncles", jfftj" 'f^ , kawa no kami) especially, 

 from olden times believed to be the givers of rain, were besought 

 not to withhold their blessings any longer from the parched 

 and suffering land. 



The JSfihongi ' tells us thaj: in the first year of the Emperor 

 Kogyoku's reign (642) there was a long drought which could 

 not be stopped by the Shinto priests. In Aston's translation this 

 passage runs as follows: "25th day. The .Ministers conversed with 

 one another, saying: — 'In accordance with the teachings of 

 the village hafuri [Shinto priests], there have been in some 

 places horses and cattle killed as a sacrifice to the Gods of the 

 various (Shinto) shrines, in others frequent changes of the market- 

 places [both old Chinese customs^], or prayers to the River-gods. 

 None of these practices have had hitherto any good result'. 

 Then Soga no Oho-omi [Iruka, the last of the Soga's, who was 

 killed in. 645, together with his father Emishi; all the Soga's, 

 Iname, Umako, Emishi and Iruka, were mighty ministers and 

 great protectors of Buddhism] answered and said: — 'The 

 Mahayana Sutra ought to be read by way of extract ' in the 

 temples, our sins repented of, as Buddha teaches, and thus with 

 humility rain should be prayed for'". 



\ Ch. XXIV, K. T. K. Vol. I, p. 410. 



2 Cf. Aston's note to this passage {Nihongi, Vol. II, p. 174, note 4), aud Florenz's 

 note 3 {Nihongi, Japanische Annalen, Book XXII — XXX, sec. ed., p. 75). 



3 ^i ^J, tendoku; Aston, p. 175, note 1: "the reading of passages of a hook to 



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