ABSTRACT
Shintō is in its origin polydemonistic and then polytheistic, and its crude philosophy, as we have seen, is animism. The next stage in the line of its development shows an aspect of naturalistic pantheism, greatly influenced, particularly later on, by Mahāyana Buddhism, We can discern the germ of naturalistic pantheism in Shintō even in its oldest documents. As, for instance, some trees are produced from Susano-o’s divine body, in other words, those natural objects are after all portions of one and the same divine body of the God Susano-o. In the Nihongi we read:—
“So Susano-o-no-Mikoto plucked out his beard and scattered it [about]. Thereupon Cryptomerias were produced. Moreover, he plucked out the hairs of his breast, which became Thuyas. The hairs of his buttocks became Podocarpi. The hairs of his eye-brows became Camphor-trees” (E.T.N., Vol. I, p. 58).
