THE RELIGIONS OF JAPAN

FROM THE DAWN OF HISTORYTO THE ERA OF MEIJI

BY

WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS, D. D. 

FORMERLY OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF TOKIO; AUTHOR OF "THE MIKADO'SEMPIRE" AND "COREA, THE HERMIT NATION;" LATE LECTURER ON THE MORSEFOUNDATION IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN NEW YORK

"I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. "--THE SON OF MAN

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1895

COPYRIGHT, 1895, BYCHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TROW DIRECTORYPRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANYNEW YORK

IN GLAD RECOGNITION OF THEIR SERVICES TO THE WORLDANDIN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MY OWN GREAT DEBT TO BOTHI DEDICATE THIS BOOKSO UNWORTHY OF ITS GREAT SUBJECTTOTHOSE TWO NOBLE BANDS OF SEEKERS AFTER TRUTHTHE FACULTY OF UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARYOF WHOMCHARLES A. BRIGGS AND GEORGE L. PRENTISSARE THE HONORED SURVIVORSAND TOTHAT TRIO OF ENGLISH STUDENTSERNEST M. SATOW, WILLIAM G. ASTON AND BASIL H. CHAMBERLAINWHO LAID THE FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP IN JAPAN

"IN UNCONSCIOUS BROTHERHOOD, BINDING THE SELF-SAME SHEAF"

PREFACE

This book makes no pretence of furnishing a mirror of contemporaryJapanese religion. Since 1868, Japan has been breaking the chains of herintellectual bondage to China and India, and the end is not yet. Mypurpose has been, not to take a snap-shot photograph, but to paint apicture of the past. Seen in a lightning-flash, even a tempest-shakentree appears motionless. A study of the same organism from acorn toseed-bearing oak, reveals not a phase but a life. It is something likethis--"_to_ the era of Meiji" (A. D. 1868-1894+) which I have essayed. Hence I am perfectly willing to accept, in advance, the verdict of smartinventors who are all ready to patent a brand-new religion for Japan, that my presentation is "antiquated. "

The subject has always been fascinating, despite its inherentdifficulties and the author's personal limitations. When in 1807, thepolite lads from Satsuma and Ki[=o]to came to New Brunswick, N. J. , theyfound at least one eager questioner, a sophomore, who, while valuingbooks, enjoyed at first hand contemporaneous human testimony. 

When in 1869, to Rutgers College, came an application through Rev. Dr. Guido F. Verbeck, of T[=o]ki[=o], from Fukui for a young man to organizeschools upon the American principle in the province of Echizen(ultra-Buddhistic, yet already so liberally leavened by the ethicalteachings of Yokoi Héishiro), the Faculty made choice of the author. Accepting the honor and privilege of being one of the "beginners of abetter time, " I caught sight of peerless Fuji and set foot on Japanesesoil December 29, 1870. Amid a cannonade of new sensations and freshsurprises, my first walk was taken in company with the Americanmissionary (once a marine in Perry's squadron, who later invented thejin-riki-sha), to see a hill-temple and to study the wayside shrinesaround Yokohama. Seven weeks' stay in the city of Yedo--then rising outof the débris of feudalism to become the Imperial capital, T[=o]ki[=o], enabled me to see some things now so utterly vanished, that by somepersons their previous existence is questioned. One of the mostinteresting characters I met personally was Fukuzawa, the reformer, andnow "the intellectual father of half of the young men of . .. Japan. " Onthe day of the battle of Uyéno, July 11, 1868, this far-seeing patriotand inquiring spirit deliberately decided to keep out of the strife, andwith four companions of like mind, began the study of Wayland's MoralScience. Thus were laid the foundations of his great school, now auniversity. 

Journeying through the interior, I saw many interesting phenomena ofpopular religions which are no longer visible. At Fukui in Echizen, oneof the strongholds of Buddhism, I lived nearly a year, engaged ineducational work, having many opportunities of learning both thescholastic and the popular forms of Shint[=o] and of Buddhism. I wassurrounded by monasteries, temples, shrines, and a landscape richlyembroidered with myth and legend. During my four years' residence andtravel in the Empire, I perceived that in all things the people of Japanwere _too_ religious. 

In seeking light upon the meaning of what I saw before me and inpenetrating to the reasons behind the phenomena, I fear I often mademyself troublesome to both priests and lay folk. While at work inT[=o]ki[=o], though under obligation to teach only physical science, Ivoluntarily gave instruction in ethics to classes in the University. Irichly enjoyed this work, which, by questioning and discussion, gave memuch insight into the minds of young men whose homes were in everyprovince of the Empire. In my own house I felt free to teach to allcomers the religion of Jesus, his revelation of the fatherhood of Godand the ethics based on his life and words. While, therefore, instudying the subject, I have great indebtedness to acknowledge toforeigners, I feel that first of all I must thank the natives who taughtme so much both by precept and practice. Among the influences that havehelped to shape my own creed and inspire my own life, have been thebeautiful lives and noble characters of Japanese officers, students andcommon people who were around and before me. Though freely confessingobligation to books, writings, and artistic and scholastic influences, Ihasten first to thank the people of Japan, whether servants, superiorofficers, neighbors or friends. He who seeks to learn what religion isfrom books only, will learn but half. 

Gladly thanking those, who, directly or indirectly, have helped me withlight from the written or printed page, I must first of all gratefullyexpress my especial obligations to those native scholars who have readto me, read for me, or read with me their native literature. 

The first foreign students of Japanese religions were the Dutch, and theGerman physicians who lived with them, at Déshima. Kaempfer makesfrequent references, with test and picture, in his Beschryving vanJapan. Von Siebold, who was an indefatigable collector rather than acritical student, in Vol. V. Of his invaluable _Archiv_ (Pantheon vonNippon), devoted over forty pages to the religions of Japan. Dr. J. J. Hoffman translated into Dutch, with notes and explanations, theButsu-z[=o]-dzu-i, which, besides its 163 figures of Buddhist holy men, gives a bibliography of the works mentioned by the native author. Invisiting the Japanese museum on the Rapenburg, Leyden, one of theoldest, best and most intelligently arranged in Europe, I have beeninterested with the great work done by the Dutchmen, during twocenturies, in leavening the old lump for that transformation which inour day as New Japan, surprises the world. It requires the shock ofbattle to awaken the western nations to that appreciation of the racialand other differences between the Japanese and Chinese, which thestudent has already learned. 

The first praises, however, are to be awarded to the English scholars, Messrs. Satow, Aston, Chamberlain, and others, whose profound researchesin Japanese history, language and literature have cleared the path forothers to tread in. I have tried to acknowledge my debt to them in bothtext and appendix. 

To several American missionaries, who despite their trying labors havehad the time and the taste to study critically the religions of Japan, Iowe thanks and appreciation. With rare acuteness and learning, Rev. Dr. George Wm. Knox has opened on its philosophical, and Rev. Dr. J. H. DeForest on its practical side, the subject of Japanese Confucianism. Byhis lexicographical work, Dr. J. C. Hepburn has made debtors to him boththe native and the alien. To our knowledge of Buddhism in Japan, Dr. J. C. Berry and Rev. J. L. Atkinson have made noteworthy contributions. Ihave been content to quote as authorities and illustrations, the namesof those who have thus wrought on the soil, rather than of those, who, even though world-famous, have been but slightly familiar with theethnic and the imported faith of Japan. The profound misunderstandingsof Buddhism, which some very eminent men of Europe have shown in theirwritings, form one of the literary curiosities of the world. 

In setting forth these Morse lectures, I have purposely robbed my pagesof all appearance of erudition, by using as few uncouth words aspossible, by breaking up the matter into paragraphs of moderate length, by liberally introducing subject-headings in italics, and by relegatingall notes to the appendix. Since writing the lectures, and even whilereading the final proofs, I have ransacked my library to find as manyreferences, notes, illustrations and authorities as possible, for thebenefit of the general student. I have purposely avoided recondite andinaccessible books and have named those easily obtainable from Americanor European publishers, or from Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, of Yokohama, Japan. In using oriental words I have followed, in the main, thespelling of the Century Dictionary. The Japanese names are expressedaccording to that uniform system of transliteration used by Hepburn, Satow and other standard writers, wherein consonants have the samegeneral value as in English (except that initial g is always hard), while the vowels are pronounced as in Italian. Double vowels must bepronounced double, as in Méiji (m[=a]-[=e]-j[=e]); those which are longare marked, as in [=o] or [=u]; i before o or u is short. Most of theimportant Japanese, as well as Sanskrit and Chinese, terms used, areduly expressed and defined in the Century Dictionary. 

I wish also to thank especially my friends, Riu Watanabe, Ph. D. , ofCornell University, and William Nelson Noble, Esq. , of Ithaca. Theformer kindly assisted me with criticisms and suggestions, while to thelatter, who has taken time to read all the proofs, I am grateful forconsiderable improvement in the English form of the sentences. 

In closing, I trust that whatever charges may be brought against me bycompetent critics, lack of sympathy will not be one. I write in sight ofbeautiful Lake Cayuga, on the fertile and sloping shores of which in oldtime the Iroquois Indian confessed the mysteries of life. Having plantedhis corn, he made his pregnant squaw walk round the seed-bed in hope ofreceiving from the Source of life increased blessing and sustenance forbody and mind. Between such a truly religious act of the savage, andthat of the Christian sage, Joseph Henry, who uncovered his head whileinvestigating electro-magnetism to "ask God a question, " or that ofSamuel F. B. Morse, who sent as his first telegraphic message "What hathGod wrought, " I see no essential difference. All three were acts offaith and acknowledgment of a power greater than man. Religion is one, though religions are many. As Principal Fairbairn, my honoredpredecessor in the Morse lectureship, says: "What we call superstitionof the savage is not superstition _in him_. Superstition is theperpetuation of a low form of belief along with a higher knowledge. .. . Between fetichism and Christian faith there is a great distance, but agreat affinity--the recognition of a supra-sensible life. "

"For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealingof the sons of God. .. . The creation itself shall be delivered from thebondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children ofGod. "

W. E. G. 

ITHACA, N. Y. , October 27, 1894. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS, PAGE 1

Salutatory. --The Morse Lectureship and its provisions. --The Science ofComparative Religion is Christianity's own child. --The Parliament ofReligions. --The Study of Religion most appropriate in a TheologicalSeminary. --Shortening weapons and lengthening boundaries. --The rightmissionary spirit that of the Master, who "came not to destroy but tofulfil. "--Characteristics of Japan. --Bird's-eye view of Japanese historyand religion. --Popularly, not three religions but onereligion. --Superstitions which are not organically parts of the"book-religions. "--The boundary line between the Creator and hiscreation not visible to the pagan. --Shamanism: Fetichism. --Mythicalmonsters, Kirin, Phoenix, Tortoise, Dragon. --Japanese mythicalzoölogy. --The erection of the stone fetich. --Insurance by amulets uponhouse and person. --Phallicism. --Tree-worship. --Serpent-worship. --Theseunwritten superstitions condition the "book-religions. "--Removable byscience and a higher religion. 

CHAPTER II

SHINTO: MYTHS AND RITUAL, PAGE 35

Japan is young beside China and Korea. --Japanese history iscomparatively modern. --The oldest documents date from A. D. 712. --TheJapanese archipelago inhabited before the Christian era. --Faith, worshipand ritual are previous to written espression. --The Kojiki, Many[=o]shuand Norito. --Tendency of the pupil nations surrounding China to antedatetheir civilization. --Origin of the Japanese people and theirreligion. --Three distinct lines of tradition from Tsukushi, Idzumo andYamato. --War of the invaders against the aborigines--Mikadoism is theheart of Shint[=o]. --Illustrations from the liturgies. --Phallicism amongthe aborigines and common people. --The mind or mental climate of theprimæval man. --Representation of male gods by emblems. --Objects ofworship and _ex-voto_. --Ideas of creation. --The fire-myth, Prometheus. --Comparison of Greek and Japanese mythology. --Ritual for thequieting of the fire-god. --The fire-drill. 

CHAPTER III

THE KOJIKI AND ITS TEACHINGS, PAGE 59

Origin of the Kojiki. Analysis of its opening lines--Norito. --Indecencyof the myths of the Kojiki. --Modern rationalistic interpretations--Lifein prehistoric Japan. --Character and temperament of the people then andnow. --Character of the kami or gods. --Hades. --Ethics. --The Land of theGods. --The barbarism of the Yamato conquerors an improvement upon thesavagery of the aborigines. --Cannibalism and human sacrifices. --Themakers of the God-way captured and absorbed the religion of theaborigines. --A case of syncretism. --Origin of evil in badgods. --Pollution was sin. --Class of offences enumerated in thenorito. --Professor Kumi's contention that Mikadoism usurped a simpleworship of Heaven. --Difference between the ancient Chinese and ancientJapanese cultus. --Development of Shint[=o] arrested byBuddhism. --Temples and offerings. --The tori-i. --Pollution andpurification. --Prayer. --Hirata's ordinal and specimen prayers. --To thecommon people the sun is a god. --Prayers to myriads of gods. --Summary ofShint[=o]. --Swallowed up in the Riy[=o]bu system. --Its modernrevival. --Kéichin. --Kada Adzumar[=o]. --Mabuchi, Motoöri. --Hirata. --In1870, Shint[=o] is again made the state religion. --Purification ofRiy[=o]bu temples. --Politico-religious lectures. --Imperialrescript. --Reverence to the Emperor's photograph. --Judgment uponShint[=o]. --The Christian's ideal of Yamato-damashii. 

CHAPTER IV

THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN, PAGE 99

In what respects Confucius was unique as a teacher. --Outline of hislife. --The canon. --Primitive Chinese faith a sort of monotheism. --Howthe sage modified it. --History of Confucianism until its entrance intoJapan. --Outline of the intellectual and political history of theJapanese. --Rise of the Samurai class. --Shifting of emphasis from filialpiety to loyalty. --Prevalence of suicide in Japan. --Confucianism hasdeeply tinged the ideas of the Japanese. --Great care necessary inseeking equivalents in English for the terms used in the Chino-Japaneseethics; e. G. , the emperor, "the father of the people. "--Impersonality ofJapanese speech. --Christ and Confucius. --"Love" and"reverence. "--Exemplars of loyalty. --The Forty-seven R[=o]nins. --Thesecond relation. --The family in Chinese Asia and in Christendom. --Thelaw of filial piety and the daughter. --The third relation. --Theory ofcourtship and marriage. --Chastity. --Jealousy. --Divorce. --Instability ofthe marriage bond. --The fourth relation. --The elder and the youngerbrother. --The house or family everything, the individual nothing. --Thefifth relation. --The ideas of Christ and those of Confucius. --The Goldenand the Gilded rule. --Lao Tsze and Kung. --Old Japan and thealien. --Commodore Perry and Professor Hayashi. 

CHAPTER V

CONFUCIANISM IN ITS PHILOSOPHICAL FORM, PAGE 131

Harmony of the systems of Confucius and Buddha in Japan during athousand years. --Revival of learning in the seventeenth century. --Exodusof the Chinese scholars on the fall of the Ming dynasty. --Theirdispersion and work in Japan. --Founding of schools of the new Chineselearning. --For two and a half centuries the Japanese mind has beenmoulded by the new Confucianism. --Survey of its rise anddevelopments. --Four stages in the intellectual history of China. --Thepopulist movement in the eleventh century. --The literarycontroversy. --The philosophy of the Cheng brothers and of Chu Hi, calledin Japan Tei-Shu system. --In Buddhism the Japanese were startlinginnovators, in philosophy they were docile pupils. --Paucity of Confucianor speculative literature in Japan. --A Chinese wall built around theJapanese intellect. --Yelo orthodoxy. --Features of the Téi-Shusystem. --Not agnostic but pantheistic. --Its influence uponhistoriography. --Ki (spirit) Ri (way) and Ten (heaven). --The writings ofOhashi Junzo. --Confucianism obsolescent in New Japan. --A study ofConfucianism in the interest of comparative religion. --Man's place inthe universe. --The Samurai's ideal, obedience. --His fearlessness in theface of death. --Critique of the system. --The ruler and the ruled. --Whathas Confucianism done for woman?--Improvement and revision of the fourthand fifth relations. --The new view of the universe and the new mind inNew Japan. The ideal of Yamato-damashii revised and improved. 

CHAPTER VI

THE BUDDHISM OF NORTHERN ASIA, PAGE 153

Buddha--sun myth or historic personage?--Buddhism one of theprotestantisms of the world. --Characteristics of new religions. --Surveyof the history of Indian thought. --The age of the Vedas. --The epicage. --The rationalistic age. --Our fellow-Aryans and the story of theirconquests. --Their intellectual energy and inventions. --Systems ofphilosophy. --Condition of religion at the birth of Gautama. --Outline ofhis life. --He attains enlightenment or buddhahood. --In what respectsBuddhism was an old, and in what a new religion. --Did Gautama intend tofound a new religion, or return to simpler and olderfaith?--Monasticism, Kharma and Nirvana, --Enthusiasm of the disciples ofthe new faith. --The great schism. --The Northern Buddhists. --Thecanon. --The two Yana or vehicles. --Simplicity of Southern and luxurianceof Northern Buddhism. --Summary of the process of thought in Nepal. --Theold gods of India come back again. --Maitreya, Manjusri andAvalokitesvara. --The Legend of Manjusri. --Separation of attributes andcreation of new Buddhas or gods. --The DhyaniBuddhas. --Amida. --Adi-Buddhas. --Abstractions become gods. --The Tantrasystem. --Outbursts of doctrine and art. --Prayer-mills. --The nobleeight-fold path of self-denial and benevolence forgotten. --Entrance ofBuddhism from Korea into Japan. --Condition of the country at thattime. --Dates and first experiences. --Soga noInamé. --Sh[=o]toku. --Japanese pilgrims to China. --Changes wrought by thenew creed and cult. --Temples, monasteries and images. --Influence uponthe Mikado's name, rank and person, and upon Shint[=o]. --Relativeinfluence of Buddhism in Asia and of Christianity in Europe. --The threegreat characteristics of Buddhism. --How the clouds returned after therain. --Buddhism and Christianity confronting the problem of life. 

CHAPTER VII

RIYOBU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM, PAGE 189

The experience of two centuries and a half of Buddhism inJapan. --Necessity of using more powerful means for the conversion of theJapanese. --Popular customs nearly ineradicable. --Analogy from Europeanhistory. --Syncretism in Christian history. --In the Arabian Nights. --Howfar is the process of Syncretism honest?--Examples not to be recommendedfor imitation. --The problem of reconciling the Kami and theBuddhas. --Northern Buddhism ready for the task. --The Tantra orYoga-chara system. --Art and its influence on the imagination. --Thesketch replaced by the illumination and monochrome by colors. --Japaneseart. --Mixed Buddhism rather than mixed Shint[=o]. --K[=o]b[=o] thewonder-worker who made all Japanese history a transfiguration ofBuddhism. --Legends about his extraordinary abilities and industry. --Hislife, and studies in China. --The kata-kana syllabary. --K[=o]b[=o]o'srevelation from the Shint[=o] goddess Toyo-Uké-Bimé. --The gods of Japanwere avatars of Buddha. --K[=o]b[=o]'s plan of propaganda. --Details ofthe scheme. --A clearing-house of gods and Buddhas. --Relative rise andfall of the native and the foreign deities. --Legend of Daruma. "Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o]. "--Impulse to art and art industry. --The Kami noMichi falls into shadow. --Which religion suffered most?--Phenomenallythe victory belonged to Buddhism. --The leavening power was that ofShint[=o]. --Buddhism's fresh chapter of decay. --Influence of Riy[=o]buupon the Chinese ethical system in Japan. --Influence on theMikado. --Abdication all along the lines of Japanese life. --Ultimateparalysis of the national intellect. --Comparison with ChineseBuddhism. --Miracle-mongering. --No self-reforming power in Buddhism. --TheSeven Happy Gods of Fortune. --Pantheism's destruction ofboundaries. --The author's study of the popular processions inJapan. --Masaka Do. --Swamping of history in legend. --The jewel in thelotus. 

CHAPTER VIII

NORTHERN BUDDHISM IN ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS, PAGE 225

Four stages of the doctrinal development of Buddhism in Japan. --Reasonsfor the formation of sects. --The Saddharma Pundarika. --Shastras andSutras. --The Ku-sha sect. --Book of the Treasury of Metaphysics. --TheJ[=o]-jitsu sect, its founder and its doctrines. --The Ris-shu or Viyanasect. --Japanese pilgrims to China. --The Hos-s[=o] sect and itsdoctrines. --The three grades of disciples. --The San-ron or Three-shastrasect and its tenets. --The Middle Path. --The Kégon sect. --TheUnconditioned, or realistic pantheism. --The Chinese or Tendai sect. --Itsscriptures and dogmas. --Buddhahood attainable in the presentbody. --Vagradrodhi. --The Yoga-chara system. --The "old sects. "--Reactionagainst excessive idol-making. --The Zen sect. --Labor-saving devices inBuddhism. --Making truth apparent by one's own thought. --Transmission ofthe Zen doctrine. --History of Zen Shu. 

CHAPTER IX

THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE, PAGE 257

The J[=o]-d[=o] or Pure Land sect. --Substitution of faith in Amida forthe eight-fold Path. --Succession of the propagators of truedoctrine. --Zend[=o] and H[=o]-nen. --The Japanese path-finder to the PureLand. --Doctrine of J[=o]-d[=o]. --Buddhistic influence on the Japaneselanguage. --Incessant repetition of prayers. --The Pure Land in theWest. --The Buddhist doctrine of justification by faith. --H[=o]-nen'suniversalism. --Tendency of doctrinal development afterH[=o]-nen. --"Reformed" Buddhism. --Synergism _versus_ salvation by faithonly. --Life of Shinran. --Posthumous honors. --Policy and aim of the Shinsect, methods and scriptures. 

CHAPTER X

JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT, PAGE 287

The missionary history of Japanese Buddhism is the history ofJapan. --The first organized religion of the Japanese. --Professor BasilHall Chamberlain's testimony--A picture of primeval life in thearchipelago. --What came in the train of the new religion from "theWest". Missionary civilizers, teachers, road-makers, improvers of diet. Language of flowers and gardens. --The house and home. --Architecture--Theimperial capital--Hiyéizan. --Love of natural scenery. --Pilgrimages andtheir fruits. --The Japanese aesthetic. --Art and decoration in thetemples. --Exterior resemblances between the Roman form of Christianityand of Buddhism. --Quotation from "The Mikado's Empire. "--Internal vitaldifferences. --Enlightenment and grace. --Ingwa and love. --Luxuriance ofthe art of Northern Buddhism. --Variety in individual treatment. --Placeof the temple in the life of Old Japan. --The protecting trees. --The belland its note. --The graveyard and the priests' hold upon it. --JapaneseBuddhism as a political power. --Its influence upon militaryhistory. --Abbots on horseback and monks in armor. --Battles between theShin and Zen sects. --Nobunaga. --Influence of Buddhism in literature andeducation. --The temple school. --The _kana_ writing. --Survey and critiqueof Buddhist history in Japan. --Absence of organized charities. --Regardfor animal and disregard for human life. --The Eta. --The Aino. --Attitudeto women. --Nuna and numerics. --Polygamy and concubinage. --Buddhismcompared with Shint[=o]. --Influence upon morals. --The First Cause. --Itsleadership among the sects. --Unreality of Amida Buddha. --Nichiren. --Hislife and opinions. --Idols and avatars. --The favorite scripture of thesect, the Saddharma Pundarika. --Its central dogma, everything in theuniverse capable of Buddha-ship. --The Salvation Army ofBuddhism. --K[=o]b[=o]'s leaven working. --Buddhism ceases to be anintellectual force. --The New Buddhism. --Are the Japanese eager forreform?

CHAPTER XI

ROMAN CHRISTIANITY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, PAGE 323

The many-sided story of Japanese Christianity. --One hundred years ofintercourse between Japan and Europe. --State of Japan at theintroduction of Portuguese Christianity. --Xavier and Anjiro. --Xavier atKi[=o]to and in Bungo. --Nobunaga and the Buddhists. --High-water mark ofChristianity. --Hideyoshi and the invasion of Korea. --Kato andKonishi. --Persecutions. --Arrival of the Spanish friars. --Their violationof good faith. --Spirit of the Jesuits and Franciscans. --Crucifixion onthe bamboo cross. --Hidéyori. --Kato Kiyomasa. --The Dutch in the Easternseas. --Will Adams. --Iyéyas[)u] suspects designs against the sovereigntyof Japan. --The Christian religion outlawed. --Hidétada follows up thepolicy of Iyéyas[)u], excludes aliens, and shuts up the country. --Theuprising of the Christians at Shimabara in 1637. --Christianity buriedfrom sight. --Character of the missionaries and the form of the faithintroduced by them. --Noble lives and ideals. --The spirit of theInquisition in Japan. --Political animus and complexion. 

CHAPTER XII

TWO CENTURIES OF SILENCE, PAGE 351

Policy of the Japanese government after the suppression ofChristianity. --Insulation of Japan. --The Hollanders atDéshima. --Withdrawal of the English. --Relations with Korea. --Policy ofinclusion. --"A society impervious to foreign ideas. "--Life withinstunted limits. --Canons of art and literature. --Philosophy made anengine of government. --Esoteric law. --Social waste ofhumanity. --Attempts to break down the wall--External andinternal. --Seekers after God. --The goal of the pilgrims. --The DéshimaDutchman as pictured by enemies and rivals, _versus_ reality andtruth. --Eager spirits groping after God. --Morning stars of the Japanesereformation. --Yokoi Héishiro. --The anti-Christian edicts. --The BuddhistInquisitors. --The Shin-gaku or New Learning movement. --The story ofnineteenth century Christianity, subterranean and interior before beingphenomenal. --Sabbath-day service on the U. S. S. Mississippi. --The firstmissionaries. --Dr. J. C. Hepburn--Healing and the Bible. --Yedo becomesT[=o]ki[=o]. --Despatch of the Embassy round the world. --Eyesopened. --The Acts of the Apostles in Japan. 

NOTES, AUTHORITIES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, PAGE 375

INDEX, PAGE 451

CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

 "The investigation of the beginnings of a religion is never the work of infidels, but of the most reverent and conscientious minds. "

 "We, the forty million souls of Japan, standing firmly and persistently upon the basis of international justice, await still further manifestations as to the morality of Christianity, "--Hiraii, of Japan. 

 "When the Creator [through intermediaries that were apparently animals] had finished treating this world of men, the good and the bad Gods were all mixed together promiscuously, and began disputing for the possession of this world. "--The Aino Story of the Creation. 

 "If the Japanese have few beast stories, the Ainos have _apparently_ no popular tales of heroes . .. The Aino mythologies . .. Lack all connection with morality. .. . Both lack priests and prophets. .. . Both belong to a very primitive stage of mental development . .. Excepting stories . .. And a few almost metreless songs, the Ainos have no other literature at all. "--Aino Studies. 

 "I asked the earth, and it answered, 'I am not He;' and whatsoever are therein made the same confession. I asked the sea and the deep and the creeping things that lived, and they replied, 'We are not thy God; seek higher than we. ' . .. And I answered unto all things which stand about the door of my flesh, 'Ye have told me concerning my God, that ye are not he; tell me something about him. ' And with a loud voice they explained, 'It is He who hath made us!'"--Augustine's Confessions. 

 "Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night; that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name. "--Amos. 

 "That which hath been made was life in Him. "--John. 

CHAPTER I - PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

The Morse Lectureship and the Study of ComparativeReligion. 

As a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, in the Class of 1877, your servant received and accepted with pleasurethe invitation of the President and Board of Trustees to deliver acourse of lectures upon the religions of Japan. In that country and inseveral parts of it, I lived from 1870 to 1874. I was in the servicefirst of the feudal daimi[=o] of Echizen and then of the nationalgovernment of Japan, helping to introduce that system of public schoolswhich is now the glory of the country. Those four years gave meopportunities for close and constant observation of the outward side ofthe religions of Japan, and facilities for the study of the ideas out ofwhich worship springs. Since 1867, however, when first as a student inRutgers College at New Brunswick, N. J. , I met and instructed thosestudents from the far East, who, at risk of imprisonment and death hadcome to America for the culture of Christendom, I have been deeplyinterested in the study of the Japanese people and their thoughts. 

To attempt a just and impartial survey of the religions of Japan mayseem a task that might well appall even a life-long Oriental scholar. Yet it may be that an honest purpose, a deep sympathy and a gladlyavowed desire to help the East and the West, the Japanese and theEnglish-speaking people, to understand each other, are not whollyuseless in a study of religion, but for our purpose of real value. Theselectures are upon the Morse[1] foundation which has these specificationswritten out by the founder:

 The general subject of the lectures I desire to be: "The Relation of the Bible to any of the Sciences, as Geography, Geology, History, and Ethnology, . .. And the relation of the facts and truths contained in the Word of God, to the principles, methods, and aims of any of the sciences. "

Now, among the sciences which we must call to our aid are those ofgeography and geology, by which are conditioned history and ethnology ofwhich we must largely treat; and, most of all, the science ofComparative Religion. 

This last is Christianity's own child. Other sciences, such as geographyand astronomy, may have been born among lands and nations outside of andeven before Christendom. Other sciences, such as geology, may have hadtheir rise in Christian time and in Christian lands, their foundationlines laid and their main processes illustrated by Christian men, whichyet cannot be claimed by Christianity as her children bearing her ownlikeness and image; but the science of Comparative Religion is thedirect offspring of the religion of Jesus. It is a distinctivelyChristian science. "It is so because it is a product of Christiancivilization, and because it finds its impulse in that freedom ofinquiry which Christianity fosters. "[2] Christian scholars began theinvestigations, formulated the principles, collected the materials andreared the already splendid fabric of the science of ComparativeReligion, because the spirit of Christ which was in them did signifythis. Jesus bade his disciples search, inquire, discern and compare. Paul, the greatest of the apostolic Christian college, taught: "Proveall things; hold fast that which is good. " In our day one of Christ'sloving followers[3] expressed the spirit of her Master in her favoritemotto, "Truth for authority, not authority for truth. " Well says Dr. James Legge, a prince among scholars, and translator of the Chineseclassics, who has added several portly volumes to Professor Max Müller'sseries of the "Sacred Books of the East, " whose face to-day is bronzedand whose hair is whitened by fifty years of service in southern Chinawhere with his own hands he baptized six hundred Chinamen:[4]

 The more that a man possesses the Christian spirit, and is governed by Christian principle, the more anxious will he be to do justice to every other system of religion, and to hold his own without taint or fetter of bigotry. [5]

It was Christianity that, in a country where the religion of Jesus hasfullest liberty, called the Parliament of Religions, and this forreasons clearly manifest. Only Christians had and have the requisites ofsuccess, viz. : sufficient interest in other men and religions; thenecessary unity of faith and purpose; and above all, the brave and bolddisregard of the consequences. Christianity calls the Parliament ofReligions, following out the Divine audacity of Him who, so often, confronting worldly wisdom and priestly cunning, said to his disciples, "Think not, be not anxious, take no heed, be careful for nothing--onlyfor love and truth. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. "

Of all places therefore, the study of comparative religion is mostappropriate in a Christian theological seminary. We must know how ourfellow-men think and believe, in order to help them. It is our duty todiscover the pathways of approach to their minds and hearts. We mustshow them, as our brethren and children of the same Heavenly Father, thecommon ground on which we all stand. We must point them to the greatertruth in the Bible and in Christ Jesus, and demonstrate wherein both thedivinely inspired library and the truth written in a divine-human lifefulfil that which is lacking in their books and masters. 

To know just how to do this is knowledge to be coveted as a mostexcellent gift. An understanding of the religion of our fellow-men isgood, both for him who goes as a missionary and for him who at homeprays, "Thy kingdom come. "

The theological seminary, which begins the systematic and sympatheticstudy of Comparative Religion and fills the chair with a professor whohas a vital as well as academic interest in the welfare of hisfellow-men who as yet know not Jesus as Christ and Lord, is sure to leadin effective missionary work. The students thus equipped will befurnished as none others are, to begin at once the campaign of help andwarfare of love. 

It may be that insight into and sympathy with the struggles of men whoare groping after God, if haply they may find him, will shorten thepolemic sword of the professional converter whose only purpose isdestructive hostility without tactics or strategy, or whose chief ideaof missionary success is in statistics, in blackening the character of"the heathen, " in sensational letters for home consumption and reportsproperly cooked and served for the secretarial and sectarian palates. Yet, if true in history, Greek, Roman, Japanese, it is also true in themissionary wars, that "the race that shortens its weapons lengthens itsboundaries. "[6]

Apart from the wit or the measure of truth in this sentence quoted, itis a matter of truth in the generalizations of fact that the figure ofthe "sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, " used by Paul, andalso the figure of the "word of God, living and active, sharper than anytwo-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of the soul andspirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts andintents of the heart, " of the writer to the Hebrews, had for theiroriginal in iron the victorious _gladium_ of the Roman legionary--aweapon both short and sharp. We may learn from this substance of factbehind the shadow of the figure a lesson for our instant application. The disciplined Romans scorned the long blades of the barbarians, whosevalor so often impetuous was also impotent against discipline. TheRomans measured their blades by inches, not by feet. For ages theJapanese sword has been famed for its temper more than its weight. [7]The Christian entering upon his Master's campaigns with as littleimpediments of sectarian dogma as possible, should select a weapon thatis short, sure and divinely tempered. 

To know exactly the defects of the religion we seek to abolish, modify, supplement, supplant or fulfil, means wise economy of force. To get atthe secrets of its hold upon the people we hope to convert leads to aright use of power. In a word, knowledge of the opposing religion, andespecially of alien language, literature and ways of feeling andthinking, lengthens missionary life. A man who does not know the mouldsof thought of his hearers is like a swordsman trying to fight at longrange but only beating the air. Armed with knowledge and sympathy, themissionary smites with effect at close quarters. He knows the vitalspots. 

Let me fortify my own convictions and conclude this preliminary part ofmy lectures by quoting again, not from academic authorities, but fromactive missionaries who are or have been at the front and in thefield. [8]

The Rev. Samuel Beal, author of "Buddhism in China, " said (p. 19) that"it was plain to him that no real work could be done among the people[of China and Japan] by missionaries until the system of their beliefwas understood. "

The Rev. James MacDonald, a veteran missionary in Africa, in theconcluding chapter of his very able work on "Religion and Myth, " says:

 The Church that first adopts for her intending missionaries the study of Comparative Religion as a substitute for subjects now taught will lead the van in the path of true progress. 

The People of Japan. 

In this faith then, in the spirit of Him who said, "I come not todestroy but to fulfil, " let us cast our eyes upon that part of the worldwhere lies the empire of Japan with its forty-one millions of souls. Here we have not a country like India--a vast conglomeration of nations, languages and religions occupying a peninsula itself like a continent, whose history consists of a stratification of many civilizations. Norhave we here a seemingly inert mass of humanity in a political structureblending democracy and imperialism, as in China, so great in age, areaand numbers as to weary the imagination that strives to grasp thedetails. On the contrary, in Dai Nippon, or Great Land of the Sun'sOrigin, we have a little country easy of study. In geology it is one ofthe youngest of lands. Its known history is comparatively modern. Itsarea roughly reckoned as 150, 000 square miles, is about that of ourDakotas or of Great Britain and Ireland. The census completed December31, 1892, illustrates here, as all over the world, nature's argumentagainst polygamy. It tells us that the relation between the sexes is, numerically at least, normal. There were 20, 752, 366 males and 20, 337, 574females, making a population of 41, 089, 940 souls. All these people aresubjects of the one emperor, and excepting fewer than twenty thousandsavages in the northern islands called Ainos, speak one language andform substantially one race. Even the Riu Kiu islanders are Japanese inlanguage, customs and religion. In a word, except in minor differencesappreciable or at least important only to the special student, themodern Japanese are a homogeneous people. 

In origin and formation, this people is a composite of many tribes. Roughly outlining the ethnology of Japan, we should say that theaborigines were immigrants from the continent with Malay reinforcementin the south, Koreans in the centre, and Ainos in the east and north, with occasional strains of blood at different periods from various partsof the Asian mainland. In brief, the Japanese are a very mixed race. Authentic history before the Christian era is unknown. At some point oftime, probably later than A. D. 200, a conquering tribe, one of many fromthe Asian mainland, began to be paramount on the main island. About thefourth century something like historic events and personages begin to bevisible, but no Japanese writings are older than the early part of theeighth century, though almanacs and means of measuring time are found inthe sixth century. Whatever Japan may be in legend and mythology, she isin fact and in history younger than Christianity. Her line of rulers, asalleged in old official documents and ostentatiously reaffirmed in thefirst article of the constitution of 1889, to be "unbroken for ageseternal, " is no older than that of the popes. Let us not think of Aryanor Chinese antiquity when we talk of Japan. Her history as a state beganwhen the Roman empire fell. The Germanic nations emerged into historylong before the Japanese. 

Roughly outlining the political and religious life of the ancientJapanese, we note that their first system of government was a rude sortof feudalism imposed by the conquerors and was synchronous withaboriginal fetichism, nature worship, ancestral sacrifices, sun-worshipand possibly but not probably, a very rude sort of monotheism akin tothe primitive Chinese cultus. [9] Almost contemporary with Buddhism, itsintroduction and missionary development, was the struggle forcentralized imperialism borrowed from the Chinese and consolidated inthe period from the seventh to the twelfth century. During most of thistime Shint[=o], or the primitive religion, was overshadowed while theConfucian ethics were taught. From the twelfth to this nineteenthcentury feudalism in politics and Buddhism in religion prevailed, thoughConfucianism furnished the social laws or rules of daily conduct. Sincethe epochal year of 1868, with imperialism reestablished and the feudalsystem abolished, Shint[=o] has had a visible revival, being kept aliveby government patronage. Buddhism, though politically disestablished, isstill the popular religion with recent increase of life, [10] whileConfucianism is decidedly losing force. Christianity has begun itspromising career. 

The Amalgam of Religions. 

Yet in the imperial and constitutional Japan of our day it is still trueof probably at least thirty-eight millions of Japanese that theirreligion is not one, Shint[=o], Confucianism or Buddhism, but an amalgamof all three. There is not in every-day life that sharp distinctionbetween these religions which the native or foreign scholar makes, andwhich both history and philosophy demand shall be made for the studentat least. Using the technical language of Christian theologians, Shint[=o] furnishes theology, Confucianism anthropology and Buddhismsoteriology. The average Japanese learns about the gods and drawsinspiration for his patriotism from Shint[=o], maxims for his ethicaland social life from Confucius, and his hope of what he regards assalvation from Buddhism. Or, as a native scholar, Nobuta Kishimoto, [11]expresses it, In Japan these three different systems of religion and morality are not only living together on friendly terms with one another, but, in fact, they are blended together in the minds of the people, who draw necessary nourishment from all of these sources. One and the same Japanese is both a Shint[=o]ist, a Confucianist, and a Buddhist. He plays a triple part, so to speak . .. Our religion may be likened to a triangle. .. . Shint[=o]ism furnishes the object, Confucianism offers the rules of life, while Buddhism supplies the way of salvation; so you see we Japanese are eclectic in everything, even in religion. 

These three religious systems as at present constituted, are "bookreligions. " They rest, respectively, upon the Kojiki and other ancientJapanese literature and the modern commentators; upon the Chineseclassics edited and commented on by Confucius and upon Chu Hi and othermediaeval scholastics who commented upon Confucius; and upon theshastras and sutras with which Gautama, the Buddha, had something to do. Yet in primeval and prehistoric Nippon neither these books nor thereligions growing out of the books were extant. Furthermore, strictlyspeaking, it is not with any or all of these three religions that theChristian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest in contact. Inancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student notices a greatundergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all religions, though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it fetichism, shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad forms, it is therein awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, as hard to killas the scrub bamboo which both efficiently and sufficiently takes theplace of thorns and thistles as the curse of Japanese ground. 

The book-religions can be more or less apprehended by those alien tothem, but to fully appreciate the depth, extent, influence and tenacityof these archaic, unwritten and unformulated beliefs requires residenceupon the soil and life among the devotees. Disowned it may be by thepriests and sages, indignantly disclaimed or secretly approved in partby the organized religions, this great undergrowth of superstition is asapparent as the silicious bamboo grass which everywhere conditions andmodifies Japanese agriculture. Such prevalence of mental and spiritualdisease is the sad fact that confronts every lover of his fellow-men. This paganism is more ancient and universal than any one of thereligions founded on writing or teachers of name and fame. Even theapplied science and the wonderful inventions imported from the West, sofar from eradicating it, only serve as the iron-clad man-of-war in warmsalt water serves the barnacles, furnishing them food and hold. 

We propose to give in this our first lecture, a general or bird's-eyeview of this dead level of paganism above which the systems ofShint[=o], Confucianism and Buddhism tower like mountains. It in by thisomnipresent superstition that the respectable religious have beenconditioned in their history and are modified at present, even asChristianity has been influenced in its progress by ethnic or localideas and temperaments, and will be yet in its course of victory in theMikado's empire. 

Just as the terms "heathen" (happily no longer, in the Revised Versionof the English Bible) and "pagan" suggest the heath-man of NorthernEurope and the isolated hamlet of the Roman empire, while the citieswere illuminated with Christian truth, so, in the main, the mattedsuperstitious of Chinese Asia are more suggestive of distances frombooks and centres of knowledge, though still sufficiently rooted in thecrowded cities. 

One to whom the boundary line between the Creator and his world isperfectly clear, one who knows the eternal difference between mind andmatter, one born amid the triumphs of science can but faintly realizethe mental condition of the millions of Japan to whom there is nounifying thought of the Creator-Father. Faith in the unity of law is thefoundation of all science, but the average Asiatic has not this thoughtor faith. Appalled at his own insignificance amid the sublime mysteriesand awful immensities of nature, the shadows of his own mind become tohim real existences. As it is affirmed that the human skin, sensitive tothe effects of light, takes the photograph of the tree riven bylightning, so, on the pagan mind lie in ineffaceable and exaggeratedgrotesqueness the scars of impressions left by hereditary teaching, bynatural phenomena and by the memory of events and of landmarks. Out ofthe soil of diseased imagination has sprung up a growth as terrible asthe drunkard's phantasies. The earthquake, flood, tidal wave, famine, withering or devastating wind and poisonous gases, the geologicalmonsters and ravening bird, beast and fish, have their representativesor supposed incarnations in mythical phantasms. 

Frightful as these shadows of the mind appear, they are both very realand, in a sense, very necessary to the ignorant man. He must have sometheory by which to explain the phenomena of nature and soothe his ownterrors. Hence he peoples the earth and water, not only with invisiblespirits more or less malevolent, but also with bodily presences usuallyin terrific bestial form. To those who believe in one Spirit pervading, ordering, governing all things, there is unity amid all phenomena, andthe universe is all order and beauty. To the mind which has not reachedthis height of simplicity, instead of one cause there are many. Thediverse phenomena of nature are brought about by spirits innumerable, warring and discordant. Instead of a unity to the mind, as of sun andsolar system, there is nothing but planets, asteroids and a constantrain of shooting-stars. 

Shamanism. 

Glancing at some phases of the actual unwritten religions of Japan wename Shamanism, Mythical Zoölogy, Fetichism, Phallicism, and Tree andSerpent Worship. 

In actual Shamanism or Animism there may or there may not be a belief inor conception of a single all-powerful Creator above and beyond all. [12]Usually there is not such a belief, though, even if there be, the actualgovernment of the physical world and its surroundings is believed to liein the hands of many spirits or gods benevolent and malevolent. Earth, air, water, all things teem with beings that are malevolent andconstantly active. In time of disaster, famine, epidemic the universeseems as overcrowded with them as stagnant water seems to be when thesolar microscope throw its contents into apparition upon the screen. Itis absolutely necessary to propitiate these spirits by magic rites andincantations. 

Among the tribes of the northern part of the Chinese Empire and theAinos of Japan this Shamanism exists as something like an organizedcultus. Indeed, it would be hard to find any part of Chinese Asia fromKorea to Annam or from Tibet to Formosa, not dominated by this belief inthe power and presence of minor spirits. The Ainos of Yezo may be calledShamanists or Animists; that is, their minds are cramped and confused bytheir belief in a multitude of inferior spirits whom they worship andpropitiate by rites and incantations through their medicine-man orsorcerer. How they whittle sticks, keeping on the fringe of curledshavings, and set up these, called _inao_ in places whence evil issuspected to lurk, and how the shaman conducts his exorcisms and workshis healings, are told in the works of the traveller and themissionary. [13] In the wand of shavings thus reared we see the samemotive as that which induced the Mikado in the eighth century to buildthe great monasteries on Hiyéizan, northeast of Ki[=o]to, this being thequarter in which Buddhist superstition locates the path of advancingevil, to ward off malevolence by litanies and incense. Or, the _inao_ isa sort of lightning-rod conductor by which impending mischief may be ledharmlessly away. 

Yet, besides the Ainos, [14] there are millions of Japanese who areShamanists, even though they know not the name or organized cult. And ifwe make use of the term Shamanism instead of the more exact one ofAnimism, it is for the very purpose of illustrating our contention thatthe underlying paganisms of the Japanese archipelago, unwritten andunformulated, are older than the religions founded on books; and thatthese paganisms, still vital and persistent, constantly modify andcorrupt the recognized religious. The term Shaman, a Pali word, wasoriginally a pure Buddhist term meaning one who has separated from hisfamily and his passions. One of the designations of the Buddha wasShamana-Gautama. The same word, Shamon, in Japanese still means a bonze, or Buddhist priest. Its appropriation by the sorcerers, medicine-men, and lords of the misrule of superstition in Mongolia and Manchuria showsdecisively how indigenous paganism has corrupted the Buddhism ofnorthern Asia even as it has caused its decay in Japan. 

As out of Animism or Shamanism grows Fetichism in which a visible objectis found for the abode or medium of the spirit, so also, out of the samesoil arises what we may call Imaginary Zoölogy. In this mental growth, the nightmare of the diseased imagination or of the mind unable to drawthe line between the real and the unreal, Chinese Asia differs notablyfrom the Aryan world. With the mythical monsters of India and Iran weare acquainted, and with those of the Semitic and ancient European cycleof ideas which furnished us with our ancients and classics we arefamiliar. The lovely presences in human form, the semi-human and bestialcreations, sphinxes, naiads, satyrs, fauns, harpies, griffins, withwhich the fancy of the Mediterranean nations populated glen, grotto, mountain and stream, are probably outnumbered by the less beautiful andeven hideous mind-shadows of the Turanian world. Chief among these arewhat in Chinese literature, so slavishly borrowed by the Japanese, arecalled the four supernatural or spiritually endowed creatures--the Kirinor Unicorn, the Phoenix, the Tortoise and the Dragon. [15]

Mythical Zoölogy. 

Of the first species the _ki_ is the male, the _lin_ is the female, hence the name Kilin. The Japanese having no _l_, pronounce this Kirin. Its appearance on the earth is regarded as a happy portent of the adventof good government or the birth of men who are to prove virtuous rulers. It has the body of a deer, the tail of an ox, and a single, soft horn. As messenger of mercy and benevolence, the Kirin never treads on a liveinsect or eats growing grass. Later philosophy made this imaginary beastthe incarnation of those five primordial elements--earth, air, water, fire and ether of which all things, including man's body, are made andwhich are symbolized in the shapes of the cube, globe, pyramid, saucerand tuft of rays in the Japanese gravestones. It is said to attain theage of a thousand years, to be the noblest form of the animal creationand the emblem of perfect good. In Chinese and Japanese art thiscreature holds a prominent place, and in literature even more so. It isnot only part of the repertoire of the artist's symbols in the Chineseworld of ideas, but is almost a necessity to the moulds of thought ineastern Asia. Yet it is older than Confucius or the book-religions, andits conception shows one of the nobler sides of Animism. 

The Feng-hwang or Phoenix, Japanese H[=o]-w[=o], the second of theincarnations of the spirits, is of wondrous form and mystic nature. Therare advent of this bird upon the earth is, like that of the kirin orunicorn, a presage of the advent of virtuous rulers and good government. It has the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of atortoise, and the features of the dragon and fish. Its colors andstreaming feathers are gorgeous with iridian sheen, combining thesplendors of the pheasant and the peacock. Its five colors symbolize thecardinal virtues of uprightness of mind, obedience, justice, fidelityand benevolence. The male bird _H[=o]_, and female _w[=o]_, by theirinseparable fellowship furnish the artist, poet and literary writer withthe originals of the ten thousand references which are found in Chineseand its derived literatures. Of this mystic Phoenix a Chinese dictionarythus gives description:

 The Phoenix is of the essence of water; it was born in the vermilion cave; it perches not but on the most beautiful of all trees; it eats not but of the seed of the bamboo; its body is adorned with the five colors; its song contains the five notes; as it walks it looks around; as it flies hosts of birds follow it. 

Older than the elaborate descriptions of it and its representations inart, the H[=o]-w[=o] is one of the creations of primitive ChineseAnimism. 

The Kwei or Tortoise is not the actual horny reptile known tonaturalists and to common experience, but a spirit, an animated creaturethat ages ago rose up out of the Yellow River, having on its carapacethe mystic writing out of which the legendary founder of Chinesecivilization deciphered the basis of moral teachings and the secrets ofthe unseen. From this divine tortoise which conceived by thought alone, all other tortoises sprang. In the elaboration of the myths and legendsconcerning the tortoise we find many varieties of this scalyincarnation. It lives a thousand years, hence it is emblem of longevityin art and literature. It is the attendant of the god of the waters. Ithas some of the qualities and energies of the dragon, it has the powerof transformation. In pictures and sculptures we are familiar with itsfigure, often of colossal size, as forming the curb of a well, the baseof a monument or tablet. Yet, whatever its form in literature or art, itis the later elaborated representation of ancient Animism which selectedthe tortoise as one of the manifold incarnations or media of the myriadspirits that populate the air. 

Chief and leader of the four divinely constituted beasts is the Lung, Japanese Ri[=o], or Dragon, which has the power of transformation and ofmaking itself visible or invisible. At will it reduces itself to thesize of a silk-worm, or is swollen until it fills the space of heavenand earth. This is the creature especially preeminent in art, literatureand rhetoric. There are nine kinds of dragons, all with various featuresand functions, and artists and authors revel in their representation. The celestial dragon guards the mansions of the gods and supports themlest they fall; the spiritual dragon causes the winds to blow and rainto descend for the service of mankind; the earth dragon marks out thecourses of rivers and streams; the dragon of the hidden treasureswatches over the wealth concealed from mortals, etc. Outwardly, thedragon of superstition resembles the geological monsters brought toresurrection by our paleontologists. He seems to incarnate all theattributes and forces of animal life--vigor, rapidity of motion, endurance, power of offence in horn, hoof, claw, tooth, nail, scale andfiery breath. Being the embodiment of all force the dragon is especiallysymbolical of the emperor. Usually associated with malevolence, onesees, besides the conventional art and literature of civilization, theprimitive animistic idea of men to whose mind this mysterious universehad no unity, who believed in myriad discordant spirits but knew not of"one Law-giver, who is able both to save and to destroy. " Anenlargement, possibly, of prehistoric man's reminiscence of now extinctmonsters, the dragon is, in its artistic development, a mythicalembodiment of all the powers of moisture to bless and to harm. We shallsee how, when Buddhism entered China, the cobra-de-capello, so oftenfigured in the Buddhistic representations of India, is replaced by thedragon. 

Yet besides these four incarnations of the spirits that misrule theworld there is a host, a menagerie of mythical monsters. In Korea, oneof the Asian countries richest in demonology, beast worship is veryprevalent. Mythical winged tigers and flying serpents with attributes offire, lightning and combinations of forces not found in any onecreature, are common to the popular fancy. In Japan, the _kappa_, halfmonkey half tortoise, which seizes children bathing in the rivers, asreal to millions of the native common folk as is the shark or porpoise;the flying-weasel, that moves in the whirlwind with sickle-like bladeson his claws, which cut the face of the unfortunate; the wind-god or impthat lets loose the gale or storm; the thunder-imp or hairy, cat-likecreature that on the cloud-edges beats his drums in crash, roll, orrattle; the earthquake-fish or subterranean bull-head or cat-fish thatwriggles and writhes, causing the earth to shiver, shudder and open; the_ja_ or dragon centipede; the _tengu_ or long-nosed and winged mountainsprite, which acts as the messenger of the gods, pulling out the tonguesof fibbing, lying children; besides the colossal spiders and mythicalcreatures of the old story-books; the foxes, badgers, cats and othercreatures which transform themselves and "possess" human beings, stillinfluence the popular mind. These, once the old _kami_ of the primitiveJapanese, or _kamui_ of the aboriginal Aino, show the mental soil andclimate[16] which were to condition the growth of the seed imported fromother lands, whether of Buddhism or Christianity. It is very hard tokill a god while the old mind that grew and nourished him still remainsthe same. Banish or brand a phantom or mind-shadow once worshipped asdivine, and it will appear as a fairy, a demon, a mythical animal, or an_oni_; but to annihilate it requires many centuries of higher culture. 

As with the superstitions and survival of Animism and Fetichism from ourpagan ancestors among ourselves, many of the lingering beliefs may beharmless, but over the mass of men in Japan and in Chinese Asia theystill exert a baleful influence. They make life full of distress; theycurtail human joy; they are a hindrance, to spiritual progress and tocivilization. 

Fetichism. 

The animistic tendency in that part of Asia dominated by the Chineseworld of ideas shows itself not only in a belief in messengers orembodiments of divine malevolence or benevolence, but also in thelocation of the spiritual influence in or upon an inanimate object orfetich. Among men in Chinese Asia, from the clodhopper to the gentleman, the inheritance of Fetichism from the primeval ages is constantlynoticeable. Let us glance at the term itself. 

As the Chinaman's "Joss" is only his own pronunciation of the Portugueseword _Deos_, or the Latin _Deus_, so the word "fetich" is but thePortuguese modification of the Latin word _facticius_, that is_feitiço_. Portugal, beginning nearly five hundred years ago, had thehonor of sending the first ships and crews to explore the coasts ofAfrica and Asia, and her sailors by this word, now Englished as fetich, described the native charms or talismans. The word "fetichism" came intothe European languages through the work of Charles de Brosses, who, in1760, wrote on "Du Culte des Dieux Fétiches. " In Fetichism, the "objectis treated as having personal consciousness and power, is talked with, worshipped, prayed to, sacrificed to, petted or ill-treated withreference to its past or future behavior to its votaries. "

Let me draw a picture from actual observation. I look out of the windowsof my house in Fukui. Here is a peasant who comes back after the winterto prepare his field for cultivation. The man's horizon of ideas, likehis vocabulary, is very limited. His view of actual life is bounded by afew rice-fields, a range of hills, and the village near by. Possibly onevisit to a city or large town has enriched his experience. Moreprobably, however, the wind and clouds, the weather, the soil, crops andtaxes, his family and food and how to provide for them, are the mainthoughts that occupy his mind. Before he will strike mattock or spade inthe soil, lay axe to a tree, collect or burn underbrush, he will selecta stone, a slab of rock or a stick of wood, set it upon hill side or mudfield-boundary, and to this he will bow, prostrate himself or pray. Tohim, this stone or stick is consecrated. It has power to placate thespirits and ward off their evil. It is the medium of communicationbetween him and them. Now, having attended, as he thinks, to theproprieties in the case, he proceeds to dig, plough, drain, put in orderand treat soil or water, tree or other growth as is most convenient forhis purpose. His fetich is erected to "the honorable spirits. " Were thisnot attended to, some known or unknown bad luck, sinister fortune, orcalamity would befall him. Here, then, is a fetich-worshipper. The stickor stone is the medium of communication between the man and the spiritswho can bless or harm him, and which to his mind are as countlesslynumerous as the swarms of mosquitoes which he drives out of and awayfrom his summer cottage by smudge fires in August. 

One need not travel in Yezo or Saghalin to see practical Fetichism. Gowhere you will in Japan, there are fetich worshippers. Among the countryfolk, the "_inaka_" of Japanese parlance, Fetichism is seen in itsgrossest forms. Yet among probably millions of Buddhists, especially ofcertain sects, the Nichiren for example, and even among therationalistic Confucians, there are fetich-worshippers. Rare is theJapanese farmer, laborer, mechanic, ward-man, or _hei-min_ of any tradewho does not wear amulet, charm or other object which he regards withmore or less of reverence as having relation to the powers that help orharm. [17] In most of the Buddhist temples these amulets are sold for thebenefit of the priests or of the shrine or monastery. Not a few even ofthe gentry consider it best to be on the safe side and wear in pouch orpurse these protectors against evil. 

Of the 7, 817, 570 houses in the empire, enumerated in the census of 1892, it is probable that seven millions of them are subjects of insurance byfetich. [18] They are guaranteed against fire, thieves, lightning, plagueand pestilence. It is because of money paid to the priests that thewooden policies are duly nailed on the walls, and not on account of thewise application of mathematical, financial or medical science. Examinealso the paper packages carefully tied and affixed above the transom, decipher the writing in ink or the brand left by the hot iron on thelittle slabs of pine-wood--there may be one or a score of them--and whatwill you read? Names of the temples with date of issue and seal ofcertificate from the priests, mottoes or titles from sacred books, oftenonly a Sanskrit letter or monogram, of which the priest-pedler may longsince have forgotten the meaning. To build a house, select a cemetery orproceed to any of the ordinary events of life without making use of somesort of material fetich, is unusual, extraordinary and is votedheterodox. 

Long after the brutish stage of thought is past the fetichistic instinctremains in the sacredness attached to the mere letter or paper orparchment of the sacred book or writing, when used as amulet, plaster ormedicine. The survivals, even in Buddhism, of ancient and prehistoricFetichism are many and often with undenied approval of the religiousauthorities, especially in those sects which are themselves reversionsto primitive and lower types of religion. 

Among the Ainos of Yezo and Saghalin the medicine-man or shaman isdecorated with fetichistic bric-à-brac of all sorts, and these bits ofshells, metals, and other clinking substances are believed to be mediaof communication with mysterious influences and forces. In Koreathousands of trees bedecked with fluttering rags, clinking scraps oftin, metal or stone signify the same thing. In Japan these primitivetinkling scraps and clinking bunches of glass have long since become the_suzu_ or wind-bells seen on the pagoda which tintinabulate with everypassing breeze. The whittled sticks of the Aino, non-conductors of eviland protectors of those who make and rear them, stuck up in every placeof awe or supposed danger, have in the slow evolution of centuriesbecome the innumerable flag-poles, banners and streamers which one seesat their _matsuris_ or temple festivals. Millions of towels andhandkerchiefs still flutter over wells and on sacred trees. In old Japanthe banners of an army almost outnumbered the men who fought beneaththem. Today, at times they nearly conceal the temples from view. 

The civilized Japanese, having passed far beyond the Aino's stage ofreligion, still show their fetichistic instincts in the venerationaccorded to priestly inventions for raising revenue. [19] This instinctlingers in the faith accorded to medicine in the form of decoction, pill, bolus or poultice made from the sacred writing and piouslyswallowed; in the reverence paid to the idol for its own sake, and inthe charm or amulet worn by the soldier in his cap or by the gentlemanin his pill-box, tobacco-pouch or purse. 

As the will of the worshipper who selects the fetich makes it what itis, so also, by the exercise of that will he imagines he can in acertain measure be the equal or superior of his god. Like the Italianpeasant who beats or scolds his bambino when his prayers are notanswered or his wishes gratified, so the fetich is punished or notallowed to know what is going on, by being covered up or hidden away. Instances of such rough handling of their fetiches by the people are farfrom unknown in the Land of Great Peace. At such childishness we maywonder and imagine that fetich-worship is the very antipodes ofreligion; and yet it requires but little study of the lower orders ofmind and conduct in Christendom to see how fetich-worship still lingersamong people called Christians, whether the fetich be the image of asaint or the Virgin, or a verse of the Bible found at random and usedmuch as is a penny-toss to decide minor actions. Or, to look farthersouth, what means the rabbit's foot carried in the pocket or the variousarticles of faith now hanging in the limbo between religion andfolk-lore in various parts of our own country?

Phallicism. 

Further illustrations of far Eastern Animism and Fetichism are seen informs once vastly more prevalent in Japan than now. Indeed, so farimproved off the face of the earth are they, that some are alreadymatters of memory or archæology, and their very existence even in formerdays is nearly or wholly incredible to the generation born since1868--when Old Japan began to vanish in dissolving views and New Japanto emerge. What the author has seen with his own eyes, would amaze manyJapanese born since 1868 and the readers of the rhapsodies of touristswho study Japan from the _jin-riki-sha_. Phases of tree and serpentworship are still quite common, and will be probably for generations tocome; but the phallic shrines and emblems abolished by the government in1872 have been so far invisible to most living travellers and natives, that their once general existence and use are now scarcely suspected. Even profound scholars of the Japanese language and literature whosework dates from after the year 1872 have scarcely suspected theuniversality of phallic worship. Yet what we could say of this cult andits emblems, especially in treating of Shint[=o], the special ethnicfaith of Japan, would be from sight of our own eyes besides thetestimony of many witnesses. [20]

The cultus has been known in the Japanese archipelago from Riu Kin toYezo. Despite official edicts of abolition it is still secretlypractised by the "heathen, " the _inaka_ of Japan. "Government law laststhree days, " is an ancient proverb in Nippon. Sharp eyes have, withinthree months of the writing of this line, unearthed a phallic shrinewithin a stone's-throw of Shint[=o]'s most sacred temples at Isé. Formerly, however, these implements of worship were seen numerously--inthe cornucopia distributed in the temples, in the _matsuris_ orreligious processions and in representation by various plasticmaterial--and all this until 1872, to an extent that is absolutelyincredible to all except the eye-witnesses, some of whose writtentestimonies we possess. What seems to our mind shocking and revoltingwas once a part of our own ancestors' faith, and until very recently wasthe perfectly natural and innocent creed of many millions of Japaneseand is yet the same for tens of thousands of them. 

We may easily see why and how that which to us is a degrading cult wasnot only closely allied to Shint[=o], but directly fostered by andproperly a part of it, as soon as we read the account of the creation ofthe world, an contained in the national "Book of Ancient Traditions, "the "Kojiki. " Several of the opening paragraphs of this sacred book ofShint[=o] are phallic myths explaining cosmogony. Yet the myths and thecult are older than the writing and are phases of primitive Japanesefaith. The mystery of fatherhood is to the primitive man the mystery ofcreation also. To him neither the thought nor the word was at hand toput difference and transcendental separation between him and what heworshipped as a god. 

Into the details of the former display and carriage of these now obscenesymbols in the popular celebrations; of the behavior of even respectablecitizens during the excitement and frenzy of the festivals; of theirpresence in the wayside shrines; of the philosophy, hideousness orpathos of the subject, we cannot here enter. We simply call attention totheir existence, and to a form of thought, if not of religion, properlyso-called, which has survived all imported systems of faith and whichshows what the native or indigenous idea of divinity really is--an ideathat profoundly affects the organization of society. To the enlightenedBuddhist, Confucian, and even the modern Shintoist thephallus-worshipper is a "heathen, " a "pagan, " and yet he still practiseshis faith and rites. It is for us to hint at the powerful influence suchpersistent ideas have upon Japanese morals and civilization. Stillfurther, we illustrate the basic fact which all foreign religions andall missionaries, Confucian, Buddhist, Mahometan or Christian must dealwith, viz. : That the Eastern Asiatic mind runs to pantheism as surely asthe body of flesh and blood seeks food. 

Tree and Serpent Worship. 

In prehistoric and medieval Japan, as among the Ainos to-day, trees andserpents as well as rocks, rivers and other inanimate objects wereworshipped, because such of them as were supposed for reasons known andfelt to be awe-inspiring or wonderful were "kami, " that is, above thecommon, wonderful. [21] This word kami is usually translated god ordeity, but the term does not conform to our ideas, by a great gulf ofdifference. It is more than probable that the Japanese term kami is thesame as the Aino word _kamui_, and that the despised and conqueredaboriginal savage has furnished the mould of the ordinary Japanese ideaof god--which even to-day with them means anything wonderful orextraordinary. [22] From the days before history the people haveworshipped trees, and do so yet, considering them as the abodes of andas means of communication with supernatural powers. On them the peoplehang their votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers writtenon paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certaintrees. The _sakaki_ tree is especially sacred, even to this day, infuneral or Shint[=o] services. To wound or defile a tree sacred to aparticular god was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deityupon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guiltwas imputed and punishment was due. 

Thus, in the days older than this present generation, but still withinthis century, as the writer has witnessed, it was the custom of womenbetrayed by their lovers to perform the religious act of vengeancecalled _Ushi toki mairi_, or going to the temple at the hour of the ox, that is at 2 A. M. First making an image or manikin of straw, she set outon her errand of revenge, with nails held in her mouth and with hammerin one hand and straw figure in the other, sometimes also having on herhead a reversed tripod in which were stuck three lighted candles. Arriving at the shrine she selected a tree dedicated to a god, and thennailed the straw simulacrum of her betrayer to the trunk, invoking thekami to curse and annihilate the destroyer of her peace. She adjures thegod to save his tree, impute the guilt of desecration to the traitor andvisit him with deadly vengeance. The visit is repeated and nails aredriven until the object of the incantation sickens and dies, or is atleast supposed to do so. I have more than once seen such trees and strawimages upon them, and have observed others in which the large number ofrusted nails and fragments of straw showed how tenaciously thesuperstition lingered. [23]

In instances more pleasant to witness, may be seen trees festooned withthe symbolical rice-straw in cords and fringes. With these the peoplehonor the trees as the abode of the kami, or as evidence of their faithin the renown accredited in the past. 

In common with most human beings the Japanese consider the serpent anobject of mystery and awe, but most of them go further and pay theophidian a reverence and awe which is worship. Their oldest literatureshows how large a part the serpent played in the so-called divine age, how it acted as progenitress of the Mikado's ancestry, and how itafforded means of incarnation for the kami or gods. Ten species ofophidia are known in the Japanese islands, but in the larger number ofmore or less imaginary varieties which figure in the ancient books weshall find plenty of material for fetich-worship. In perusing the"Kojiki" one scarcely knows, when he begins a story, whether thecharacter which to all appearance is a man or woman is to end as asnake, or whether the mother after delivering her child will or will notglide into the marsh or slide away into the sea, leaving behind a trailof slime. A dragon is three-fourths serpent, and both the dragon and theserpent are prominent figures, perhaps the most prominent of the kami orgods in human or animal form in the "Kojiki" and other early legends ofthe gods, though the crocodile, crow, deer, dog, and other animals arekami. [24] It is therefore no wonder that serpents have been and arestill worshipped by the people, that some of their gods and goddessesare liable at any time to slip away in scaly form, that famous templesare built on sites noted as being the abode or visible place of theactual water or land snake of natural history, and that the spot where aserpent is seen to-day is usually marked with a sacred emblem or ashrine. [25] We shall see how this snake-worship became not only a partof Shint[=o] but even a notable feature in corrupt Buddhism. 

Pantheism's Destruction of Boundaries. [26]

In its rudest forms, this pantheism branches out into animism orshamanism, fetichism and phallicism. In its higher forms, it becomespolytheism, idolatry and defective philosophy. Having centuries agocorrupted Buddhism it is the malaria which, unseen and unfelt, is readyto poison and corrupt Christianity. Indeed, it has already given over todisease and spiritual death more than one once hopeful Christianbeliever, teacher and preacher in the Japan of our decade. 

To assault and remove the incubus, to replace and refill the mind, tolift up and enlighten the Japanese peasant, science as already known andfaith in one God, Creator and Father of all things, must go hand inhand. Education and civilization will do much for the ignorant _inaka_or boors, but for the cultured whose minds waver and whose feetflounder, as well as for the unlearned and priest-ridden, there is nosurer help and healing than that faith in the Heavenly Father whichgives the unifying thought to him who looks into creation. 

Keep the boundary line clear between God and his world and all is orderand discrimination. Obliterate that boundary and all is pathless morass, black chaos and on the mind the phantasms which belong to the victim of_delirium tremens_. 

There is one Lawgiver. In the beginning, God. In the end, God, all inall. 

CHAPTER II - SHINT[=O]: MYTHS AND RITUAL

 "In the great days of old, When o'er the land the gods held sov'reign sway, Our fathers lov'd to say That the bright gods with tender care enfold The fortunes of Japan, Blessing the land with many an holy spell: And what they loved to tell, We of this later age ourselves do prove; For every living man May feast his eyes on tokens of their love. "

 --Poem of Yamagami-no Okura, A. D. 733. 

 Baal: "While I on towers and banging terraces, In shaft and obelisk, behold my sign. Creative, shape of first imperious law. "

 --Bayard Taylor's "Masque of the Gods. "

 "Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit whoredom with them, and tookest thy broidered garments, and coveredst them: and thou hast set mine oil and mine incense before them. My meat also which I gave thee, fine flour, and oil, and honey, wherewith I fed thee, thou hast even set it before them for a sweet savor: and thus it was, saith the Lord GOD. "--Ezekiel. 

 If it be said (as has been the case), 'Shintoism has nothing in it, ' we should be inclined to answer, 'So much the better, there is less error to counteract. ' But there _is_ something in it, and that . .. Of a kind of which we may well avail ourselves when making known the second commandment, and the 'fountain of cleansing from all sin. '"--E. W. Syle. 

 "If Shint[=o] has a dogma, it is purity. "--Kaburagi. 

 "I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord: and so will I go to thine altar. "--Ps. Xxvi. 6. 

CHAPTER II - SHINT[=O]: MYTHS AND RITUAL

The Japanese a Young Nation. 

What impresses us in the study of the history of Japan is that, comparedwith China and Korea, she is young. Her history is as the story ofyesterday. The nation is modern. The Japanese are as younger children inthe great family of Asia's historic people. Broadly speaking, Japan isno older than England, and authentic Japanese history no more ancientthan British history. In Albion, as in the Honorable Country, there aretraditions and mythologies that project their shadows aeons back ofgenuine records; but if we consider that English history begins in thefifth, and English literature in the eighth century, then there areother reasons besides those commonly given for calling Japan "theEngland of the East. "

No trustworthy traditions exist which carry the known history of Japanfarther back than the fifth century. The means for measuring andrecording time were probably not in use until the sixth century. Theoldest documents in the Japanese language, excepting a few fragments ofthe seventh century, do not antedate the year 712, and even in these theChinese characters are in many instances used phonetically, because themeaning of the words thus transliterated had already been forgotten. Hence their interpretation in detail is still largely a matter ofconjecture. 

Yet the Japanese Archipelago was inhabited long before the dawn ofhistory. The concurrent testimony of the earliest literary monuments, ofthe indigenous mythology, of folk-lore, of shell-heaps and ofkitchen-middens shows that the occupation by human beings of the mainislands must be ascribed to times long before the Christian era. Beforewritten records or ritual of worship, religion existed on its active ordevotional side, and there were mature growths of thought preserved andexpressed orally. Poems, songs, chants and _norito_ or liturgies werekept alive in the human memory, and there was a system of worship, the_name_ of which was given long after the introduction of Buddhism. Thisdescriptive term, Kami no Michi in Japanese, and Shin-t[=o] in theChinese as pronounced by Japanese, means the Way of the Gods, the t[=o]or final syllable being the same as tao in Taoism. We may say thatShint[=o] means, literally, theoslogos, theology. The customs andpractices existed centuries before contact with Chinese letters, andlong previous to the Shint[=o] literature which is now extant. 

Whether Kami no Michi is wholly the product of Japanese soil, or whetherits rudimentary ideas were imported from the neighboring Asian continentand more or less allied to the primitive Chinese religion, is still anopen question. The preponderance of argument tends, however, to showthat it was an importation as to its origin, for not a few eventsoutlined in the Japanese mythology cast shadows of reminiscence uponKorea or the Asian mainland. In its development, however, the cultus isalmost wholly Japanese. The modern forms of Shint[=o], as moulded by therevivalists of the eighteenth century, are at many points notablydifferent from the ancient faith. At the World's Parliament of Religionsat Chicago, Shint[=o] seemed to be the only one, and probably the last, of the purely provincial religions. 

In order to gain a picture of life in Japan before the introduction ofChinese civilization, we must consult those photographs of the minds ofthe ancient islanders which still exist in their earliest literature. The fruits of the study of ethnology, anthropology and archaeologygreatly assist us in picturing the day-break of human life in theMorning Land. In preparing materials for the student of the religions ofJapan many laborers have wrought in various fields, but the chiefliterary honors have been taken by the English scholars, Messrs. Satow, [1] Aston, [2] and Chamberlain. [3] These untiring workers haveopened the treasures of ancient thought in the Altaic world. [4]

Although even these archaic Japanese compositions, readable to-day onlyby special scholars, are more or less affected by Chinese influences, ideas and modes of expression, yet they are in the main faithfulreflections of the ancient life before the primitive faith of theJapanese people was either disturbed or reduced to system in presence ofan imported religion. These monuments of history, poetry and liturgiesare the "Kojiki, " or Notices of Ancient Things; the "Manyöshu" or MyriadLeaves or Poems, and the "Norito, " or Liturgies. 

The Ancient Documents. 

The first book, the "Kojiki, " gives us the theology, cosmogony, mythology, and very probably, in its later portions, some outlines ofhistory of the ancient Japanese. The "Kojiki" is the real, the dogmaticexponent, or, if we may so say, the Bible, of Shint[=o]. The"Many[=o]shu, " or Book of Myriad Poems, expresses the thoughts andfeelings; reflects the manners and customs of the primitive generations, and, in the same sense as do the Sagas of the Scandinavians, furnishesus unchronological but interesting and more or less real narratives ofevents which have been glorified by the poets and artists. The ancientcodes of law and of ceremonial procedure are of great value, while the"Norito" are excellent mirrors in which to see reflected the religioncalled Shint[=o] on the more active side of worship. 

In a critical study, either of the general body of national tradition orof the ancient documents, we must continually be on our guard againstthe usual assumption that Chinese civilization came in earlier than itreally did. This assumption colors all modern Japanese popular ideas, art and literature. The vice of the pupil nations surrounding the MiddleKingdom is their desire to have it believed that Chinese letters andculture among them is an nearly coeval with those of China as can bemade truly or falsely to appear. The Koreans, for example, would have usbelieve that their civilization, based on letters and introduced byKishi, is "four thousand years old" and contemporaneous with China'sown, and that "the Koreans are among the oldest people of the world. "[5]The average modern Japanese wishes the date of authentic or officialhistory projected as far back as possible. Yet he is a modest mancompared with his mediæval ancestor, who constructed chronology out ofink-stones. Over a thousand years ago a deliberate forgery wasofficially put on paper. A whole line of emperors who never lived wascanonized, and clever penmen set down in ink long chapters whichdescribe what never happened. [6] Furthermore, even after, and only eightyears after the fairly honest "Kojiki" had been compiled, the bookcalled "Nihongi, " or Chronicles of Japan, was written. All the internaland not a little external evidence shows that the object of this book isto give the impression that Chinese ideas, culture and learning had longbeen domesticated in Japan. The "Nihongi" gives dates of events supposedto have happened fifteen hundred years before, with an accuracy whichmay be called villainous; while the "Kojiki" states that Wani, a Koreanteacher, brought the "Thousand Character Classic" to Japan in A. D. 285, though that famous Chinese book was not composed until the sixthcentury, or A. D. 550. [7]

Even to this day it is nearly impossible for an American to get a Korean"frog in the well"[8] to understand why the genuine native life andhistory, language and learning of his own peninsular country is ofgreater value to the student than the pedantry borrowed from China. Whythese possess any interest to a "scholar" is a mystery to the head inthe horsehair net. Anything of value, he thinks, _must_ be on theChinese model. What is not Chinese is foolish and fit for women andchildren only. Furthermore, Korea "always had" Chinese learning. This isthe sum of the arguments of the Korean literati, even as it used to beof the old-time hatless Yedo scholar of shaven skull and topknot. 

Despite Japanese independence and even arrogance in certain other lines, the thought of the demolition of cherished notions of vast antiquity isvery painful. Critical study of ancient traditions is still dangerous, even in parliamentary Nippon. Hence the unbiassed student must depend onhis own reading of and judgment upon the ancient records, assisted bythe thorough work done by the English scholars Aston, Satow, Chamberlain, Bramsen and others. 

It was the coming of Buddhism in the sixth century, and the implantingon the soil of Japan of a system of religion in which were temples withall that was attractive to the eye, gorgeous ritual, scriptures, priesthood, codes of morals, rigid discipline, a system of dogmatics inwhich all was made positive and clear, that made the variant myths andlegends somewhat uniform. The faith of Shaka, by winning adherents bothat the court and among the leading men of intelligence, reacted upon thenational traditions so as to compel their collection and arrangemeutinto definite formulas. In due time the mythology, poetry and ritualwas, as we have seen, committed to writing and the whole system calledShint[=o], in distinction from Butsud[=o], the Way of the Gods from theWay of the Buddhas. Thus we can see more clearly the outward and visiblemanifestations of Shint[=o]. In forming our judgment, however, we mustput aside those descriptions which are found in the works of Europeanwriters, from Marco Polo and Mendez Pinto down to the year 1870. Thoughthese were good observers, they were often necessarily mistaken in theirdeductions. For, as we shall see in our lecture on Riy[=o]bu or MixedBuddhism, Shint[=o] was, from the ninth century until late into thenineteenth century, absorbed in Buddhism so as to be next to invisible. 

Origins of the Japanese People. 

Without detailing processes, but giving only results, our view of theorigin of the Japanese people and of their religion is in the main asfollows:

The oldest seats of human habitation in the Japanese Archipelago liebetween the thirtieth and thirty-eighth parallels of north latitude. South of the thirty-fourth parallel, it seems, though without proof ofwriting or from tradition, that the Malay type and blood from the farsouth probably predominated, with, however, much infusion from thenorthern Asian mainland. 

Between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth parallels, and west of theone hundred and thirty-eighth meridian of longitude, may be found whatis still the choicest, richest and most populous part of The CountryBetween Heaven and Earth. Here the prevailing element was Korean andTartar. 

To the north and east of this fair country lay the Emishi savages, orAinos. 

In "the world" within the ken of the prehistoric dwellers in what is nowthe three islands, Hondo, Kiushiu and Shikoku, there was no island ofYezu and no China; while Korea was but slightly known, and the landsfarther westward were unheard of except as the home of distant tribes. 

Three distinct lines of tradition point to the near peninsula or thewest coast of Japan as the "Heaven" whence descended the tribe whichfinally grew to be dominant. The islands of Tsushima and Iki were thestepping-stones of the migration out of which rose what may be calledthe southern or Tsukushi cycle of legend, Tsukushi being the ancientname of Kiushiu. 

Idzumo is the holy land whence issued the second stream of tradition. 

The third course of myth and legend leads us into Yamato, whence webehold the conquest of the Mikado's home-land and the extension of hisname and influence into the regions east of the Hakoné Mountains, including the great plain of Yedo, where modern T[=o]ki[=o] now stands. 

We shall take the term "Yamato" as the synonym of the prehistoric butdiscernible beginnings of national life. It represents the seat of thetribe whose valor and genius ultimately produced the Mikado system. Itwas through this house or tribe that Japanese history took form. Thereverence for the ruler long afterward entitled "Son of Heaven" is thestrongest force in the national history. The spirit and prowess of theseearly conquerors have left an indelible impress upon the language andthe mind of the nation in the phrase Yamato Damashi--the spirit of(Divine and unconquerable) Japan. 

The story of the conquest of the land, in its many phases, recalls thatof the Aryans in India, of the Hebrews in Canaan, of the Romans inEurope and of the Germanic races in North America. The Yamato mengradually advanced to conquest under the impulse, as they believed, of adivine command. [9] They were sent from Takama-no-hara, the High Plain ofHeaven. Theirs was the war, of men with a nobler creed, havingagriculture and a feudal system of organization which furnishedresources for long campaigns, against hunters and fishermen. They hadimproved artillery and used iron against stone. Yet they conquered andpacified not only by superior strategy, tactics, weapons and valor, butalso by advanced fetiches and dogma. They captured the religion of theirenemies as well as their bodies, lands and resources. They claimed thattheir ancestors were from Heaven, that the Sun was their kinswoman andthat their chief, or Mikado, was vicegerent of the Heavenly gods, butthat those whom they conquered were earth-born or sprung from theterrestrial divinities. 

Mikadoism the Heart of Shint[=o]. 

As success came to their arms and their chief's power was made moresure, they developed further the dogma of the Mikado's divinity and madeworship centre in him as the earthly representative of the Sun andHeaven. His fellow-conquerors and ministers, as fast as they were put inlordship over conquered provinces, or indigenous chieftains whosubmitted obediently to his sway or yielded graciously to his prowess, were named as founders of temples and in later generations worshippedand became gods. [10] One of the motives for, and one of the guidingprinciples in the selections of the floating myths, was that theancestry of the chieftains loyal to the Mikado might be shown to be fromthe heavenly gods. Both the narratives of the "Kojiki" and the liturgiesshow this clearly. 

The nature-worship, which was probably practised throughout the wholearchipelago, became part of the system as government and society weremade uniform on the Yamato model. It seems at least possible, ifBuddhism had not come in so soon, that the ordinary features of areligion, dogmatic and ethical codes, would have been developed. In aword, the Kami no Michi, or religion of the islanders in prehistorictimes before the rise of Mikadoism, must be carefully distinguished fromthe politico-ecclesiasticism which the system called Shint[=o] revealsand demands. The early religion, first in the hands of politicians andlater under the pens and voices of writers and teachers at the ImperialCourt, became something very different from its original form. As surelyas K[=o]b[=o] later captured Shint[=o], making material for Buddhism outof it and overlaying it in Riy[=o]bu, so the Yamato men made politicalcapital out of their own religion and that of the subject tribes. Thedivine sovereign of Japan and his political church did exactly what thestate churches of Europe, both pagan and Christian, have done before andsince the Christian era. 

Further, in studying the "Kojiki, " we must remember that the sacredwritings sprang out of the religion, and that the system was not anevolution from the book. Customs, ritual, faith and prayer existed longbefore they were written about or recorded in ink. Moreover, thephilosophy came later than the practice, the deeds before the myths, andthe joy and terror of the visible universe before the cosmogony ortheogony, while the book-preface was probably written last of all. 

The sun was first, and then came the wonder, admiration and worship ofmen. The personification and pedigree of the sun were late figments. Toconnect their ancestors with the sun-goddess and the heavenly gods, wasa still later enterprise of the "Mikado reverencers" of this earliertime. Both the god-way in its early forms and Shint[=o] in its laterdevelopment, were to them political as well as ecclesiastical institutesof dogma. Both the religion which they themselves brought and cultivatedand the aboriginal religion which the Yamato men found, were used asengines in the making of Mikadoism, which is the heart of Shint[=o]. 

Not until two centuries after the coming of Buddhism and of Asiaticcivilization did it occur to the Japanese to reduce to writing thefloating legends and various cycles of tradition which had grown upluxuriantly in different parts of "the empire, " or to express in theChinese character the prayers and thanksgivings which had been handeddown orally through many generations. These norito had already assumedelegant literary form, rich in poetic merit, long before Chinese writingwas known. They, far more than the less certain philosophy of the"Kojiki, " are of undoubted native origin. It is nearly certain that theprehistoric Japanese did not borrow the literary forms of the god-wayfrom China, as any one familiar with the short, evenly balanced andantithetical sentences of Chinese style can see at once. The norito areexpressions, in the rhythmical and rhetorical form of worship, of thearticles of faith set forth in the historic summary which we have given. We propose to illustrate the dogmas by quoting from the rituals in Mr. Satow's masterly translation. The following was addressed to thesun-goddess (Amatéras[)u] no Mikami, or theFrom-Heaven-Shining-Great-Deity) by the priest-envoy of the priestlyNakatomi family sent annually to the temples at Isé, the Mecca ofShint[=o]. The _sevran_ referred to in the ritual is the Mikado. Thisword and all the others printed in capitals are so rendered in order toexpress in English the force of "an untranslatable honorific syllable, supposed to be originally identical with a root meaning 'true, ' but nolonger possessing that signification. " Instead of the word "earth, " thatof "country" (Japan) is used as the correlative of Heaven. 

Ritual in Praise of the Sun-goddess. 

 He (the priest-envoy) says: Hear all of you, ministers of the gods and sanctifiers of offerings, the great ritual, the heavenly ritual, declared in the great presence of the From-Heaven-Shining-Great-DEITY, whose praises are fulfilled by setting up the stout pillars of the great HOUSE, and exalting the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven at the sources of the Isuzu River at Uji in Watarai. 

 He says: It is the sovran's great WORD. Hear all of you, ministers of the gods and sanctifiers of offerings, the fulfilling of praises on this seventeenth day of the sixth moon of this year, as the morning sun goes up in glory, of the Oho-Nakatomi, who--having abundantly piled up like a range of hills the TRIBUTE thread and sanctified LIQUOR and FOOD presented as of usage by the people of the deity's houses attributed to her in the three departments and in various countries and places, so that she deign to bless his [the Mikado's] LIFE as a long LIFE, and his AGE as a luxuriant AGE eternally and unchangingly as multitudinous piles of rock; may deign to bless the CHILDREN who are born to him, and deigning to cause to flourish the five kinds of grain which the men of a hundred functions and the peasants of the countries in the four quarters of the region under heaven long and peacefully cultivate and eat, and guarding and benefiting them to deign to bless them--is hidden by the great offering-wands. 

In the Imperial City the ritual services were very imposing. Those inexpectation of the harvest were held in the great hall of theJin-Gi-Kuan, or Council of the Gods of Heaven and Earth. The descriptionof the ceremonial is given by Mr. Satow. [11] In the prayers offered tothe sun-goddess for harvest, and in thanksgiving to her for bestowingdominion over land and sea upon her descendant the Mikado, occurs thefollowing passage:

 I declare in the great presence of the From-Heaven-Shining-Great-DEITY who sits in Isé. Because the sovran great GODDESS bestows on him the countries of the four quarters over which her glance extends, as far as the limit where heaven stands up like a wall, as far as the bounds where the country stands up distant, as far as the limit where the blue clouds spread flat, as far as the bounds where the white clouds lie away fallen--the blue sea plain as far as the limit whither come the prows of the ships without drying poles or paddles, the ships which continuously crowd on the great sea plain, and the road which men travel by land, as far as the limit whither come the horses' hoofs, with the baggage-cords tied tightly, treading the uneven rocks and tree-roots and standing up continuously in a long path without a break--making the narrow countries wide and the hilly countries plain, and as it were drawing together the distant countries by throwing many tons of ropes over them--he will pile up the first-fruits like a range of hills in the great presence of the sovran great GODDESS, and will peacefully enjoy the remainder. 

Phallic Symbols. 

To form one's impression of the Kami no Michi wholly from the poeticliturgies, the austere simplicity of the miyas or shrines, or theworship at the palace or capital, would be as misleading as to gatherour ideas of the status of popular education from knowing only of thescholars at court. Among the common people the real basis of the god-waywas ancestor-worship. From the very first this trait and habit of theJapanese can be discerned. Their tenacity in holding to it made theConfucian ethics more welcome when they came. Furthermore, thisreverence for the dead profoundly influenced and modified Buddhism, sothat today the altars of both religions exist in the same house, thedead ancestors becoming both kami and buddhas. 

Modern taste has removed from sight what were once the common people'ssymbols of the god-way, that is of ancestor worship. The extent of thephallus cult and its close and even vital connection with the god-way, and the general and innocent use of the now prohibited emblems, taxseverely the credulity of the Occidental reader. The processes of theancient mind can hardly be understood except by vigorous power of theimagination and by sympathy with the primeval man. To the criticalstudent, however, who has lived among the people and the temples devotedto this worship, who knows how innocent and how truly sincere and evenreverent and devout in the use of these symbols the worshippers are, thematter is measurably clear. He can understand the soil, root and flowereven while the most strange specimen is abhorrent to his taste, andwhile he is most active in destroying that mental climate in which suchworship, whether native or exotic, can exist and flourish. 

In none of the instances in which I have been eyewitness of the cult, ofthe person officiating or of the emblem, have I had any reason to doubtthe sincerity of the worshipper. I have never had reason to look uponthe implements or the system as anything else than the endeavor of manto solve the mystery of Being and Power. In making use of these emblems, the Japanese worshipper simply professes his faith in such solution ashas seemed to him attainable. 

That this cultus was quite general in pre-Buddhistic Japan, as in manyother ancient countries, is certain from the proofs of language, literature, external monuments and relics which are sufficientlynumerous. Its organic connection with the god-way may be clearly shown. 

To go farther back in point of time than the "Kojiki, " we find that evenbefore the development of art in very ancient Japan, the male gods wererepresented by a symbol which thus became an image of the deity himself. This token was usually made of stone, though often of wood, and in latertimes of terra-cotta, of cast and wrought iron and even of gold. [12]

Under the direct influence of such a cult, other objects appealed to theimagination or served the temporary purpose of the worshipper as_ex-voto_ to hang up in the shrines, such as the mushroom, awabi, various other shells and possibly the fire-drill. It is only in thedecay of the cultus, in the change of view and centre of thoughtcompelled by another religion, that representations of the old emblemsally themselves with sensualism or immorality. It is that naturaldegradation of one man's god into another man's devil, which conversionmust almost of necessity bring, that makes the once revered symbol"obscene, " and talk about it become, in a descending scale, dirty, foul, filthy, nasty. That the Japanese suffer from the moral effluvia of adecayed cult which was once as the very vertebral column of the nationalbody of religion, is evident to every one who acquaints himself withtheir popular speech and literature. 

How closely and directly phallicism is connected with the god-way, andwhy there were so many Shint[=o] temples devoted to this latter cult andfurnished with symbols, is shown by study of the "Kojiki. " The twoopening sections of this book treat of kami that were in the minds evenof the makers of the myths little more than mud and water[13]--the merebioplasm of deity. The seven divine generations are "born, " but donothing except that they give Izanagi and Izanami a jewelled spear. Withthis pair come differentiation of sex. It is immediately on theapparition of the consciousness of sex that motion, action and creationbegin, and the progress of things visible ensues. The details cannot beput into English, but it is enough, besides noting the conversation andunion of the pair, to say that the term meaning giving birth to, refersto inanimate as well as animate things. It is used in reference to theislands which compose the archipelago as well as to the various kamiwhich seem, in many cases, to be nothing more than the names of thingsor places. 

Fire-myths and Ritual. 

Fire is, in a sense, the foundation and first necessity of civilization, and it is interesting to study the myths as to the origin of fire, andpossibly even more interesting to compare the Greek and Japanesestories. As we know, old-time popular etymology makes Prometheus thefore-thinker and brother of Epimetheus the after-thinker. He is thestealer of the fire from heaven, in order to make men share the secretof the gods. Comparative philology tells us, however, that the Sanskrit_Pramantha_ is a stick that produces fire. The "Kojiki" does indeedcontain what is probably the later form of the fire-myth about twobrothers, Prince Fire-Shine and Fire-Fade, which suggests both the laterGreek myth of the fore- and after-thinker and a tradition of a flood. The first, and most probably older, myth in giving the origin of firedoes it in true Japanese style, with details of parturition. Afternumerous other deities had been born of Izanagi and Izanami, it is said"that they gave birth to the Fire-Burning-Swift-Male-Deity, another namefor whom is the Deity-Fire-Shining-Prince, and another name is theDeity-Fire-Shining-Elder. " In the other ancient literature this fire-godis called Ho-musubi, the Fire-Producer. 

Izanami yielded up her life upon the birth of her son, the fire-god; or, as the sacred text declares, she "divinely retired"[14] into Hades. Fromher corpse sprang up the pairs of gods of clay, of metal, and other kamithat possessed the potency of calming or subduing fire, for clay resistsand water extinguishes. Between the mythical and the liturgical forms ofthe original narrative there is considerable variation. 

The Norito entitled the "Quieting of Fire" gives the ritual form of themyth. It contains, like so many Norito, less the form of prayer to theFire-Producer than a promise of offerings. Not so much by petitions asby the inducements of gifts did the ancient worshippers hope to save thepalace of the Mikado from the fire-god's wrath. We omit from the textthose details which are offensive to modern and western taste. 

 I declare with the great ritual, the heavenly ritual, which was bestowed on him at the time when, by the WORD of the Sovran's dear progenitor and progenitrix, who divinely remain in the plain of high heaven, they bestowed on him the region under heaven, saying:

 "Let the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness tranquilly rule over the country of fresh spikes which flourishes in the midst of the reed-moor as a peaceful region. "

 When . .. Izanami . .. Had deigned to bear the many hundred myriads of gods, she also deigned to bear her dear youngest child of all, the Fire-producer god, . .. And said:

 "My dear elder brother's augustness shall rule the upper country; I will rule the lower country, " she deigned to hide in the rocks; and having come to the flat hills of darkness, she thought and said: "I have come hither, having borne and left a bad-hearted child in the upper country, ruled over by my illustrious elder brother's augustness, " and going back she bore other children. Having borne the water-goddess, the gourd, the river-weed, and the clay-hill maiden, four sorts of things, she taught them with words, and made them to know, saying: "If the heart of this bad-hearted child becomes violent, let the water-goddess take the gourd, and the clay-hill maiden take the river-weed, and pacify him. "

 In consequence of this I fulfil his praises, and say that for the things set up, so that he may deign not to be awfully quick of heart in the great place of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness, there are provided bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth, and the five kinds of things; as to things which dwell in the blue-sea plain, there are things wide of fin and narrow of fin, down to the weeds of the shore; as to LIQUOR, raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging in rows the bellies of the beer-jars, piling the offerings up, even to rice in grain and rice in ear, like a range of hills, I fulfil his praises with the great ritual, the heavenly ritual. 

Izanagi, after shedding tears over his consort, whose death was causedby the birth of the fire-god, slays the fire-god, and follows her intothe Root-land, or Hades, whereupon begins another round of wonderfulstories of the birth of many gods. Among these, though evidently out ofanother cycle of legends, is the story of the birth of the threegods--Fire-Shine, Fire-Climax and Fire-Fade, to which we have alreadyreferred. 

The fire-drill mentioned in the "Kojiki" suggests easily the same lineof thought with the myths of cosmogony and theogony, and it isinteresting to note that this archaic implement is still used at thesacred temples of Isé to produce fire. After the virgin priestessesperform the sacred dances in honor of local deities the water for theirbath is heated by fires kindled by heaps of old _harai_ or amulets madefrom temple-wood bought at the Mecca of Japan. It is even probable thatthe retention of the fire-drill in the service of Shint[=o] is but asurvival of phallicism. 

The liturgy for the pacification of the gods of fire is worth noticing. The full form of the ritual, when compared with a legend in the"Nihongi, " shows that a myth was "partly devised to explain theconnection of an hereditary family of priests with the god whose shrinethey served; it is possible that the claim to be directly descended fromthe god had been disputed. " The Norito first recites poetically thedescent of Ninigi, the grandchild of the sun-goddess from heaven, andthe quieting of the turbulent kami. 

 I (the diviner), declare: When by the WORD of the progenitor and progenitrix, who divinely remaining in the plain of high heaven, deigned to make the beginning of things, they divinely deigned to assemble the many hundred myriads of gods in the high city of heaven, and deigned divinely to take counsel in council, saying: "When we cause our Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness to leave heaven's eternal seat, to cleave a path with might through heaven's manifold clouds, and to descend from heaven, with orders tranquilly to rule the country of fresh spikes, which flourishes in the midst of the reed-moor as a peaceful country, what god shall we send first to divinely sweep away, sweep away and subdue the gods who are turbulent in the country of fresh spikes;" all the gods pondered and declared: "You shall send Aménohohi's augustness, and subdue them, " declared they. Wherefore they sent him down from heaven, but he did not declare an answer; and having next sent Takémikuma's augustness, he also, obeying his father's words, did not declare an answer. Amé-no-waka-hiko also, whom they sent, did not declare an answer, but immediately perished by the calamity of a bird on high. Wherefore they pondered afresh by the WORD of the heavenly gods, and having deigned to send down from heaven the two pillars of gods, Futsunushi and Takémika-dzuchi's augustness, who having deigned divinely to sweep away, and sweep away, and deigned divinely to soften, and soften the gods who were turbulent, and silenced the rocks, trees, and the least leaf of herbs likewise that had spoken, they caused the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness to descend from heaven. 

 I fulfil your praises, saying: As to the OFFERINGS set up, so that the sovran gods who come into the heavenly HOUSE of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness, which, after he had fixed upon as a peaceful country--the country of great Yamato where the sun is high, as the centre of the countries of the four quarters bestowed upon him when he was thus sent down from heaven--stoutly planting the HOUSE-pillars on the bottom-most rocks, and exalting the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven, the builders had made for his SHADE from the heavens and SHADE from the sun, and wherein he will tranquilly rule the country as a peaceful country--may, without deigning to be turbulent, deigning to be fierce, and deigning to hurt, knowing, by virtue of their divinity, the things which were begun in the plain of high heaven, deigning to correct with Divine-correcting and Great-correcting, remove hence out to the clean places of the mountain-streams which look far away over the four quarters, and rule them as their own place. Let the Sovran gods tranquilly take with clear HEARTS, as peaceful OFFERINGS and sufficient OFFERINGS the great OFFERINGS which I set up, piling them upon the tables like a range of hills, providing bright cloth, glittering cloth, soft cloth, and coarse cloth; as a thing to see plain in--a mirror: as things to play with--beads: as things to shoot off with--a bow and arrows: as a thing to strike and cut with--a sword: as a thing which gallops out--a horse; as to LIQUOR--raising high the beer-jars, filling and ranging in rows the bellies of the beer-jars, with grains of rice and ears; as to the things which dwell in the hills--things soft of hair, and things rough of hair; as to the things which grow in the great field plain--sweet herbs and bitter herbs; as to the things which dwell in the blue sea plain--things broad of fin and things narrow of fin, down to weeds of the offing and weeds of the shore, and without deigning to be turbulent, deigning to be fierce, and deigning to hurt, remove out to the wide and clean places of the mountain-streams, and by virtue of their divinity be tranquil. 

In this ritual we find the origin of evil attributed to wicked kami, orgods. To get rid of them is to be free from the troubles of life. Theobject of the ritual worship was to compel the turbulent and malevolentkami to go out from human habitations to the mountain solitudes and restthere. The dogmas of both god-possession and of the power of exorcismwere not, however, held exclusively by the high functionaries of theofficial religion, but were part of the faith of all the people. To thisday both the tenets and the practices are popular under various forms. 

Besides the twenty-seven Norito which are found in the Yengishiki, published at the opening of the tenth century, there are many otherscomposed for single occasions. Examples of these are found in theGovernment Gazettes. One celebrates the Mikado's removal from Ki[=o]toto T[=o]ki[=o], another was written and recited to add greater solemnityto the oath which he took to govern according to modern liberalprinciples and to form a national parliament. To those Japanese whosefirst idea of duty is loyalty to the emperor, Shint[=o] thus becomes asystem of patriotism exalted to the rank of a religion. Even Christiannatives of Japan can use much of the phraseology of the Norito whileaddressing their petitions on behalf of their chief magistrate to theKing of kings. 

The primitive worship of the sun, of light, of fire, has left itsimpress upon the language and in vernacular art and customs. Amongscores of derivations of Japanese words (often more pleasing thanscientific), in which the general term _hi_ enters, is that which findsin the word for man, _hito_, the meaning of "light-bearer. " On the faceof the broad terminal tiles of the house-roofs, we still see moulded theriver-weed, with which the Clay-Hill Maiden pacified the Fire-God. Onthe frontlet of the warrior's helmet, in the old days of arrow andarmor, glittered in brass on either side of his crest the same symbol ofpower and victory. 

Having glanced at the ritual of Shint[=o], let us now examine theteachings of its oldest book. 

CHAPTER III - "THE KOJIKI" AND ITS TEACHINGS

 "Japan is not a land where men need pray, For 'tis itself divine: Yet do I lift my voice in prayer. .. "

 Hitomaro, + A. D. 737. 

 "Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught done, who could know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the three Deities performed the commencement of creation; the Passive and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the ancestors of all things. "--Preface of Yasumar[=o] (A. D. 712) to the "Kojiki. "

 "These, the 'Kojiki' and 'Nihongi' are their [the Shint[=o]ists] canonical books, . .. And almost their every word is considered undeniable truth. "

 "The Shint[=o] faith teaches that God inspired the foundation of the Mikadoate, and that it is therefore sacred. "--Kaburagi. 

 "We now reverently make our prayer to Them [Our Imperial Ancestors] and to our Illustrious Father [Komei, + 1867], and implore the help of Their Sacred Spirits, and make to Them solemn oath never at this time nor in the future to fail to be an example to Our subjects in the observance of the Law [Constitution] hereby established. "--Imperial oath of the Emperor Mutsuhito in the sanctuary in the Imperial Palace, T[=o]ki[=o], February 11, 1889. 

 "Shint[=o] is not our national religion. A faith existed before it, which was its source. It grew out of superstitious teaching and mistaken tradition. The history of the rise of Shint[=o] proves this. "--T. Matsugami. 

 "Makoto wo moté KAMI NO MICHI wo oshiyuréba nari. " (Thou teachest the way of God in truth. )--Mark xii. 14. 

 "Ware wa Micni nuri, Mukoto nari, Inochi nari. "--John xiv. 6. --The New Testament in Japanese. 

CHAPTER III - "THE KOJIKI" AND ITS TEACHINGS

"The Kojiki" mid its Myths of Cosmogony. 

As to the origin of the "Kojiki, " we have in the closing sentences ofthe author's preface the sole documentary authority explaining its scopeand certifying to its authenticity. Briefly the statement is this: The"Heavenly Sovereign" or Mikado, Temmu (A. D. 673-686), lamenting that therecords possessed by the chief families were "mostly amplified by emptyfalsehoods, " and fearing that "the grand foundation of the monarchy"would be destroyed, resolved to preserve the truth. He therefore had therecords carefully examined, compared, and their errors eliminated. Therehappened to be in his household a man of marvellous memory, named HiyédaAré, who could repeat, without mistake, the contents of any document hehad ever seen, and never forgot anything which he had heard. This personwas duly instructed in the genuine traditions and old language of formerages, and made to repeat them until he had the whole by heart. "Beforethe undertaking was completed, " which probably means before it could becommitted to writing, "the emperor died, and for twenty-five years Aré'smemory was the sole depository of what afterwards received the title of'Kojiki. ' . .. At the end of this interval the Empress Gemmi[=o] orderedYasumar[=o] to write it down from the mouth of Aré, which accounts forthe completion of the manuscript in so short a time as four months and ahalf, "[1] in A. D. 712. 

It is from the "Kojiki" that we obtain most of our ideas of ancient lifeand thought. The "Nihongi, " or Chronicles of Japan, expressed verylargely in Chinese phrases and with Chinese technical and philosophicalterms, further assists us to get a measurably correct idea of what iscalled The Divine Age. Of the two books, however, the "Kojiki" is muchmore valuable as a true record, because, though rude in style andexceedingly naïve in expression, and by no means free from Chinesethoughts and phrases, it is marked by a genuinely Japanese cast ofthought and method of composition. Instead of the terse, carefullymeasured, balanced, and antithetical sentences of correct Chinese, thoseof the "Kojiki" are long and involved, and without much logicalconnection. The "Kojiki" contains the real notions, feelings, andbeliefs of Japanese who lived before the eighth century. 

Remembering that prefaces are, like porticos, usually added last of all, we find that in the beginning all things were in chaos. Heaven and earthwere not separated. The world substance floated in the cosmic mass, likeoil on water or a fish in the sea. Motion in some way began. Theethereal portions sublimed and formed the heavens; the heavier residuumbecame the present earth. In the plain of high heaven, when the heavenand earth began, were born three kami who "hid their bodies, " that is, passed away or died. Out of the warm mould of the earth a germ sprouted, and from this were born two kami, who also were born alone, and died. After these heavenly kami came forth what are called the seven divinegenerations, or line of seven kami. [2]

To express the opening lines of the "Kojiki" in terms of our own speechand in the moulds of Western thought, we may say that matter existedbefore mind and the gods came forth, as it were, by spontaneousevolution. The first thing that appeared out of the warm earth-muck waslike a rush-sprout, and this became a kami, or god. From this being cameforth others, which also produced beings, until there were perfectbodies, sex and differentiation of powers. The "Nihongi, " however, notonly gives a different view of this evolution basing it upon the dualismof Chinese philosophy--that is, of the active and passiveprinciples--and uses Chinese technical terminology, but gives lists ofkami that differ notably from those in the "Kojiki. " This latter factseems to have escaped the attention of those who write freely about whatthey imagine to be the early religion of the Japanese. [3]

After this introduction, in which "Dualities, Trinities, and SupremeDeities" have been discovered by writers unfamiliar with the genius ofthe Japanese language, there follows an account of the creation of thehabitable earth by Izanami and Izanagi, whose names mean theMale-Who-Invites and the Female-Who-Invites. The heavenly kami commandedthese two gods to consolidate and give birth to the drifting land. Standing on the floating bridge of heaven, the male plunged hisjewel-spear into the unstable waters beneath, stirring them until theygurgled and congealed. When he drew forth the spear, the drops tricklingfrom its point formed an island, ever afterward called Onokoro-jima, orthe Island of the Congealed Drop. Upon this island they descended. Thecreative pair, or divine man and woman, now separated to make a journeyround the island, the male to the left, the female to the right. Attheir meeting the female spoke first: "How joyful to meet a lovely man!"The male, offended that the woman had spoken first, required the circuitto be repeated. On their second meeting, the man cried out: "How joyfulto meet a lovely woman!" This island on which they had descended was thefirst of several which they brought into being. In poetry it is theIsland of the Congealed Drop. In common geography it is identified asAwaji, at the entrance of the Inland Sea. Thence followed the creationof the other visible objects in nature. 

Izanagi's Visit to Hades and Results. 

After the birth of the god of fire, which nearly destroyed the mother'slife, Izanami fled to the land of roots or of darkness, that is intoHades. Izanagi, like a true Orpheus, followed his Eurydice and beseechedher to come back to earth to complete with him the work of creation. Sheparleyed so long with the gods of the underworld that her consort, breaking off a tooth of his comb, lighted it as a torch and rushed in. He found her putrefied body, out of which had been born the eight godsof thunder. Horrified at the awful foulness which he found in theunderworld, he rushed up and out, pursued by the Ugly-Female-of-Hades. By artifices that bear a wonderful resemblance to those in Teutonicfairy tales, he blocked up the way. His head-dress, thrown at hispursuer, turned into grapes which she stopped to eat. The teeth of hiscomb sprouted into a bamboo forest, which detained her. The threepeaches were used as projectiles; his staff which stuck up in the groundbecame a gate, and a mighty rock was used to block up the narrow passthrough the mountains. Each of these objects has its relation toplace-names in Idzumo or to superstitions that are still extant. Thepeaches and the rocks became gods, and on this incident, by which thebeings in Hades were prevented from advance and successful mischief onearth, is founded one of the norito which Mr. Satow gives in condensedform. The names of the three gods, [4] Youth and Maiden of the ManyRoad-forkings, and Come-no-further Gate, are expressed and invoked inthe praises bestowed on them in connection with the offerings. 

 He (the priest) says: I declare in the presence of the sovran gods, who like innumerable piles of rocks sit closing up the way in the multitudinous road-forkings. .. . I fulfil your praises by declaring your NAMES, Youth and Maiden of the Many Road-forkings and Come-no-further Gate, and say: for the OFFERINGS set up that you may prevent [the servants of the monarch] from being poisoned by and agreeing with the things which shall come roughly-acting and hating from the Root-country, the Bottom-country, that you may guard the bottom (of the gate) when they come from the bottom, guard the top when they come from the top, guarding with nightly guard and with daily guard, and may praise them--peacefully take the great OFFERINGS which are set up by piling them up like a range of hills, that is to say, providing bright cloth, etc. , . .. And sitting closing-up the way like innumerable piles of rock in the multitudinous road-forkings, deign to praise the sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness eternally and unchangingly, and to bless his age as a luxuriant AGE. 

Retreating to another part of the world--that is, into southwesternJapan--Izanami purified himself by bathing in a stream. While washinghimself, [5] many kami were borne from the rinsings of his person, one ofthem, from the left eye (the left in Japanese is always the honorableside), being the far-shining or heaven-illuminating kami, whose name, Amatéras[)u], or Heaven-shiner, is usually translated "The Sun-goddess. "This personage is the centre of the system of Shint[=o]. The creation ofgods by a process of cleansing has had a powerful effect on theJapanese, who usually associate cleanliness of the body (less moral, than physical) with godliness. 

It is not necessary to detail further the various stories which make upthe Japanese mythology. Some of these are lovely and beautiful, butothers are horrible and disgusting, while the dominant note throughoutis abundant filthiness. 

Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has done the world such goodservice in translating into English the whole of the Kojiki, andfurnishing it with learned commentary and notes, has well said:

 "The shocking obscenity of word and act to which the 'Records' bear witness is another ugly feature which must not quite be passed over in silence. It is true that decency, as we understand it, is a very modern product, and it is not to be looked for in any society in the barbarous stage. At the same time, the whole range of literature might perhaps be ransacked for a parallel to the naïve filthiness of the passage forming Sec. IV. Of the following translation, or to the extraordinary topic which the hero Yamato-Také and his mistress Miyadz[)u] are made to select as the theme of poetical repartee. One passage likewise would lead us to suppose that the most beastly crimes were commonly committed. "[6]

Indeed, it happens in several instances that the thread by which themarvellous patchwork of unrelated and varying local myths is joinedtogether, is an indecent love story. 

A thousand years after the traditions of the Kojiki had been committedto writing, and orthodox Shint[=o] commentators had learned science fromthe Dutch at Nagasaki, the stirring of the world mud by Izanagi'sspear[7] was gravely asserted to be the cause of the diurnal revolutionof the earth upon its axis, the point of the axis being still the jewelspear. [8] Onogoro-jima, or the Island of the Congealed Drop, wasformerly at the north pole, [9] but subsequently removed to its presentposition. How this happened is not told. 

Life in Japan During the Divine Age. 

Now that the Kojiki is in English and all may read it, we can clearlysee who and what were the Japanese in the ages before letters andChinese civilization; for these stories of the kami are but legendaryand mythical accounts of men and women. One could scarcely recognize inthe islanders of eleven or twelve hundred years ago, the polished, brilliant, and interesting people of to-day. Yet truth compels us to saythat social morals in Dai Nippon, even with telegraphs and railways, arestill more like those of ancient days than readers of rhapsodies bysummer tourists might suppose. These early Japanese, indeed, werepossibly in a stage of civilization somewhat above that of the mostadvanced of the American Indians when first met by Europeans, for theyhad a rude system of agriculture and knew the art of fashioning ironinto tools and weapons. Still, they were very barbarous, certainly asmuch so as our Germanic "forbears. " They lived in huts. They werewithout writing or commerce, and were able to count only to ten. [10]Their cruelty was as revolting as that of the savage tribes of America. The family was in its most rudimentary stage, with little or norestraint upon the passions of men. Children of the same father, but notof the same mother, could intermarry. The instances of men marryingtheir sisters or aunts were very common. There was no art, unless themaking of clay images, to take the place of the living human victimsburied up to their necks in earth and left to starve on the death oftheir masters, [11] may be designated as such. 

The Magatama, or curved jewels, being made of ground and polished stonemay be called jewelry; but since some of these prehistoric ornaments dugup from the ground are found to be of jade, a mineral which does notoccur in Japan, it is evident that some of these tokens of culture camefrom the continent. Many other things produced by more or less skilledmechanics, the origin of which is poetically recounted in the story ofthe dancing of Uzumé before the cave in which the Sun-goddess had hidherself, [12] were of continental origin. Evidently these men of thegod-way had passed the "stone age, " and, probably without going throughthe intermediate bronze age, were artificers of iron and skilled in itsuse. Most of the names of metals and of many other substances, and theterms used in the arts and sciences, betray by their tell-tale etymologytheir Chinese origin. Indeed, it is evident that some of the leadingkami were born in Korea or Tartary. 

Then as now the people in Japan loved nature, and were quickly sensitiveto her beauty and profoundly in sympathy with her varied phenomena. Inthe mediæval ages, Japanese Wordsworths are not unknown. [13] Sincerelythey loved nature, and in some respects they seemed to understand thecharacter of their country far better than the alien does or can. Thougha land of wonderful beauty, the Country of Peaceful Shores is enfoldedin powers of awful destructiveness. With the earthquake and volcano, thetyphoon and the tidal wave, beauty and horror alternate with a swiftnessthat is amazing. 

Probably in no portion of the earth are the people and the land morelike each other or apparently better acquainted with each other. Nowhereare thought and speech more reflective of the features of the landscape. Even after ten centuries, the Japanese are, in temperament, what theKojiki reveals them to have been in their early simplicity. Indeed, justas the modern Frenchman, down beneath his outward environments and hishabiliments cut and fitted yesterday, is intrinsically the same Gaulwhom Julius Cæsar described eighteen hundred years ago, so the gentlemanof T[=o]ki[=o] or Ki[=o]to is, in his mental make-up, wonderfully likehis ancestors described by the first Japanese Stanley, who shed thelight of letters upon the night of unlettered Japan and darkest DaiNippon. 

The Kojiki reveals to us, likewise, the childlike religious ideas of theislanders. Heaven lay, not about but above them in their infancy, yetnot far away. Although in the "Notices, " it is "the high plain ofheaven, " yet it is just over their heads, and once a single pillarjoined it and the earth. Later, the idea was, that it was held up by thepillar-gods of the wind, and to them norito were recited. "The greatplain of the blue sea" and "the land of luxuriant reeds" form "theworld"--which means Japan. The gods are only men of prowess or renown. Akami is anything wonderful--god or man, rock or stream, bird or snake, whatever is surprising, sensational, or phenomenal, as in the littlechild's world of to-day. There is no sharp line dividing gods from men, the natural from the supernatural, even as with the normal uneducatedJapanese of to-day. As for the kami or gods, they have all sorts ofcharacters; some of them being rude and ill-mannered, many of thembeastly and filthy, while others are noble and benevolent. Theattributes of moral purity, wisdom and holiness, cannot be, and in theoriginal writings are not, ascribed to them; but they were strong andhad power. In so far as they had power they were called kami or gods, whether celestial or terrestrial. Among the kami--the one term underwhich they are all included--there were heavenly bodies, mountains, rivers, trees, rocks and animals, because those also were supposed topossess force, or at least some kind of influence for good or evil. Evenpeaches, as we have seen, when transformed into rocks, became gods. [14]

That there was worship with awe, reverence, and fear, and that thefestivals and sacrifices had two purposes, one of propitiating theoffended Kami and the other of purifying the worshipper, may be seen inthe norito or liturgies, some of which are exceedingly beautiful. [15] Inthem the feelings of the gods are often referred to. Sometimes theircharacters are described. Yet one looks in vain in either the "Notices, "poems, or liturgies for anything definite in regard to these deities, orconcerning morals or doctrines to be held as dogmas. The first gods comeinto existence after evolution of the matter of which they are composedhas taken place. The later gods are sometimes able to tell who are theirprogenitors, sometimes not. They live and fight, eat and drink, and givevent to their appetites and passions, and then they die; but exactlywhat becomes of them after they die, the record does not state. Some arein heaven, some on the earth, some in Hades. The underworld of the firstcycle of tradition is by no means that of the second. [16] Some of thekami are in the water, or on the water, or in the air. As for man, thereis no clear statement as to whether he is to have any future life orwhat is to become of him, though the custom or jun-shi, or dying withthe master, points to a sort of immortality such as the early Greeks andthe Iroquois believed in. 

It would task the keenest and ablest Shint[=o]ist to deduce or constructa system of theology, or of ethics, or of anthropology from the mass oftradition so full of gaps and discord as that found in the Kojiki, andnone has done it. Nor do the inaccurate, distorted, and often almostwholly factitious translations, so-called, of French and other writers, who make versions which hit the taste of their occidental readers farbetter than they express the truth, yield the desired information. Likethe end strands of a new spider's web, the lines of information on mostvital points are still "in the air. "

The Ethics of the God-way. 

There are no codes of morals inculcated in the god-way, for even itsmodern revivalists and exponents consider that morals are the inventionof wicked people like the Chinese; while the ancient Japanese were purein thought and act. They revered the gods and obeyed the Mikado, andthat was the chief end of man, in those ancient times when Japan was theworld and Heaven was just above the earth. Not exactly on Paul'sprinciple of "where there is no law there is no transgression, " bututterly scouting the idea that formulated ethics were necessary forthese pure-minded people, the modern revivalists of Shint[=o] teach thatall that is "of faith" now is to revere the gods, keep the heart pure, and follow its dictates. [17] The naïveté of the representatives ofShint[=o] at Chicago in A. D. 1893, was almost as great as that of therevivalists who wrote when Japan was a hermit nation. 

The very fact that there was no moral commandments, not even of loyaltyor obedience such as Confucianism afterward promulgated and formulated, is proof to the modern Shint[=o]ist that the primeval Japanese were pureand holy; they did right, naturally, and hence he does not hesitate tocall Japan, the Land of the Gods, the Country of the Holy Spirits, theRegion Between Heaven and Earth, the Island of the Congealed Drop, theSun's Nest, the Princess Country, the Land of Great Peace, the Land ofGreat Gentleness, the Mikado's Empire, the Country ruled by a TheocraticDynasty. He considers that only with the vice brought over from theContinent of Asia were ethics both imported and made necessary. [18]

All this has been solemnly taught by famous Shint[=o] scholars of theeighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is still practicallypromulgated in the polemic Shint[=o] literature of to-day, even afterthe Kojiki has been studied and translated into European languages. TheKojiki shows that whatever the men may have been or done, the gods wereabominably obscene, and both in word and deed were foul and revolting, utterly opposed in act to those reserves of modesty or standards ofshame that exist even among the cultivated Japanese to-day. [19] Evenamong the Ainos, whom the Japanese look upon as savages, there is stillmuch of the obscenity of speech which belongs to all society[20] in astate of barbarism; but it has been proved that genuine modesty is acharacteristic of the Aino women. [21] A literal English translation ofthe Kojiki, however, requires an abundant use of Latin in order toprotect it from the grasp of the law in English-speaking Christendom. InChamberlain's version, the numerous cesspools are thus filled up with adead language, and the road is constructed for the reader, who likes thelanguage of Edmund Spencer, of William Tyndale and of John Ruskin keptunsoiled. 

The cruelty which marks this early stage shows that though moral codesdid not exist, the Buddhist and Confucian missionary were for Japannecessities of the first order. Comparing the result to-day with thestate of things in the early times, one must award high praise toBuddhism that it has made the Japanese gentle, and to Confucianism thatit has taught the proprieties of life, so that the polished Japanesegentleman, as to courtesy, is in many respects the peer and at someexternal points the superior, of his European confrère. 

Another fact, made repulsively clear, about life in ancient Japan, isthat the high ideals of truth and honor, characteristic at least of theSamurai of modern times, were utterly unknown in the days of the kami. Treachery was common. Instances multiply on the pages of the Kojikiwhere friend betrayed friend. The most sacred relations of life wereviolated. Altogether these were the darkest ages of Japan, though, asamong the red men of America, there were not wanting many noble examplesof stoical endurance, of courage, and of power nobly exerted for thebenefit of others. 

The Rise of Mikadoism. 

Nevertheless we must not forget that the men of the early age of theKami no Michi conquered the aborigines by superior dogmas and fetiches, as well as by superior weapons. The entrance of these heroes, invadersfrom the highlands of the Asian continent, by way of Korea, wasrelatively a very influential factor of progress, though not soimportant as was the Aryan descent upon India, or the Norman invasion ofEngland, for the aboriginal tribes were vastly lower in the scale ofhumanity than their subduers. Where they found savagery they introducedbarbarism, which, though unlettered and based on the sword, was a vastimprovement over what may be called the geological state of man, inwhich he is but slightly raised above the brutes. 

For the proofs from the shell heaps, combined with the reflectedevidences of folk-lore, show, that cannibalism[22] was common in theearly ages, and that among the aboriginal hill tribes it lingered afterthe inhabitants of the plain and shore had been subdued. The conquerors, who made themselves paramount over the other tribes and who developedthe Kami religion, abolished this relic of savagery, and gave orderwhere there had been chronic war. Another thing that impresses usbecause of its abundant illustrations, is the prevalence of humansacrifices. The very ancient folk-lore shows that beautiful maidens weredemanded by the "sea-gods" in propitiation, or were devoured by the"dragons. " These human victims were either chosen or voluntarilyoffered, and in some instances were rescued from their fate bychivalrous heroes[23] from among the invaders. 

These gods of the sea, who anciently were propitiated by the sacrificeof human beings, are the same to whom Japanese sailors still pray, despite their Buddhism. The title of the efficient victims was_hitoga-shira_, or human pillars. Instances of this ceremony, where menwere lowered into the water and drowned in order to make the surefoundation for bridges, piers or sea-walls, or where they were buriedalive in the earth in order to lay the right bases for walls or castles, are quite numerous, and most of the local histories contain specifictraditions. [24] These traditions, now transfigured, still survive incustoms that are as beautiful as they are harmless. To reformers ofpre-Buddhistic days, belongs the credit of the abolition of jun-shi, ordying with the master by burial alive, as well as of the sacrifice todragons and sea-gods. 

Strange as it may seem, before Buddhism captured and made use ofShint[=o] for its own purposes (just as it stands ready to-day to absorbChristianity by making Jesus one of the Palestinian avatars of theBuddha), the house or tribe of Yamato, with its claim to descent fromthe heavenly gods, and with its Mikado or god-ruler, had given to theBuddhists a precedent and potent example. Shint[=o], as a state religionor union of politics and piety, with its system of shrines andfestivals, and in short the whole Kami no Michi, or Shint[=o] as we knowit, from the sixth to the eighth century, was in itself (in part atleast), a case of the absorption of one religion by another. 

In short, the Mikado tribe or Yamato clan did, in reality, capture theaboriginal religion, and turn it into a great political machine. Theyattempted syncretism and succeeded in their scheme. They added to theirown stock of dogma and fetich that of the natives. Only, whilerecognizing the (earth) gods of the aborigines they proclaimed thesuperiority of the Mikado as representative and vicegerent of Heaven, and demanded that even the gods of the earth, mountain, river, wind, andthunder and lightning should obey him. Not content, however, withabsorbing and corrupting for political purposes the primitive faith ofthe aborigines, the invaders corrupted their own religion by carryingthe dogma of the divinity and infallibility of the Mikado too far. Stopping short of no absurdity, they declared their chief greater eventhan the heavenly gods, and made their religion centre in him ratherthan in his alleged heavenly ancestors, or "heaven. " In the interest ofpolitics and conquest, and for the sake of maintaining the prestige oftheir tribe and clan, these "Mikado-reverencers" of early ages advancedfrom dogma to dogma, until their leader was virtually chief god in agreat pantheon. 

A critical native Japanese, student of the Kojiki and of the earlywritings, Professor Kumi, formerly of the Imperial University inT[=o]ki[=o], has brought to light abundant evidence to show that theaboriginal religion found by the Yamato conquerors was markedlydifferent at many vital points, from that which was long afterwardcalled Shint[=o]. 

If the view of recent students of anthropology be correct, that theelements dominating the population in ancient Japan were in the south, Malay; in the north, Aino; and in the central region, or that occupiedby the Yamato men, Korean; then, these continental invaders may havebeen worshippers of Heaven and have possessed a religion closely akin tothat of ancient China with its monotheism. It is very probable also thatthey came into contact with tribes or colonies of theirfellow-continentals from Asia. These tribes, hunters, fishermen, or rudeagriculturists--who had previously reached Japan--practised many ritesand ceremonies which were much like those of the new invaders. It iscertain also, as we have seen, that the Yamato men made ultimateconquest and unification of all the islanders, not merely by thesuperiority of their valor and of their weapons of iron, but also bytheir dogmas. After success in battle, and the first beginnings of rudegovernment, they taught their conquered subjects or over-awed vassals, that they were the descendants of the heavenly gods; that theirancestors had come down from heaven; find that their chief or Mikado wasa god. According to the same dogmatics, the aborigines were descendantsof the earth-born gods, and as such must obey the descendants of theheavenly gods, and their vicegerent upon the earth, the Mikado. 

Purification of Offences. 

These heaven-descended Yamato people were in the main agriculturists, though of a rude order, while the outlying tribes were mostly huntersand fishermen; and many of the rituals show the class of crimes whichnomads, or men of unsettled life, would naturally commit against theirneighbors living in comparatively settled order. It is to be noted thatin the god-way the origin of evil is to be ascribed to evil gods. Thesekami pollute, and pollution is iniquity. From this iniquity the peopleare to be purged by the gods of purification, to whom offerings are dulymade. 

He who would understand the passion for cleanliness which characterizesthe Japanese must look for its source in their ancient religion. Theroot idea of the word _tsumi_, which Mr. Satow translated as "offence, "is that of pollution. On this basis, of things pure and things defiling, the ancient teachers of Shint[=o] made their classification of what wasgood and what was bad. From the impression of what was repulsive arosethe idea of guilt. 

In rituals translated by Mr. Satow, the list of offences is given andthe defilements are to be removed to the nether world, or, in commonfact, the polluted objects and the expiatory sacrifices are to be throwninto the rivers and thence carried to the sea, where they fall to thebottom of the earth. The following norito clearly shows this. Furthermore, as Mr. Satow, the translator, points out, this ritualcontains the germ of criminal law, a whole code of which might have beenevolved and formulated under Shint[=o], had not Buddhism arrested itsgrowth. 

 Amongst the various sorts of offences which may be committed in ignorance or out of negligence by heaven's increasing people, who shall come into being in the country, which the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness, hiding in the fresh RESIDENCE, built by stoutly planting the HOUSE-pillars on the bottom-most rocks, and exalting the cross-beams to the plain of high heaven, as his SHADE from the heavens and SHADE from the sun, shall tranquilly ruin as a peaceful country, namely, the country of great Yamato, where the sun is soon on high, which he fixed upon as a peaceful country, as the centre of the countries of the four quarters thus bestowed upon him--breaking the ridges, filling up water-courses, opening sluices, double-sowing, planting stakes, flaying alive, flaying backwards, and dunging; many of such offences are distinguished as heavenly offences, and as earthly offences; cutting living flesh, cutting dead flesh, leprosy, proud-flesh, . .. Calamities of crawling worms, calamities of a god on high, calamities of birds on high, the offences of killing beasts and using incantations; many of such offences may be disclosed. 

 When he has thus repeated it, the heavenly gods will push open heaven's eternal gates, and cleaving a path with might through the manifold clouds of heaven, will hear; and the country gods, ascending to the tops of the high mountains, and to the tops of the low hills, and tearing asunder the mists of the high mountains and the mists of the low hills, will hear. 

 And when they have thus heard, the Maiden-of-Descent-into-the-Current, who dwells in the current of the swift stream which boils down the ravines from the tops of the high mountains, and the tops of the low hills, shall carry out to the great sea plain the offences which are cleared away and purified, so that there be no remaining offence; like as Shinato's wind blows apart the manifold clouds of heaven, as the morning wind and the evening wind blow away the morning mist and the evening mist, as the great ships which lie on the shore of a great port loosen their prows, and loosen their sterns to push out into the great sea-plain; as the trunks of the forest trees, far and near, are cleared away by the sharp sickle, the sickle forged with fire: so that there ceased to be any offence called an offence in the court of the Sovran GRANDCHILD'S augustness to begin with, and in the countries of the four quarters of the region under heaven. 

 And when she thus carries them out and away, the deity called the Maiden-of-the-Swift-cleansing, who dwells in the multitudinous meetings of the sea waters, the multitudinous currents of rough sea-waters shall gulp them down. 

 And when she has thus gulped them down, the lord of the Breath-blowing-place, who dwells in the Breath-blowing-place, shall utterly blow them away with his breath to the Root-country, the Bottom-country. 

 And when he has thus blown them away, the deity called the Maiden-of-Swift-Banishment, who dwells in the Root-country, the Bottom-country, shall completely banish them, and get rid of them. 

 And when they have thus been got rid of, there shall from this day onwards be no offence which is called offence, with regard to the men of the offices who serve in the court of the Sovran, nor in the four quarters of the region under heaven. 

Then the high priest says:

 Hear all of you how he leads forth the horse, as a thing that erects its ears towards the plain of high heaven, and deigns to sweep away and purify with the general purification, as the evening sun goes down on the last day of the watery moon of this year. 

 O diviners of the four countries, take (the sacrifices) away out to the river highway, and sweep them away. 

Mikadoism Usurps the Primitive God-way. 

A further proof of the transformation of the primitive god-way in theinterest of practical politics, is shown by Professor Kumi in the factthat some of the festivals now directly connected with the Mikado'shouse, and even in his honor, were originally festivals with which hehad nothing to do, except as leader of the worship, for the honor waspaid to Heaven, and not to his ancestors. Professor Kumi maintains thatthe thanksgivings of the court were originally to Heaven itself, and notin honor of Amatéras[)u], the sun-goddess, as is now popularly believed. It is related in the Kojiki that Amatéras[)u] herself celebrated thefeast of Niinamé. So also, the temple of Isé, the Mecca of Shint[=o], and the Holy shrine in the imperial palace were originally temples forthe worship of Heaven. The inferior gods of earthly origin form no partof primitive Shint[=o]. 

Not one of the first Mikados was deified after death, the deification ofemperors dating from the corruption which Shint[=o] underwent after theintroduction of Buddhism. Only by degrees was the ruler of the countrygiven a place in the worship, and this connection was made byattributing to him descent from Heaven. In a word, the contention ofProfessor Kumi is, that the ancient religion of at least a portion ofthe Japanese and especially of those in central Japan, was a rude sortof monotheism, coupled, as in ancient China, with the worship ofsubordinate spirits. 

It is needless to say that such applications of the higher criticism tothe ancient sacred documents proved to be no safer for the applier thanif he had lived in the United States of America. The orthodoxShint[=o]ists were roused to wrath and charged the learned critic with"degrading Shint[=o] to a mere branch of Christianity. " The government, which, despite its Constitution and Diet, is in the eyes of the peoplereally based on the myths of the Kojiki, quickly put the professor onthe retired list. [25]

It is probably correct to say that the arguments adduced by ProfessorKumi, confirm our theory of the substitution in the simple god-way, ofMikadoism, the centre of the primitive worship being the sun and naturerather than Heaven. 

Between the ancient Chinese religion with its abstract idea of Heavenand its personal term for God, and the more poetic and childlike systemof the god-way, there seems to be as much difference as there isracially between the people of the Middle Kingdom and those of the LandWhere the Day Begins. Indeed, the entrance of Chinese philosophical andabstract ideas seemed to paralyze the Japanese imagination. Not only didmyth-making, on its purely æsthetic and non-utilitarian side ceasealmost at once, but such myths as were formed were for direct businesspurposes and with a transparent tendency. Henceforth, in the domain ofimagination the Japanese intellect busied itself with assimilating orre-working the abundant material imported by Buddhism. 

Ancient Customs and Usages. 

In the ancient god-way the temple or shrine was called a miya. After theadvent of Buddhism the keepers of the shrine were called kannushi, thatis, shrine keepers or wardens of the god. These men were usuallydescendants of the god in whose honor the temples were built. The godsbeing nothing more than human founders of families, reverence was paidto them as ancestors, and so the basis of Shint[=o] is ancestor worship. The model of the miya, in modern as in ancient times, is the primitivehut as it was before Buddhism introduced Indian and Chinesearchitecture. The posts, stuck in the ground, and not laid upon stonesas in after times, supported the walls and roof, the latter being ofthatch. The rafters, crossed at the top, were tied along the ridge-polewith the fibres of creepers or wistaria vines. No paint, lacquer, gilding, or ornaments of any sort existed in the ancient shrine, andeven to-day the modern Shint[=o] temple must be of pure hinoki orsun-wood, and thatched, while the use of metal is as far as possibleavoided. To the gods, as the norito show, offerings of various kindswere made, consisting of the fruits of the soil, the products of thesea, and the fabrics of the loom. 

Inside modern temples one often sees a mirror, in which foreigners withlively imaginations read a great deal that is only the shadow of theirown mind, but which probably was never known in Shint[=o] temples untilafter Buddhist times. They also see in front of the unpainted woodenclosets or casements, wands or sticks of wood from which depend massesor strips of white paper, cut and notched in a particular way. Foreigners, whose fancy is nimble, have read in these the symbols oflightning, the abode of the spirits and various forthshadowings unknowneither to the Japanese or the ancient writings. In reality these_gohei_, or honorable offerings, are nothing more than the paperrepresentatives of the ancient offerings of cloth which were woven, asthe arts progressed, of bark, of hemp and of silk. 

The chief Shint[=o] ministers of religion and shrine-keepers belonged toparticular families, which were often honored with titles and offices bythe emperor. In ordinary life they dressed like others of their own rankor station, but when engaged in their sacred office were robed in whiteor in a special official costume, wearing upon their heads the _éboshi_or peculiar cap which we associate with Japanese archæology. They knewnothing of celibacy; but married, reared families and kept their scalpsfree from the razor, though some of the lower order of shrine-keepersdressed their hair in ordinary style, that is, with shaven poll andtopknot. At some of the more important shrines, like those at Isé, therewere virgin priestesses who acted as custodians both of the shrines andof the relics. [26]

In front of the miyas stood what we should suppose on first seeing was agateway. This was the _torii_ or bird-perch, and anciently was made onlyof unpainted wood. Two upright tree-trunks held crosswise on a smoothtree-trunk the ends of which projected somewhat over the supports, whileunder this was a smaller beam inserted between the two uprights. On thetorii, the birds, generally barn-yard fowls which were sacred to thegods, roosted. These creatures were not offered up as sacrifices, butwere chanticleers to give notice of day-break and the rising of the sun. The cock holds a prominent place in Japanese myth, legend, art andsymbolism. How this feature of pure Japanese architecture, the torii, afterward lost its meaning, we shall show in our lecture on Riy[=o]bu ormixed Buddhism. 

Shint[=o]'s Emphasis on Cleanliness. 

One of the most remarkable features of Shint[=o] was the emphasis laidon cleanliness. Pollution was calamity, defilement was sin, and physicalpurity at least, was holiness. Everything that could in any way soil thebody or the clothing was looked upon with abhorrence and detestation. Disease, wounds and death were defiling, and the feeling of disgustprevailed over that of either sympathy or pity. Birth and death wereespecially polluting. Anciently there were huts built both for themother about to give birth to a child, or for the man who was dying orsure to die of disease or wounds. After the birth of the infant or thedeath of the patient these houses were burned. Cruel as this system wasto the woman at a time when she needed most care and comfort, and brutalas it seems in regard to the sick and dying, yet this ancient custom wascontinued in a few remote places in Japan as late as the year 1878. [27]In modern days with equal knowledge of danger and defilement, tendernessand compassion temper the feeling of disgust, and prevail over it. Horror of uncleanliness was so great that the priests bathed and put onclean garments before making the sacred offerings or chanting theliturgies, and were accustomed to bind a slip of paper over their mouthslest their breath should pollute the offering. Numerous were the specialfestivals, observed simply for purification. Salt also was commonly usedto sprinkle over the ground, and those who attended a funeral must freethemselves from contamination by the use of salt. [28] Purification bywater was habitual and in varied forms. The ancient emperors and priestsactually performed the ablution of the people or made public lustrationin their behalf. 

Afterwards, and probably because population increased and towns sprangup, we find it was customary at the festivals of purification to performpublic ablution, vicariously, as it were, by means of paper mannikinsinstead of making applications of water to the human cuticle. Twice ayear paper figures representing the people were thrown into the river, the typical meaning of which was that the nation was thereby cleansedfrom the sins, that is, the defilements, of the previous half-year. Still later, the Mikado made the chief minister of religion at Ki[=o]tohis deputy to perform the symbolical act for the people of the wholecountry. 

Prayers to Myriads of Gods. 

In prayer, the worshipper, approaching the temple but not entering it, pulls a rope usually made of white material and attached to apeculiar-shaped bell hung over the shrine, calling the attention of thedeity to his devotions. Having washed his hands and rinsed out hismouth, he places his hands reverently together and offers his petition. 

Concerning the method and words of prayer, Hirata, a famous exponent ofShint[=o], thus writes:

 As the number of the gods who possess different functions is so great, it will be convenient to worship by name only the most important and to include the rest in a general petition. Those whose daily affairs are so multitudinous that they have not time to go through the whole of the following morning prayers, may content themselves with adoring the residence of the emperor, the domestic kami-dana, the spirits of their ancestors, their local patron god and the deity of their particular calling in life. 

 In praying to the gods the blessings which each has it in his power to bestow are to be mentioned in a few words, and they are not to be annoyed with greedy petitions, for the Mikado in his palace offers up petitions daily on behalf of his people, which are far more effectual than those of his subjects. 

 Rising early in the morning, wash your face and hands, rinse out the mouth and cleanse the body. Then turn toward the province of Yamato, strike the palms of the hands together twice, and worship, bowing the head to the ground. The proper posture is that of kneeling on the heels, which is ordinarily assumed in saluting a superior. 

 PRAYER. 

 From a distance I reverently worship with awe before Amé no Mi-hashira (Heaven-pillar) and Kuni no Mi-hashira (Country-pillar), also called Shinatsu-hiko no kami and Shinatsu-himé no kami, to whom is consecrated the Palace built with stout pillars at Tatsuta no Tachinu in the department of Héguri in the province of Yamato. 

 I say with awe, deign to bless me by correcting the unwitting faults which, seen and heard by you, I have committed, by blowing off and clearing away the calamities which evil gods might inflict, by causing me to live long like the hard and lasting rock, and by repeating to the gods of heavenly origin and to the gods of earthly origin the petitions which I present every day, along with your breath, that they may hear with the sharp-earedness of the forth-galloping colt. 

To the common people the sun is actually a god, as none can doubt whosees them worshipping it morning and evening. The writer can neverforget one of many similar scenes in T[=o]ki[=o], when late oneafternoon after O Tent[=o] Sama (the sun-Lord of Heaven), which had beenhidden behind clouds for a fortnight, shone out on the muddy streets. Ina moment, as with the promptness of a military drill, scores of peoplerushed out of their houses and with faces westward, kneeling, squatting, began prayer and worship before the great luminary. Besides all thegods, supreme, subordinate and local, there is in nearly every house theKami-dana or god-shelf. This is usually over the door inside. Itcontains images with little paper-covered wooden tablets having thegod's name on them. Offerings are made by day and a little lamp islighted at night. The following is one of several prayers which areaddressed to this kami-dana. 

 Reverently adoring the great god of the two palaces of Isé, in the first place, the eight hundred myriads of celestial gods, the eight hundred myriads of terrestrial gods, all the fifteen hundred myriads of gods to whom are consecrated the great and small temples in all provinces, all islands and all places of the Great Land of Eight Islands, the fifteen hundreds of myriads of gods whom they cause to serve them, and the gods of branch palaces and branch temples, and Sohodo no kami, whom I have invited to the shrine set up on this divine shelf, and to whom I offer praises day by day, I pray with awe that they will deign to correct the unwitting faults, which, heard and seen by them, I have committed, and blessing and favoring me according to the powers which they severally wield, cause me to follow the divine example, and to perform good works in the Way. 

Shint[=o] Left in a State of Arrested Development. 

Thus from the emperor to the humblest believer, the god-way is foundedon ancestor worship, and has had grafted upon its ritual system natureworship, even to phallicism. [29] In one sense it is a self-made religionof the Japanese. Its leading characteristics are seen in the traits ofthe normal Japanese character of to-day. Its power for good and evil maybe traced in the education of the Japanese through many centuries. Knowing Shint[=o], we to a large degree know the Japanese, their virtuesand their failings. 

What Shint[=o] might have become in its full evolution had it been leftalone, we cannot tell. Whether in the growth of the nation and withoutthe pressure of Buddhism, Confucianism or other powerful influences fromoutside, the scattered and fragmentary mythology might have becomeorganized into a harmonious system, or codes of ethics have beenformulated, or the doctrines of a future life and the idea of a SupremeBeing with personal attributes have been conceived and perfected, arequestions the discussion of which may seem to be vain. History, however, gives no uncertain answer as to what actually did take place. We do butstate what is unchallenged fact, when we say, that after commitment towriting of the myths, poems and liturgies which may be called the basisof Shint[=o], there came a great flood of Chinese and Buddhisticliterature and a tremendous expansion of Buddhist missionary activity, which checked further literary growth of the kami system. These preparedthe way for the absorption of the indigenous into the foreign cultusunder the form called by an enthusiastic emperor, Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o], or the "two-fold divine doctrine. " Of this, we shall speak in anotherlecture. 

Suffice it here to say that by the scheme of syncretism propounded byK[=o]b[=o] in the ninth century, Shint[=o] was practically overlaid bythe new faith from India, and largely forgotten as a distinct religionby the Japanese people. As late as A. D. 927, there were three thousandone hundred and thirty-two enumerated metropolitan and provincialtemples, besides many more unenumerated village and hamlet shrines ofShint[=o]. These are referred to in the revised codes of ceremonial lawset forth by imperial authority early in the tenth century. Probably bythe twelfth century the pure rites of the god-way were celebrated, andthe unmixed traditions maintained, in families and temples, so few as tobe counted on the fingers. The ancient language in which the archaicforms had been preserved was so nearly lost and buried, that out of theooze of centuries of oblivion, it had to be rescued by the skilleddivers of the seventeenth century. Mabuchi, Motöri and the otherrevivalists of pure Shint[=o], like the plungers after orient pearls, persevered until they had first recovered much that had been supposedirretrievably lost. These scholars deciphered and interpreted theancient scriptures, poetry, prose, history, law and ritual, and oncemore set forth the ancient faith, as they believed, in its purity. 

Whether, however, men can exactly reproduce and think for themselves thethoughts of others who have been dead for a millennium, is an openquestion. The new system is apt to be transparent. Just as it is nearlyimpossible for us to restore the religious life, thoughts and orthodoxyof the men who lived before the flood, so in the writings of therevivalists of pure Shint[=o] we detect the thoughts of Dutchmen, ofChinese, and of very modern Japanese. Unconsciously, those who wouldbreathe into the dry bones of dead Shint[=o] the breath of thenineteenth century, find themselves compelled to use an oxygen andnitrogen generator made in Holland and mounted with Chinese apparatus;withal, lacquered and decorated with the art of to-day. To change frommetaphor to matter of fact, modern "pure Shint[=o]" is mainly a mass ofspeculation and philosophy, with a tendency of which the ancient god-wayknew nothing. 

The Modern Revivalists of Kami no Michi. 

Passing by further mention of the fifteen or more corrupt sects ofShint[=o]ists, we name with honor the native scholars of theseventeenth century, who followed the illustrious example of Iyéyas[)u], the political unifier of Japan. They ransacked the country and purchasedfrom temples, mansions and farmhouses, old manuscripts and books, andforming libraries began anew the study of ancient language and history. Kéichu (1640-1701), a Buddhist priest, explored and illumined the poemsof the Many[=o]shu. Kada Adzumar[=o], born in 1669 near Ki[=o]to, theson of a shrine-keeper at Inari, attempted the mastery of the wholearchaic native language and literature. He made a grand beginning. He isunquestionably the founder of the school of Pure Shint[=o]. He died in1736. His successor and pupil was Mabuchi (1697-1769), who claimeddirect descent from that god which in the form of a colossal crow hadguided the first chief of the Yamato tribe as he led his invadersthrough the country to found the line of Mikados. After Mabuchi cameMotoöri (1730-1801) a remarkable scholar and critic, who, with eruditionand acuteness, analyzed the ancient literature and showed what wereChinese or imported elements and what was of native origin. Hesummarized the principles of the ancient religion, reasserted andilluminated with amazing learning and voluminous commentary the archaicdocuments, expounded and defended the ancient cosmogony, and in theusual style of Japanese polemics preached anew the doctrines ofShint[=o]. With wonderful naïveté and enthusiasm, Motoöri taught thatJapan was the first part of the earth created, and that it is thereforeThe Land of the Gods, the Country of the Holy Spirits. The stars werecreated from the muck which fell from the spear of Izanagi as he thrustit into the warm earth, while the other countries were formed by thespontaneous consolidation of the foam of the sea. Morals were inventedby the Chinese because they were an immoral people, but in Japan thereis no necessity for any system of morals, as every Japanese acts arightif he only consults his own heart. The duty of a good Japanese consistsin obeying the Mikado, without questioning whether his commands areright or wrong. The Mikado is god and vicar of all the gods, hencegovernment and religion are the same, the Mikado being the centre ofChurch and State, which are one. Did the foreign nations know their dutythey would at once hasten to pay tribute to the Son of Heaven inKi[=o]to. 

It is needless here to dwell upon the tremendous power of Shint[=o] as apolitical system, especially when wedded with the forces, generated inthe minds of the educated Japanese by modern Confucianism. The Chineseethical system, expanded into a philosophy as fascinating as the Englishmaterialistic school of to-day, entered Japan contemporaneously with therevival of the Way of the Gods and of native learning. In full rampancyof their vigor, in the seventeenth century these two systems began thatgeneration of national energy, which in the eighteenth century wasconsolidated and which in the nineteenth century, though unknown andunsuspected by Europeans or Americans, was all ready for phenomenalmanifestation and tremendous eruption, even while Perry's fleet wasbearing the olive branch to Japan. As we all know, this consolidation offorces from the inside, on meeting, not with collision but with union, the exterior forces of western civilization, formed a resultant in theenergies which have made New Japan. 

The Great Purification of 1870. 

In 1870, with the Sh[=o]gun of Yedo deposed, the dual system abolished, feudalism in its last gasp and Shint[=o] in full political power, withthe ancient council of the gods (Jin Gi Kuan) once more established, andpurified Shint[=o] again the religion of state, thousands of Riy[=o]buShint[=o] temples were at once purged of all their Buddhist ornaments, furniture, ritual, and everything that might remind the Japanese offoreign elements. Then began, logically and actually, the persecution ofthose Christians, who through all the centuries of repression andprohibition had continued their existence, and kept their faith howevermixed and clouded. Theoretically, ancient belief was re-established, yetit was both physically and morally impossible to return wholly to thebaldness and austere simplicity of those early ages, in which art andliterature were unknown. For a while it seemed as though the miraclewould be performed, of turning back the dial of the ages and of plungingJapan into the fountain of her own youth. Propaganda was instituted, andthe attempts made to convert all the Japanese to Shint[=o] tenets andpractice were for a while more lively than edifying; but the scheme wason the whole a splendid failure, and bitter disappointment succeeded thefirst exultation of victory. Confronted by modern problems of societyand government, the Mikado's ministers found themselves unable, ifindeed willing, to entomb politics in religion, as in the ancient ages. For a little while, in 1868, the Jin Gi Kuan, or Council of the Gods ofHeaven and Earth, held equal authority with the Dai J[=o] Kuan, or GreatCouncil of the Government. Pretty soon the first step downward wastaken, and from a supreme council it was made one of the ten departmentsof the government. In less than a year followed another retrogrademovement and the department was called a board. Finally, in 1877, theboard became a bureau. Now, it is hard to tell what rank the Shint[=o]cultus occupies in the government, except as a system of guardianshipover the imperial tombs, a mode of official etiquette, and as one of theacknowledged religions of the country. 

Nevertheless, as an element in that amalgam of religions which forms thecreed of most Japanese, Shint[=o] is a living force, and shares withBuddhism the arena against advancing Christianity, still supplying muchof the spring and motive to patriotism. 

The Shint[=o] lecturers with unblushing plagiarism rifled thestorehouses of Chinese ethics. They enforced their lessons from theConfucian classics. Indeed, most of their homiletical and illustrativematerial is still derived directly therefrom. Their three main officialtheses and commandments were:

 1. Thou shalt honor the Gods and love thy country. 

 2. Thou shalt clearly understand the principles of Heaven, and the duty of man. 

 3. Thou shalt revere the Emperor as thy sovereign and obey the will of his Court. 

For nearly twenty years this deliverance of the Japanese Government, which still finds its strongest support in the national traditions andthe reverence of the people for the throne, sufficed for the necessitiesof the case. Then the copious infusion of foreign ideas, thedisintegration of the old framework of society, and the weakening of theold ties of obedience and loyalty, with the flood of shallow knowledgeand education which gave especially children and young people justenough of foreign ideas to make them dangerous, brought about acondition of affairs which alarmed the conservative and patriotic. Likefungus upon a dead tree strange growths had appeared, among others thatof a class of violently patriotic and half-educated young men and boys, called _Soshí_. These hot-headed youths took it upon themselves todictate national policy to cabinet ministers, and to reconstructsociety, religion and politics. Something like a mania broke out allover the country which, in certain respects, reminds us of theChildren's Crusade, that once afflicted Europe and the childrenthemselves. Even Christianity did not escape the craze forreconstruction. Some of the young believers and pupils of themissionaries seemed determined to make Christianity all over so as tosuit themselves. This phase of brain-swelling is not yet wholly over. One could not tell but that something like the Tai Ping rebellion, whichdisturbed and devastated China, might break out. 

These portentous signs on the social horizon called forth, in 1892, fromthe government an Imperial Rescript, which required that the emperor'sphotograph be exhibited in every school, and saluted by all teachers andscholars whatever their religious tenets and scruples might be. MostChristians as well as Buddhists, saw nothing in this at which toscruple. A few, however, finding in it an offence to conscience, resigned their positions. They considered the mandate an unwarrantableinterference with their rights as conferred by the constitution of 1889, which in theory is the gift of the emperor to his people. 

The radical Shint[=o]ist, to this day, believes that all politicalrights which Japanese enjoy or can enjoy are by virtue of the Mikado'sgrace and benevolence. It is certain that all Japanese, whatever may betheir religious convictions, consider that the constitution depends forits safeguards and its validity largely upon the oath which the Mikadoswore at the shrine of his heavenly ancestors, that he would himself beobedient to it and preserve its provisions inviolate. For this solemnceremony a special norito or liturgy was composed and recited. 

Summary of Shint[=o]. 

Of Shint[=o] as a system we have long ago given our opinion. In itshigher forms, "Shint[=o] is simply a cultured and intellectual atheism;in its lower forms it is blind obedience to governmental and priestlydictates. " "Shint[=o], " says Mr. Ernest Satow, "as expounded by Motoöriis nothing more than an engine for reducing the people to a condition ofmental slavery. " Japan being a country of very striking naturalphenomena, the very soil and air lend themselves to support in thenative mind this system of worship of heroes and of the forces ofnature. In spite, however, of the conservative power of the ancestralinfluences, the patriotic incentives and the easy morals of Shint[=o]under which lying and licentiousness shelter themselves, it is doubtfulwhether with the pressure of Buddhism, and the spread of populareducation and Christianity, Shint[=o] can retain its hold upon theJapanese people. Yet although this is our opinion, it is but fair, andit is our duty, to judge every religion by its ideals and not by itsfailings. The ideal of Shint[=o] is to make people pure and clean in alltheir personal and household arrangements; it is to help them to livesimply, honestly and with mutual good will; it is to make the Japaneselove their country, honor their imperial house and obey their emperor. Narrow and local as this religion is, it has had grand exemplars innoble lives and winning characters. 

So far as Shint[=o] is a religion, Christianity meets it not asdestroyer but fulfiller, for it too believes that cleanliness is notonly next to godliness but a part of it. Jesus as perfect man andpatriot, Captain of our salvation and Prince of peace, would not destroythe Yamato damashii--the spirit of unconquerable Japan--but ratherenlarge, broaden, and deepen it, making it love for all humanity. Reverence for ancestral virtue and example, so far from being weakened, is strengthened, and as for devotion to king and ruler, law and society, Christianity lends nobler motives and grander sanctions, whileshowing clearly, not indeed the way of the eight million or more gods, but the way to God--the one living, only and true, even through Him whosaid "I am the Way. "

CHAPTER IV - THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN

 "Things being investigated, knowledge became complete; knowledge being complete, thoughts were sincere; thoughts being sincere, hearts were rectified; hearts being rectified, persons were cultivated; persons being cultivated, families were regulated; families being regulated, states were rightly governed; states being rightly governed, the whole nation was made tranquil and happy. "

 "When you know a thing to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing to allow that you do not know it; this is knowledge. "

 "Old age sometimes becomes second childhood; why should not filial piety become parental love?"

 "The superior man accords with the course of the mean. Though he may be all unknown, unregarded by the world, he feels no regret. He is only the sage who is able for this. "--Sayings of Confucius. 

 "There is, in a word, no bringing down of God to men in Confucianism in order to lift them up to Him. Their moral shortcomings, when brought home to them, may produce a feeling of shame, but hardly a conviction of guilt. "--James Legge. 

 "Do not to others what you would not have them do to you. "--The Silver Rule. 

 "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. "--The Golden Rule. 

 "In respect to revenging injury done to master or father, it is granted by the wise and virtuous (Confucius) that you and the injurer cannot live together under the canopy of heaven. "--Legacy of Iyéyas[)u], Cap. Iii, Lowder's translation. 

 "But I say unto you forgive your enemies. "--Jesus. 

 "Thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer, thy name is from everlasting. "--Isaiah. 

CHAPTER IV - THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN

Confucius a Historical Character. 

If the greatness of a teacher is to be determined by the number of hisdisciples, or to be measured by the extent and diversity of hisinfluence, then the foremost place among all the teachers of mankindmust be awarded to The Master Kung (or Confucius, as the Jesuit scholarsof the seventeenth century Latinized the name). Certainly, he of alltruly historic personages is to-day, and for twenty-three centuries hasbeen, honored by the largest number of followers. 

Of the many systems of religion in the world, but few are based upon theteachings of one person. The reputed founders of some of them are notknown in history with any certainty, and of others--as in the case ofBuddhism--have become almost as shadows among a great throng ofimaginary Buddhas or other beings which have sprung from the fancies ofthe brain and become incorporated into the systems, although theoriginal teachers may indeed have been historical. 

Confucius is a clear and distinct historic person. His parentage, placeof birth, public life, offices, work and teaching, are well known andproperly authenticated. He used the pen freely, and not only compiled, edited and transmitted the writings of his predecessors, but composed anhistorical and interpretative book. He originated nothing, however, buton the contrary disowned any purpose of introducing new ideas, or ofexpressing thoughts of his own not based upon or in perfect harmony withthe teaching of the ancients. He was not an original thinker. He was acompiler, an editor, a defender and reproclaimer of the ancientreligion, and an exemplar of the wisdom and writings of the Chinesefathers. He felt that his duty was exactly that which some Christiantheologians of to-day conscientiously feel to be theirs--to receiveintact a certain "deposit" or "system" and, adding nothing to it, simplyto teach, illuminate, defend, enforce and strongly maintain it as "thetruth. " He gloried in absolute freedom from all novelty, anticipating inthis respect a certain illustrious American who made it a matter forboasting, that his school had never originated a new idea. [1] Whether ornot the Master Kung did nevertheless, either consciously orunconsciously, modify the ancient system by abbreviating or enlargingit, we cannot now inquire. 

Confucius wan born into the world in the year 551 B. C. , during thatwonderful century of religious revival which saw the birth of Ezra, Gautama, and Lao Tsze, and in boyhood he displayed an unusually sedatetemperament which made him seem to be what we would now call an"old-fashioned child. " The period during which he lived was that offeudal China. From the ago of twenty-two, while holding an office in thestate of Lu within the modern province of Shan-Tung, he gathered aroundhim young men as pupils with whom, like Socrates, he conversed inquestion and answer. He made the teachings of the ancients the subjectsof his research, and he was at all times a diligent student of theprimeval records. These sacred books are called King, or Ki[=o] inJapanese, and are: Shu King, a collection of historic documents; ShihKing, or Book of Odes; Hsiao King, or Classic of Filial Piety, and YiKing, or Book of Changes. [2] This division of the old sacred canon, resembles the Christian or non-Jewish arrangement of the Old Testamentscriptures in the four parts of Law, History, Poetry and Prophesy, though in the Chinese we have History, Poetry, Ethics and Divination. [3]

His own table-talk, conversations, discussions and notes were compiledby his pupils, and are preserved in the work entitled in English, "TheConfucian Analects, " which is one of the four books constituting themost sacred portion of Chinese philosophy and instruction. He also wrotea work named "Spring and Autumn, or Chronicles of his Native State of Lufrom 722 B. C. , to 481[4] B. C. " He "changed his world, " as the Buddhistssay, in the year 478 B. C. , having lived seventy-three years. 

Primitive Chinese Faith. 

The pre-Confucian or primitive faith was monotheistic, the forefathersof the Chinese nation having been believers in one Supreme SpiritualBeing. There is an almost universal agreement among scholars intranslating the term "Shang Ti" as God, and in reading from theseclassics that the forefathers "in the ceremonies at the altars of Heavenand earth . .. Served God. " Concurrently with the worship of one SupremeGod there was also a belief in subordinate spirits and in the idea ofrevelation or the communication of God with men. This restricted worshipof God was accompanied by reverence for ancestors and the honoring ofspirits by prayers and sacrifices, which resulted, however, neither indeification nor polytheism. But, as the European mediæval schoolmen havedone with the Bible, so, after the death of Confucius the Chinesescholastics by metaphysical reasoning and commentary, created systems ofinterpretation which greatly altered the apparent form and contents ofhis own and of the ancient texts. Thus, the original monotheism of thepre-Confucian documents has been completely obscured by the later websof sophistry which have been woven about the original scriptures. Theancient simplicity of doctrine has been lost in the mountains ofcommentary which were piled upon the primitive texts. Throughout thecenturies, the Confucian system has been conditioned and greatlymodified by Taoism, Buddhism and the speculations of the Chinese wisemen. 

Confucius, however, did not change or seriously modify the ancientreligion except that, as is more than probable, he may have laidunnecessary emphasis upon social and political duties, and may not havebeen sufficiently interested in the honor to be paid to Shang Ti or God. He practically ignored the God-ward side of man's duties. His teachingsrelate chiefly to duties between man and man, to propriety andetiquette, and to ceremony and usage. He said that "To give one's selfto the duties due to men and while respecting spiritual beings to keepaloof from them, may be called wisdom. "[5]

We think that Confucius cut the tap-root of all true progress, andtherefore is largely responsible for the arrested development of China. He avoided the personal term, God (Ti), and instead, made use of theabstract term, Heaven (Tien). His teaching, which is so often quoted byJapanese gentlemen, was, "Honor the Gods and keep them far from you. "His image stands in thousands of temples and in every school, in China, but he is only revered and never deified. 

China has for ages suffered from agnosticism; for no normal Confucianistcan love God, though he may learn to reverence him. The Emperorperiodically worships for his people, at the great marble altar toHeaven in Peking, with vast holocausts, and the prayers which areoffered may possibly amount to this: "Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. " But there, as it seems to a Christian, Chineseimperial worship stops. The people at large, cut off by this restrictedworship from direct access to God, have wandered away into every sort ofpolytheism and idolatry, while the religion of the educated Chinese is amediæval philosophy based upon Confucianism, of which we shall speakhereafter. 

The Confucian system as a religion, like a giant with a child's head, isexaggerated on its moral and ceremonial side as compared with itsspiritual development. Some deny that it is a religion at all, and callit only a code. However, let us examine the Confucian ethics whichformed the basis and norm of all government in the family and nation, and are summed up in the doctrine of the "Five Relations. " These are:Sovereign and Minister; Father and Son; Husband and Wife; Elder Brotherand Younger Brother; and Friends. The relation being stated, thecorrelative duty arises at once. It may perhaps be truly said byChristians that Confucius might have made a religion of his system ofethics, by adding a sixth and supreme relation--that between God andman. This he declined to do, and so left his people without anyaspiration toward the Infinite. By setting before them only a finitegoal he sapped the principles of progress. [6]

Vicissitudes of Confucianism. 

After the death of Confucius (478 B. C. ) the teachings of the greatmaster were neglected, but still later they were re-enforced andexpounded in the time (372-289 B. C. ) of Meng Ko, or Mencius (as the namehas been Latinized) who was likewise a native of the State of Lu. At onetime a Chinese Emperor attempted in vain to destroy not only thewritings of Confucius but also the ancient classics. Taoism increased asa power in the religion of China, especially after the fall of itsfeudal system. The doctrine of ancestral worship as commended by thesage had in it much of good, both for kings and nobles. The commonpeople, however, found that Taoism was more satisfying. About thebeginning of the Christian era Buddhism entered the Middle Kingdom, and, rapidly becoming popular, supplied needs for which simple Confucianismwas not adequate. It may be said that in the sixth century--whichconcerns us especially--although Confucianism continued to be highlyesteemed, Buddhism had become supreme in China--that venerable Statewhich is the mother of civilization in all Asia cast of the Ganges, andthe Middle Kingdom among pupil nations. 

Confucianism overflowed from China into Korea, where to this day it ispredominant even over Buddhism. Thence, it was carried beyond sea to theJapanese Archipelago, where for possibly fifteen hundred years it hasshaped and moulded the character of a brave and chivalrous people. Letus now turn from China and trace its influence and modifications in theLand of the Rising Sun. 

It must be remembered that in the sixth century of the Christian Era, Confucianism was by no means the fully developed philosophy that it isnow and has been for five hundred years. In former times, the system ofConfucius had been received in China not only as a praiseworthycompendium of ceremonial observances, but also as an inheritance fromthe ancients, illumined by the discourses of the great sage andillustrated by his life and example. It was, however, very far frombeing what it is at present--the religion of the educated men of thenation, and, by excellence, the religion of Chinese Asia. But in thoseearly centuries it did not fully satisfy the Chinese mind, which turnedto the philosophy of Taoism and to the teachings of the Buddhist forintellectual food, for comfort and for inspiration. 

The time when Chinese learning entered Japan, by the way of Korea, hasnot been precisely ascertained. [7] It is possible that letters[8] andwritings were known in some parts of the country as early as the fourthcentury, but it is nearly certain, that, outside the Court of theEmperor, there was scarcely even a sporadic knowledge of the literatureof China until the Korean missionaries of Buddhism had obtained alodgement in the Mikado's capital. Buddhism was the real purveyor of theforeign learning and became the vehicle by means of which Confucianism, or the Chinese ethical principles, reached the common people of Japan. The first missionaries in Japan were heartily in sympathy with theConfucian ethics, from which no effort was made to alienate them. Theywere close allies, and for a thousand years wrought as one force in thenational life. They were not estranged until the introduction, in theseventeenth century, of the metaphysical and scholastic forms given tothe ancient system by the Chinese schoolmen of the Sung dynasty (A. D. 960-1333). 

Japanese Confucianism and Feudalism Contemporary. 

The intellectual history of the Japanese prior to their recent contactwith Christendom, may be divided into three eras:

1. The period of early insular or purely native thought, from before theChristian era until the eighth century; by which time, Shint[=o], or theindigenous system of worship--its ritual, poetry and legend having beencommitted to writing and its life absorbed in Buddhism--had been, as asystem, relegated from the nation and the people to a small circle ofscholars and archæologists. 

2. The period from 800 A. D. To the beginning of the seventeenth century;during which time Buddhism furnished to the nation its religion, philosophy and culture. 

3. From about 1630 A. D. Until the present time; during which period thedeveloped Confucian philosophy, as set forth by Chu Hi in the twelfthcentury, has been the creed of a majority of the educated men of Japan. 

The political history of the Japanese may also be divided into threeeras:

1. The first extends from the dawn of history until the seventh century. During this period the system of government was that of rude feudalism. The conquering tribe of Yamato, having gradually obtained a ratherimperfect supremacy over the other tribes in the middle and southernportions of the country now called the Empire of Japan, ruled them inthe name of the Mikado. 

2. The second period begins in the seventh century, when the Japanese, copying the Chinese model, adopted a system of centralization. Thecountry was divided into provinces and was ruled through boards orministries at the capital, with governors sent out from Ki[=o]to forstated periods, directly from the emperor. During this time literaturewas chiefly the work of the Buddhist priests and of the women of theimperial court. 

While armies in the field brought into subjection the outlying tribesand certain noble families rose to prominence at the court, there wasbeing formed that remarkable class of men called the Samurai, orservants of the Mikado, which for more than ten centuries has exerciseda profound influence upon the development of Japan. 

In China, the pen and the sword have been kept apart; the civilian andthe soldier, the man of letters and the man of arms, have been distinctand separate. This was also true in old Loo Choo (now Riu Kiu), thatpart of Japan most like China. In Japan, however, the pen and the sword, letters and arms, the civilian and the soldier, have intermingled. Theunique product of this union is seen in the Samurai, or servant of theMikado. Military-literati, are unknown in China, but in Japan theycarried the sword and the pen in the same girdle. 

3. This class of men had become fully formed by the end of the twelfthcentury, and then began the new feudal system, which lasted until theepochal year 1868 A. D. --a year of several revolutions, rather than ofrestoration pure and simple. After nearly seven hundred years offeudalism, supreme magistracy, with power vastly increased beyond thatpossessed in ancient times, was restored to the emperor. Then also wasabolished the duarchy of Throne and Camp, of Mikado and Sh[=o]gun, andof the two capitals Ki[=o]to and Yedo, with the fountain of honor andauthority in one and the fountain of power and execution in the other. Thereupon, Japan once more presented to the world, unity. 

Practically, therefore, the period of the prevalence of the Confucianethics and their universal acceptance by the people of Japan nearlycoincides with the period of Japanese feudalism or the dominance of themilitary classes. 

Although the same ideograph, or rather logogram, was used to designatethe Chinese scholar and the Japanese warrior as well, yet the former wasman of the pen only, while the latter was man of the pen and of twoswords. This historical fact, more than any other, accounts for thestriking differences between Chinese and Japanese Confucianism. Underthis state of things the ethical system of the sage of China suffered achange, as does almost everything that is imported into Japan andborrowed by the islanders, but whether for the better or for the worsewe shall not inquire too carefully. The point upon which we now layemphasis is this: that, although the Chinese teacher had made filialpiety the basis of his system, the Japanese gradually but surely madeloyalty (Kun-Shin), that is, the allied relations of sovereign andminister, of lord and retainer, and of master and servant, not onlyfirst in order but the chief of all. They also infused into this termideas and associations which are foreign to the Chinese mind. In theplace of filial piety was Kun-shin, that new growth in the garden ofJapanese ethics, out of which arose the white flower of loyalty thatblooms perennial in history. 

In Japan, Loyalty Displaces Filial Piety. 

This slow but sure adaptation of the exotic to its new environment, tookplace during the centuries previous to the seventeenth of the Christianera. The completed product presented a growth so strikingly differentfrom the original as to compel the wonder of those Chinese refugeescholars, who, at Mito[9] and Yedo, taught the later dogmas which areorthodox but not historically Confucian. 

Herein lies the difference between Chinese and Japanese ethicalphilosophy. In old Japan, loyalty was above filial obedience, and theman who deserted parents, wife and children for the feudal lord, received unstinted praise. The corner-stone of the Japanese edifice ofpersonal righteousness and public weal, is loyalty. On the other hand, filial piety is the basis of Chinese order and the secret of the amazingnational longevity, which is one of the moral wonders of the world, andsure proof of the fulfilment of that promise which was made on Sinai andwrapped up in the fourth commandment. 

This master passion of the typical Samurai of old Japan made him regardlife as infinitely less than nothing, whenever duty demanded a displayof the virtue of loyalty. "The doctrines of Koshi and Moshi" (Confuciusand Mencius) formed, and possibly even yet form, the gospel and thequintessence of all wordly wisdom to the Japanese gentleman; they becamethe basis of his education and the ideal which inspired his conceptionsof duty and honor; but, crowning all his doctrines and aspirations washis desire to be loyal. There might abide loyal, marital, filial, fraternal and various other relations, but the greatest of all these wasloyalty. Hence the Japanese calendar of saints is not filled withreformers, alms-givers and founders of hospitals or orphanages, but isover-crowded with canonized suicides and committers of _hara-kiri_. Eventoday, no man more quickly wins the popular regard during his life ormore surely draws homage to his tomb, securing even apotheosis, than thesuicide, though he may have committed a crime. In this era of Meiji orenlightened peace, most appalling is the list of assassinationsbeginning with the murder in Ki[=o]to of Yokoi Héishiro, who was slainfor recommending the toleration of Christianity, down to the lastcabinet minister who has been knifed or dynamited. Yet in every case themurderers considered themselves consecrated men and ministers ofHeaven's righteous vengeance. [10] For centuries, and untilconstitutional times, the government of Japan was "despotism tempered byassassination. " The old-fashioned way of moving a vote of censure uponthe king's ministers was to take off their heads. Now, however, electionby ballot has been substituted for this, and two million swords havebecome bric-à-brac. 

A thousand years of training in the ethics of Confucius--which alwaysadmirably lends itself to the possessors of absolute power, whetheremperors, feudal lords, masters, fathers, or older brothers--have sotinged and colored every conception of the Japanese mind, so dominatedtheir avenues of understanding and shaped their modes of thought, thatto-day, notwithstanding the recent marvellous development of theirlanguage, which within the last two decades has made it almost a newtongue, [11] it is impossible with perfect accuracy to translate intoEnglish the ordinary Japanese terms which are congregated under thegeneral idea of Kun-shin. 

Herein may be seen the great benefit of carefully studying the minds ofthose whom we seek to convert. The Christian preacher in Japan who usesour terms "heaven, " "home, " "mother, " "father, " "family, " "wife, ""people, " "love, " "reverence, " "virtue, " "chastity, " etc. , will findthat his hearers may indeed receive them, but not at all with the samemental images and associations, nor with the same proportion and depth, that these words command in western thought and hearing. One must beexceedingly careful, not only in translating terms which have been usedby Confucius in the Chinese texts, but also in selecting and renderingthe current expressions of the Japanese teachers and philosophers. Inorder to understand each other, Orientals and Occidentals need a greatdeal of mutual intellectual drilling, without which there will be wasteof money, of time, of brains and of life. 

The Five Relations. 

Let us now glance at the fundamentals of the Confucian ethics--the FiveRelations--as they were taught in the comparatively simple system whichprevailed before the new orthodoxy was proclaimed by Sung schoolmen. 

First. Although each of the Chinese and Japanese emperors is supposed tobe, and is called, "father of the people, " yet it would be entirelywrong to imagine that the phrase implies any such relation, as that ofWilliam the Silent to the Dutch, or of Washington to the Americannation. In order to see how far the emperor was removed from the peopleduring a thousand years, one needs but to look upon a brilliant paintingof the Yamato-Tosa school, in which the Mikado is represented as sittingbehind a cloud of gold or a thick curtain of fine bamboo, with no onebefore the matting-throne but his prime ministers or the empress and hisconcubines. For centuries, it was supposed that the Mikado did not touchthe ground with his feet. He went abroad in a curtained car; and he wasnot only as mysterious and invisible to the public eye as a dragon, buthe was called such. The attributes of that monster with many powers andfunctions, were applied to him, with an amazing wealth of rhetoric andvocabulary. As well might the common folks to-day presume to pray untoone of the transcendent Buddhas, between whom and the needy suppliantthere may be hosts upon hosts of interlopers or mediators, as for anordinary subject to petition the emperor or even to gaze upon his dragoncountenance. The change in the constitutional Japan of our day is seenin the fact that the term "Mikado" is now obsolete. This description ofthe relation of sovereign and minister (inaccurately characterised bysome writers on Confucianism as that of "King and subject, " a phrasewhich might almost fit the constitutional monarchy of to-day) shows therelation, as it did exist for nearly a thousand years of Japanesehistory. We find the same imitation of procedure, even when imperialismbecame only a shadow in the government and the great Sh[=o]gun whocalled himself "Tycoon, " the ruler in Yedo, aping the majesty ofKi[=o]to, became so powerful as to be also a dragon. Between the YedoSh[=o]gun and the people rose a great staircase of numberlesssubordinates, and should a subject attempt to offer a petition in personhe must pay for it by crucifixion. [12]

As, under the emperor there were court ministers, heads of departments, governors and functionaries of all kinds before the people were reached, so, under the Sh[=o]gun in the feudal days, there were the Daimi[=o]s orgreat lords and the Shomi[=o]s or small lords with their retainers ingraduated subordination, and below these were the servants and generalhumanity. Even after the status of man was reached, there weregradations and degradations through fractions down to ciphers and indeedto minus quantities, for there existed in the Country of Brave Warriorssome tens of thousands of human beings bearing the names of _eta_(pariah) and _h[=i]-nin_ (non-human), who were far below the pale ofhumanity. 

The Paramount Idea of Loyalty. 

The one idea which dominated all of these classes, [13]--in Old Japanthere were no masses but only many classes--was that of loyalty. As theJapanese language shows, every faculty of man was subordinated to thisidea. Confucianism even conditioned the development of Japanese grammar, as it also did that of the Koreans, by multiplying honorary prefixes andsuffixes and building up all sociable and polite speech on perpendicularlines. Personality was next to nothing and individuality was in acertain sense unknown. In European languages, the pronoun shows howclearly the ideas of personality and of individuality have beendeveloped; but in the Japanese language there really are no pronouns, inthe sense of the word as used by the Germanic nations, at least, although there are hundreds of impersonal and topographical substitutesfor them. [14] The mirror, of the language itself, reflects more truthupon this point of inquiry than do patriotic assertions, or the protestsof those who in the days of this Meiji era so handsomely employ theJapanese language as the medium of thought. Strictly speaking, the egodisappears in ordinary conversation and action, and instead, it is theservant speaking reverently to his master; or it is the mastercondescending to the object which is "before his hand" or "to the side"or "below" where his inferior kneels; or it is the "honorable right"addressing the "esteemed left. "

All the terms which a foreigner might use in speaking of the duties ofsovereign and minister, of lord and retainer and of master and servant, are comprehended in the Japanese word, Kun-shin, in which iscrystallized but one thought, though it may relate to three grades ofsociety. The testimony of history and of the language shows, that thefeelings which we call loyalty and reverence are always directed upward, while those which we term benevolence and love invariably look downward. 

Note herein the difference between the teachings of Christ and those ofthe Chinese sage. According to the latter, if there be love in therelation of the master and servant, it is the master who loves, and notthe servant who may only reverence. It would be inharmonious for theJapanese servant to love his master; he never even talks of it. And infamily life, while the parent may love the child, the child is notexpected to love the parent but rather to reverence him. So also theJapanese wife, as in our old scriptural versions, is to "see that she_reverence_ her husband. " Love (not _agapé_, but _eros_) is indeed atheme of the poets and of that part of life and of literature which is, strictly speaking, outside of the marriage relation, but the thoughtthat dominates in marital life, is reverence from the wife andbenevolence from the husband. The Christian conception, which requiresthat a woman should love her husband, does not strictly accord with theConfucian idea. 

Christianity has taught us that when a man loves a woman purely andmakes her his wife, he should also have reverence for her, and that thiselement should be an integral part of his love. Christianity alsoteaches a reverence for children; and Wordsworth has but followed thespirit of his great master, Christ, when expressing this beautifulsentiment in his melodious numbers. Such ideas as these, however, arediscords in Japanese social life of the old order. So also the Christianpreaching of love to God, sounds outlandish to the men of Chinese mindin the middle or the pupil kingdom, who seem to think that it can onlycome from the lips of those who have not been properly trained. To "loveGod" appears to them as being an unwarrantable patronage of, andfamiliarity with "Heaven, " or the King of Kings. The same difficulty, which to-day troubles Christian preachers and translators, existed amongthe Roman Catholic missionaries three centuries ago. [15] The moulds ofthought were not then, nor are they even now, entirely ready for thefull truth of Christian revelation. 

Suicide Made Honorable. 

In the long story of the Honorable Country, there are to be found manyshining examples of loyalty, which is the one theme oftenest illustratedin popular fiction and romance. Its well-attested instances on thecrimson thread of Japanese history are more numerous than the beads onmany rosaries. The most famous of all, perhaps, is the episode of theForty-Seven R[=o]nins, which is a constant favorite in the theatres, andhas been so graphically narrated or pictured by scores of native poets, authors, artists, sculptors and dramatists, and told in English byMitford, Dickens and Grecy. [16]

These forty-seven men hated wife, child, society, name, fame, food andcomfort for the sake of avenging the death of their master. In a certainsense, they ceased to be persons in order to become the impersonalinstruments of Heaven's retribution. They gave up every thing--houses, lands, kinsmen--that they might have in this life the hundred-foldreward of vengeance, and in the world-life of humanity throughout thecenturies, fame and honor. Feeding the hunger of their hearts upon thehope of glutting that hunger with the life-blood of their victim, theywaited long years. When once their swords had drunk the consecratedblood, they laid the severed head upon their master's tomb and thengladly, even rapturously, delivered themselves up, and ripping opentheir bowels they died by that judicially ordered seppuku which cleansedtheir memory from every stain, and gave to them the martyr's fame andcrown forever. The tombs of these men, on the hillside overlooking theBay of Yedo, are to this day ever fragrant with fresh flowers, and tothe cemetery where their ashes lie and their memorials stand, thousandsof pilgrims annually wend their way. No dramas are more permanentlypopular on the stage than those which display the virtues of theseheroes, who are commonly spoken of as "The righteous Samurai. " Theirtombs have stood for two centuries, as mighty magnets drawing others toself-impalement on the sword--as multipliers of suicides. 

Yet this alphabetic number, this _i-ro-ha_ of self-murder, is but one ofa thousand instances in the Land of Noble Suicides. From thepre-historic days when the custom of _Jun-shi_, or dying with themaster, required the interment of the living retainers with the deadlord, down through all the ages to the Revolution of 1868, when atSendai and Aidzu scores of men and boys opened their bowels, and mothersslew their infant sons and cut their own throats, there has been flowingthrough Japanese history a river of suicides' blood[17] having itssprings in the devotion of retainers to masters, and of soldiers to alost cause as represented by the feudal superior. Shigémori, the son ofthe prime minister Kiyomori, who protected the emperor even against hisown father, is a model of that Japanese kun-shin which placed fidelityto the sovereign above filial obedience; though even yet Shigémori'sname is the synonym of both virtues. Kusunoki Masashigé, [18] the whiteflower of Japanese chivalry, is but one, typical not only of a thousandbut of thousands of thousands of soldiers, who hated parents, wife, child, friend in order to be disciple to the supreme loyalty. He sealedhis creed by emptying his own veins. Kiyomori, [19] like King David ofIsrael, on his dying bed ordered the assassination of his personalenemy. 

The common Japanese novels read like records of slaughter-houses. NoMoloch or Shiva has won more victims to his shrine than has this idea ofJapanese loyalty which is so beautiful in theory and so hideous inpractice. Despite the military clamps and frightful despotism of Yedo, which for two hundred and fifty years gave to the world a delusive ideaof profound quiet in the Country of Peaceful Shores, there was in fact achronic unrest which amounted at many times and in many places toanarchy. The calm of despotism was, indeed, rudely broken by the aliensin the "black ships" with the "flowery flag"; but, without regardinginfluences from the West, the indications of history as now read, pointed in 1850 toward the bloodiest of Japan's many civil wars. Couldthe statistics of the suicides during this long period be collected, their publication would excite in Christendom the utmost incredulity. 

Nevertheless, this qualifying statement should be made. A study of theorigin and development of the national method of self-destruction showsthat suicide by seppuku, or opening of the abdomen, was first a custom, and then a privilege. It took, among men of honor, the place of thepublic executions, the massacres in battle and siege, decimation ofrebels and similar means of killing at the hands of others, which sooften mar the historical records of western nations. Undoubtedly, therefore, in the minds of most Japanese, there are many instances of_hara-kiri_ which should not be classed as suicide, but technically asexecution of judicial sentence. And yet no sentence or process of deathknown in western lands had such influence in glorifying the victim, ashad seppuku in Japan. 

The Family Idea. 

The Second Relation is that of father and son, thus preceding what weshould suppose to be the first of human relations--husband and wife--butthe arrangement entirely accords with the Oriental conception that thefamily, the house, is more important than the individual. In Old Japanthe paramount idea in marriage, was not that of love or companionship, or of mutual assistance with children, but was almost wholly that ofoffspring, and of maintaining the family line. [20] The individual mightperish but the house must live on. 

Very different from the family of Christendom, is the family in OldJapan, in which we find elements that would not be recognized wheremonogamy prevails and children are born in the home and not in the herd. Instead of father, mother and children, there are father, wife, concubines, and various sorts of children who are born of the wife or ofthe concubine, or have been adopted into the family. With us, adoptionis the exception, but in Japan it is the invariable rule whenever eitherconvenience or necessity requires it of the house. Indeed it is rare tofind a set of brothers bearing the same family name. Adoption andconcubinage keep the house unbroken. [21] It is the house, the name, which must continue, although not necessarily by a blood line. The name, a social trade-mark, lives on for ages. The line of Japanese emperors, which, in the Constitution of 1889, by adding mythology to history issaid to rule "unbroken from ages eternal, " is not one of fathers andsons, but has been made continuous by concubinage and adoption. In thisview, it is possibly as old as the line of the popes. 

It is very evident that our terms and usages do not have in such a homethe place or meaning which one not familiar with the real life of OldJapan would suppose. The father is an absolute ruler. There is in OldJapan hardly any such thing as "parents, " for practically there is onlyone parent, as the woman counts for little. The wife is honored if shebecomes a mother, but if childless she is very probably neglected. Ouridea of fatherhood implies that the child has rights and that he shouldlove as well as be loved. Our customs excite not only the merriment buteven the contempt of the old-school Japanese. The kiss and the embrace, the linking of the child's arm around its father's neck, the address onletters "My dear Wife" or "My beloved Mother" seem to them likecaricatures of propriety. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true thatin reverence toward parents--or at least toward one of the parents--aJapanese child is apt to excel the one born even in a Christian home. 

This so-called filial "piety" becomes in practice, however, a horribleoutrage upon humanity and especially upon womanhood. During centuriesthe despotic power of the father enabled him to put an end to the lifeof his child, whether boy or girl. 

Under this abominable despotism there is no protection for the daughter, who is bound to sell her body, while youth or beauty last or perhaps forlife, to help pay her father's debts, to support an aged parent or evento gratify his mere caprice. In hundreds of Japanese romances thedaughter, who for the sake of her parents has sold herself to shame, ismade the theme of the story and an object of praise. In the minds of thepeople there may be indeed a feeling of pity that the girl has beenobliged to give up her home life for the brothel, but no one ever thinksof questioning the right of the parent to make the sale of the girl'sbody, any more than he would allow the daughter to rebel against it. This idea still lingers and the institution remains, [22] although thesystem has received stunning blows from the teaching of Christianethics, the preaching of a better gospel and the improvements in the lawof the land. 

The Marital Relation. 

The Third Relation is that of husband and wife. The meaning of thesewords, however, is not the same with the Japanese as with us. InConfucius there is not only male and female, but also superior andinferior, master and servant. [23] Without any love-making or courtshipby those most interested, a marriage between two young people isarranged by their parents through the medium of what is called a"go-between. " The bride leaves her father's house forever--that is, whenshe is not to be subsequently divorced--and entering into that of herhusband must be subordinate not only to him but also to his parents, andmust obey them as her own father and mother. Having all her life underher father's roof reverenced her superiors, she is expected to bringreverence to her new domicile, but not love. She must always obey butnever be jealous. She must not be angry, no matter whom her husband mayintroduce into his household. She must wait upon him at his meals andmust walk behind him, but not with him. When she dies her children go toher funeral, but not her husband. 

A foreigner, hearing the Japanese translate our word chastity by theterm _téiso_ or _misao_, may imagine that the latter represents mutualobligation and personal purity for man and wife alike, but on lookinginto the dictionary he will find that _téiso_ means "Womanly duties. " Acircumlocution is needed to express the idea of a chaste man. 

Jealousy is a horrible sin, but is always supposed to be a womanishfault, and so an exhibition of folly and weakness. Therefore, to applysuch a term to God--to say "a jealous God"--outrages the good sense of aConfucianist, [24] almost as much as the statement that God "cannot lie"did that of the Pundit, who wondered how God could be Omnipotent if Hecould not lie. 

How great the need in Japanese social life of some purifying principlehigher than Confucianism can afford, is shown in the little bookentitled "The Japanese Bride, "[25] written by a native, and scarcelyless in the storm of native criticism it called forth. Under the systemwhich has ruled Japan for a millennium and a half, divorce has beenalmost entirely in the hands of the husband, and the document ofseparation, entitled in common parlance the "three lines and a half, "was invariably written by the man. A woman might indeed nominally obtaina divorce from her husband, but not actually; for the severance of themarital tie would be the work of the house or relatives, rather than theact of the wife, who was not "a person" in the case. Indeed, in theolden time a woman was not a person in the eye of the law, but rather achattel. The case is somewhat different under the new codes, [26] but thelooseness of the marriage tie is still a scandal to thinking Japanese. Since the breaking up of the feudal system and the disarrangement of theold social and moral standards, the statistics made annually from theofficial census show that the ratio of divorce to marriage is verynearly as one to three. [27]

The Elder and the Younger Brother. 

The Fourth Relation is that of Elder Brother and Younger Brother. As wehave said, foreigners in translating some of the Chinese and Japaneseterms used in the system of Confucius are often led into errors bysupposing that the Christian conception of family life prevails also inChinese Asia. By many writers this relation is translated "brother tobrother;" but really in the Japanese language there is no term meaningsimply "brother" or "sister, "[28] and a circumlocution is necessary toexpress the ideas which we convey by these words. It is always "olderbrother" or "younger brother, " and "older sister" or "youngersister"--the male or female "_kiyodai_" as the case may be. Withus--excepting in lands where the law of primogeniture stillprevails--all the brothers are practically equal, and it would beconsidered a violation of Christian righteousness for a parent to showmore favor to one child than to another. In this respect the "wisdomthat cometh from above" is "without partiality. " The Chinese ethicalsystem, however, disregards the principle of mutual rights and duties, and builds up the family on the theory of the subordination of theyounger brother to the elder brother, the predominant idea being notmutual love, but, far more than in the Christian household, that of rankand order. The attitude of the heir of the family toward the otherchildren is one of condescension, and they, as well as the widowedmother, regard the oldest son with reverence. It is as though thecommandment given on Sinai should read, "Honor thy father and thy elderbrother. "

The mother is an instrument rather than a person in the life of thehouse, and the older brother is the one on whom rests the responsibilityof continuing the family line. The younger brothers serve as subjectsfor adoption into other families, especially those where there aredaughters to be married and family names to be continued. In a word, thename belongs to the house and not to the individual. The habit of namingchildren after relatives or friends of the parents, or illustrious menand women, is unknown in Old Japan, though an approach to this commoncustom among us is made by conferring or making use of part of a name, usually by the transferrence of one ideograph forming the name-word. Such a practice lays stress upon personality, and so has no place in thecountry without pronouns, where the idea of continuing the personalhouse or semi-personal family, is predominant. The customs prevalent inlife are strong even in death, and the elder brother or sister, in someprovinces, did not go to the funeral of the younger. This state ofaffairs is reflected in Japanese literature, and produces in romance aswell as in history many situations and episodes which seem almostincredible to the Western mind. 

In the lands ruled by Confucius the grown-up children usually live underthe parental roof, and there are few independent homes as we understandthem. The so-called family is composed both of the living and of thedead, and constitutes the unit of society. 

Friendship and Humanity. 

The Fifth Relation--Friends. Here, again, a mistake is often made bythose who import ideas of Christendom into the terms used in ChineseAsia, and who strive to make exact equivalent in exchanging the coins ofspeech. Occidental writers are prone to translate the term for the fifthrelation into the English phrase "man to man, " which leads the Westernreader to suppose that Confucius taught that universal love for man, asman, which was instilled and exemplified by Jesus Christ. In translatingConfucius they often make the same mistake that some have done who readin Terence's "Self-Tormentor" the line, "I am a man, and nothing humanis foreign to me, "[29] and imagine that this is the sentiment of anenlightened Christian, although the context shows that it is only theboast of a busybody and parasite. What Confucius taught under the fifthrelation is not universality, and, as compared to the teachings ofJesus, is moonlight, not sunlight. The doctrine of the sage is clearlyexpressed in the Analects, and amounts only to courtesy and propriety. He taught, indeed, that the stranger is to be treated as a friend; andalthough in both Chinese and Japanese history there are illustriousproofs that Confucius had interpreters nobler than himself, yet it isprobable that the doctrine of the stranger's receiving treatment as afriend, does not extend to the foreigner. Confucius framed somethinglike the Golden Rule--though it were better called a Silver Rule, orpossibly a Gilded Rule, since it is in the negative instead of beingdefinitely placed in the positive and indicative form. One may searchhis writings in vain for anything approaching the parable of the GoodSamaritan, or the words of Him who commended Elijah for replenishing thecruse and barrel of the widow of Sarepta, and Elisha for healing Naamanthe Syrian leper, and Jonah for preaching the good news of God to theAssyrians who had been aliens and oppressors. Lao Tsze, however, went sofar as to teach "return good for evil. " When one of the pupils ofConfucius interrogated his Master concerning this, the sage answered;"What then will you return for good? Recompense injury with justice, andreturn good for good. "

But if we do good only to those who do good to us, what thanks have we?Do not the publicans the same? Behold how the Heavenly Father does goodalike unto all, sending rain upon the just and unjust!

How Old Japan treated the foreigner is seen in the repeated repulse, with powder and ball, of the relief ships which, under the friendlystars and stripes, attempted to bring back to her shores the shipwreckednatives of Nippon. [30] Granted that this action may have been purelypolitical and the Government alone responsible for it--just as ourun-Christian anti-Chinese legislation is similarly explained--yet it iscertain that the sentiment of the only men in Japan who made publicopinion, --the Samurai of that day, --was in favor of this method ofmeeting the alien. 

In 1852 the American expedition was despatched to Japan for the purposeof opening a lucrative trade and of extending American influence andglory, but also unquestionably with the idea of restoring shipwreckedJapanese as well as securing kind treatment for shipwrecked Americansailors, thereby promoting the cause of humanity and internationalcourtesy; in short, with motives that were manifestly mixed. [31] In thetreaty pavilion there ensued an interesting discussion between CommodorePerry and Professor Hayashi upon this very subject. 

Perry truthfully complained that the dictates of humanity had not beenfollowed by the Japanese, that unnecessary cruelty had been used againstshipwrecked men, and that Japan's attitude toward her neighbors and thewhole world was that of an enemy and not of a friend. 

Hayashi, who was then probably the leading Confucianist in Japan, warmlydefended his countrymen and superiors against the charge of intentionalcruelty, and denounced the lawless character of many of the foreignsailors. Like most Japanese of his school and age, he wound up withpanegyrics on the pre-eminence in virtue and humanity, above allnations, of the Country Ruled by a Theocratic Dynasty, and on the gloryand goodness of the great Tokugawa family, which had given peace to theland during two centuries or more. [32]

It is manifest, however, that so far as this hostility to foreigners, and this blind bigotry of "patriotism" were based on Chinese codes ofmorals, as officially taught in Yedo, they belonged as much to the oldConfucianism as to the new. Wherever the narrow philosophy of the sagehas dominated, it has made Asia Chinese and nations hermits. As a rule, the only way in which foreigners could come peacefully into China or thecountries which she intellectually dominated was as vassals, tribute-bearers, or "barbarians. " The mental attitude of China, Korea, Annam and Japan has for ages been that of the Jews in Herodian times, who set up, between the Court of Israel and the Court of the Gentiles, their graven stones of warning which read:[33]

 "No foreigner to proceed within the partition wall and enclosure around the sanctuary; whoever is caught in the same will on that account be liable to incur death. "

CHAPTER V - CONFUCIANISM IN ITS PHILOSOPHICAL FORM

 "After a thousand years the pine decays; the flower has its glory in blooming for a day. "--Hakkyoi, Chinese Poet of the Tang Dynasty. 

 "The morning-glory of an hour differs not in heart from the pine-tree of a thousand years. "--Matsunaga of Japan. 

 "The pine's heart is not of a thousand years, nor the morning-glory's of an hour, but only that they may fulfil their destiny. "

 "Since Iyéyasú, his hair brushed by the wind, his body anointed with rain, with lifelong labor caused confusion to cease and order to prevail, for more than a hundred years there has been no war. The waves of the four seas have been unruffled and no one has failed of the blessing of peace. The common folk must speak with reverence, yet it is the duty of scholars to celebrate the virtue of the Government. "--Ky[=u]so of Yedo. 

 "A ruler must have faithful ministers. He who sees the error of his lord and remonstrates, not fearing his wrath, is braver than he who bears the foremost spear in battle. "--Iyéyasú. 

 "The choice of the Chinese philosophy and the rejection of Buddhism was not because of any inherent quality in the Japanese mind. It was not the rejection of supernaturalism or the miraculous. The Chinese philosophy is as supernaturalistic as some forms of Buddhism. The distinction is not between the natural and the supernatural in either system, but between the seen and the unseen. "

 "The Chinese philosophy is as religious as the original teaching of Gautama. Neither Shushi nor Gautama believed in a Creator, but both believed in gods and demons. .. . It has little place for prayer, but has a vivid sense of the Infinite and the Unseen, and fervently believes that right conduct is in accord with the 'eternal verities. '"--George William Knox. 

 "In him is the yea. "--Paul. 

CHAPTER V - CONFUCIANISM IN ITS PHILOSOPHICAL FORM

Japan's Millennium of Simple Confucianism. 

Having seen the practical working of the ethics of Confucianism, especially in the old and simple system, let us now glance at thedeveloped and philosophical forms, which, by giving the educated man ofJapan a creed, made him break away from Buddhism and despise it, whilebecoming often fanatically Confucian. 

For a thousand years (from 600 to 1600 A. D. ) the Buddhist religiousteachers assisted in promulgating the ethics of Confucius; for duringall this time there was harmony between the various Buddhisms importedfrom India, Tibet, China and Korea, and the simple undeveloped system ofChinese Confucianism. Slight modifications were made by individualteachers, and emphasis was laid upon this or that feature, while out ofthe soil of Japanese feudalism were growths of certain virtues as phasesof loyalty, phenomenal beyond those in China. Nevertheless, during allthis time, the Japanese teachers of the Chinese ethic were as studentswho did but recite what they learned. They simply transmitted, withoutattempting to expand or improve. 

Though the apparatus of distribution was early known, block printinghaving been borrowed from the Chinese after the ninth century, andmovable types learned from the Koreans and made use of in the sixteenthcentury, [1] the Chinese classics were not printed as a body until afterthe great peace of Genna (1615). Nor during this period weretranslations made of the classics or commentaries, into the Japanesevernacular. Indeed, between the tenth and sixteenth centuries there waslittle direct intercourse, commercial, diplomatic or intellectual, between Japan and China, as compared with the previous eras, or thedecades since 1870. 

Suddenly in the seventeenth century the intellect of Japan, all readyfor new surprises in the profound peace inaugurated by Iyéyas[)u], received, as it were, an electric thrill. The great warrior, becomingfirst a unifier by arms and statecraft, determined also to become thearchitect of the national culture. Gathering up, from all parts of thecountry, books, manuscripts, and the appliances of intellectualdiscipline, he encouraged scholars and stimulated education. Under hissupervision the Chinese classics were printed, and were soon widelycirculated. A college was established in Yedo, and immediately therebegan a critical study of the texts and principal commentaries. The fallof the Ming dynasty in China, and the accession of the Manchiu Tartars, became the signal for a great exodus of learned Chinese, who fled toJapan. These received a warm welcome, both at the capital and in Yedo, as well as in some of the castle towns of the Daimi[=o]s, among whomstand illustrious those of the province of Mito. [2]

These men from the west brought not only ethics but philosophy; and thefertilizing influences of these scholars of the Dispersion, may belikened to those of the exodus of the Greek learned men after thecapture of Constantinople by the Turks. Confucian schools wereestablished in most of the chief provincial cities. For over two hundredyears this discipline in the Chinese ethics, literature and historyconstituted the education of the boys and men of Japan. Almost everymember of the Samurai classes was thoroughly drilled in this curriculum. All Japanese social, official, intellectual and literary life waspermeated with the new spirit. Their "world" was that of the Chinese, and all outside of it belonged to "barbarians. " The matrices of thoughtbecame so fixed and the Japanese language has been so moulded, that evennow, despite the intense and prolonged efforts of thirty years of acuteand laborious scholarship, it is impossible, as we have said, to findEnglish equivalents for terms which were used for a century or two pastin every-day Japanese speech. Those who know most about these facts, aremost modest in attempting with English words to do justice to Japanesethought; while those who know the least seem to be most glib, fluent andvoluminous in showing to their own satisfaction, that there is littledifference between the ethics of Chinese Asia and those of Christendom. 

Survey of the Intellectual History of China. 

The Confucianism of the last quarter-millennium in Japan is not that ofher early centuries. While the Japanese for a thousand years onlyrepeated and recited--merely talking aloud in their intellectual sleepbut not reflecting--China was awake and thinking hard. Japan's continuedcivil wars, which caused the almost total destruction of books andmanuscripts, secured also the triumph of Buddhism which meant theatrophy of the national intellect. When, after the long feuds andbattles of the middle ages, Confucianism stepped the second time intothe Land of _Brave_ Scholars, it was no longer with the simple rules ofconduct and ceremonial of the ancient days, nor was it as the ally ofBuddhism. It came like an armed man in full panoply of harness andweapons. It entered to drive Buddhism out, and to defend the intellectof the educated against the wiles of priestcraft. It was a full-blownsystem of pantheistic rationalism, with a scheme of philosophy that tothe far-Oriental mind seemed perfect as a rule both of faith andpractice. It came in a form that was received as religion, for it wasnot only morality "touched" but infused with motion. Nor were theemotions kindled, those of the partisan only, but rather also those ofthe devotee and the martyr. Henceforth Buddhism, with its inventions, its fables, and its endless dogmatism, was for the common people, forwomen and children, but not for the Samurai. The new Confucianism cameto Japan as the system of Chu Hi. For three centuries this system hadalready held sway over the intellect of China. For two centuries and ahalf it has dominated the minds of the Samurai so that the majority ofthem to-day, even with the new name Shizoku, are Confucianists so far asthey are anything. 

To understand the origin of Buddhism we must know something of thehistory and the previous religious and philosophical systems of India, and so, if we are to appreciate modern "orthodox" Confucianism, we mustreview the history of China, and see, in outline, at least, itsliterature, politics and philosophy during the middle ages. 

"Four great stages of literary and national development may be pointedto as intervening (in the fifteen hundred years) between the great sageand the age called that of the Sung-Ju, "[3] from the tenth to thefourteenth century, in which the Confucian system received its modernform. Each of them embraced the course of three or four centuries. 

I. From the sixth to the third century before Christ the struggle wasfor Confucian and orthodox doctrine, led by Mencius against variousspeculators in morals and politics, with Taoist doctrine continuallyincreasing in acceptance. 

II. The Han age (from B. C. 206 to A. D. 190) was rich in criticalexpositors and commentators of the classics, but "the tone ofspeculation was predominantly Taoist. "

III. The period of the Six Dynasties (from A. D. 221 to A. D. 618) was thegolden age of Buddhism, when the science and philosophy of Indiaenriched the Chinese mind, and the wealth of the country was lavished onBuddhist temples and monasteries. The faith of Shaka became nearlyuniversal and the Buddhists led in philosophy and literature, founding anative school of Indian philosophy. 

IV. The Tang period (from A. D. 618 to 905) marked by luxury and poetry, was an age of mental inaction and enervating prosperity. 

V. The fifth epoch, beginning with the Sung Dynasty (from A. D. 960 to1333) and lasting to our own time, was ushered in by a period of intensemental energy. Strange to say (and most interesting is the fact toAmericans of this generation), the immediate occasion of the recensionand expansion of the old Confucianism was a Populist movement. [4] Duringthe Tang era of national prosperity, Chinese socialists questioned thefoundations of society and of government, and there grew up a new schoolof interpreters as well as of politicians. In the tenth century thecontest between the old Confucianism and the new notions, broke out witha violence that threatened anarchy to the whole empire. 

One set of politicians, led by Wang (1021-1086), urged an extension ofadministrative functions, including agricultural loans, while thebrothers Cheng (1032-1085, 1033-1107) reaffirmed, with freshintellectual power, the old orthodoxy. 

The school of writers and party agitators, led by Szma Kwaug(1009-1086)[5] the historian, contended that the ancient principles ofthe sages should be put in force. Others, the Populists of that age andland, demanded the entire overthrow of existing institutions. 

In the bitter contest which ensued, the Radicals and Reformerstemporarily won the day and held power. For a decade the experiment ofinnovation was tried. Men turned things social and political upside downto see how they looked in that position. So these stood or oscillatedfor thirteen years, when the people demanded the old order again. TheConservatives rose to power. There was no civil war, but the Radicalswere banished beyond the frontier, and the country returned to normalgovernment. 

This controversy raised a landmark in the intellectual history ofChina. [6] The thoughts of men were turned toward deep and acute inquiryinto the nature and use of things in general. This thinking resulted ina literature which to-day is the basis of the opinions of the educatedmen in all Chinese Asia. Instead of a sapling we now have a mighty tree. The chief of the Chinese writers, the Calvin of Asiatic orthodoxy, whomay be said to have wrought Confucianism into a developed philosophy, and who may be called the greatest teacher of the mind, of modern China, Korea and Japan, is Chu Hi, who reverently adopted the criticisms on theChinese classics of the brothers Cheng. [7] It is evident that in ChuHi's system, we have a body of thought which may be called the result ofChinese reflection during a millennium and a half. It is the ethics ofConfucius transfused with the mystical elements of Taoism and thespeculations of Buddhism. As the common people of China made an amalgamof the three religions and consider them one, so the philosophers haveout of these three systems made one, calling that one Confucianism. Thedominant philosophy in Japan to-day is based upon the writings of Chu Hi(in Japanese, Shu Shi) and called the system of Téi-Shu, which is theJapanese pronunciation of the names of the Cheng brothers and of Chu(Hi). It is a medley which the ancient sage could no more recognize thanwould Jesus know much of the Christianity that casts out devils in hisname. 

Contrast between the Chinese and Japanese Intellect. 

Here we must draw a contrast between the Chinese and Japanese intellectto the credit of the former; China made, Japan borrowed. While historyshows that the Chinese mind, once at least, possessed mental initiative, and the power of thinking out a system of philosophy which to-daysatisfies largely, if not wholly, the needs of the educated Chinaman, there has been in the Japanese mind, as shown by its history, apparentlyno such vigor or fruitfulness. From the literary and philosophicalpoints of view, Confucianism, as it entered Japan, in the sixth century, remained practically stationary for a thousand years. Modifications, indeed, were made upon the Chinese system, and these were striking andprofound, but they were less developments of the intellect thannecessities of the case. The modifications were made, as molten metalpoured into a mould shaped by other hands than the artist's own, ratherthan as clay made plastic under the hand of a designer. Buddhism, beingthe dominant force in the thoughts of the Japanese for at least eighthundred years, furnished the food for the requirements of man on hisintellectual and religious side. 

Broadly speaking, it may be said that the Japanese, receiving passivelythe Chinese classics, were content simply to copy and to recite whatthey had learned. As compared with their audacity in not only goingbeyond the teachings of Buddha, but in inventing systems of Buddhismwhich neither Gautama nor his first disciples could recognize, thedocile and almost slavish adherence to ancient Confucianism is one ofthe astonishing things in the history of religions in Japan. In thefield of Buddhism we have a luxuriant growth of new and strange speciesof colossal weeds that overtower and seem to have choked out whateverfurze of original Buddhism there was in Japan, while in the domain ofConfucianism there is a barren heath. Whereas, in China, the voluminousliterature created by commentators on Confucius and the commentaries onthe commentators suggests the hyperbole used by the author of John'sGospel, [8] yet there is probably nothing on Confucianism from theJapanese pen in the thousand years under our review which is worth thereading or the translation. [9] In this respect the Japanese geniusshowed its vast capabilities of imitation, adoption and assimilation. 

As of old, Confucianism again furnished a Chinese wall, within which theJapanese could move, and wherein they might find food for the mind inall the relations of life and along all the lines of achievementpermitted them. The philosophy imported from China, as shown again andagain in that land of oft-changing dynasties, harmonizing with arbitrarygovernment, accorded perfectly with the despotism of the Tokugawas, the"Tycoons" who in Yedo ruled from 1603 to 1868. Nothing new waspermitted, and any attempt at modification, enlargement, or improvementwas not only frowned and hissed down as impious innovation, but usuallybrought upon the daring innovator the ban of the censor, imprisonment, banishment, or death by enforced suicide. [10] In Yedo, the centre ofChinese learning, and in other parts of the country, there were, indeed, thinkers whose philosophy did not always tally with what was taught bythe orthodox, [11] but as a rule even when these men escaped the ban ofthe censor, or the sword of the executioner, they were but us voicescrying in the wilderness. The great mass of the gentry was orthodox, according to the standards of the Séido College, while the common peopleremained faithful to Buddhism. In the conduct of daily life theyfollowed the precepts which had for centuries been taught them by theirfathers. 

Philosophical Confucianism the Religion of the Samurai. 

What were the features of this modern Confucian philosophy, which theJapanese Samurai exalted to a religion?[12] We say philosophy andreligion, because while the teachings of the great sage lay at thebottom of the system, yet it is not true since the early seventeenthcentury, that the thinking men of Japan have been satisfied with onlythe original simple ethical rules of the ancient master. Though theyhave craved a richer mental pabulum, yet they have enjoyed less thestudy of the original text, than acquaintance with the commentaries andcommunion with the great philosophical exponents, of the master. What, then, we ask, are the features of the developed philosophy, which, imported from China, served the Japanese Samurai not only as morals butfor such religion as he possessed or professed?

We answer: The system was not agnostic, as many modern and westernwriters assert that it is, and as Confucius, transmitting and probablymodifying the old religion, had made the body of his teachings to be. Agnostic, indeed, in regard to many things wherein a Christian hasfaith, modern Confucianism, besides being bitterly polemic and hostileto Buddhism, is pantheistic. 

Certain it is that during the revival of Pure Shint[=o] in theeighteenth century, the scholars of the Shint[=o] school, and those ofits great rival, the Chinese, agreed in making loyalty[13] take theplace of filial duty in the Confucian system. To serve the cause of theEmperor became the most essential duty to those with cultivated minds. The newer Chinese philosophy mightily influenced the historians, RaiSanyo and those of the Mito school, whose works, now classic, reallybegan the revolution of 1868. By forming and setting in motion thepublic opinion, which finally overthrew the Sh[=o]gun and feudalism, restored the Emperor to supreme power, and unified the nation, theyhelped, with modern ideas, to make the New Japan of our day. TheShint[=o] and the Chinese teachings became amalgamated in a commoncause, and thus the philosophy of Chu Hi, mingling with the nationalismand patriotism inculcated by Shint[=o], brought about a remarkableresult. As a native scholar and philosopher observes, "It certainly isstrange to see the Tokugawa rule much shaken, if not actuallyoverthrown, by that doctrine which generations of able Sh[=o]guns andtheir ministers had earnestly encouraged and protected. It is perhapsstill more remarkable to see the Mito clan, under many able and activechiefs, become the centre of the Kinno[14] movement, which was to resultin the overthrow of the Tokugawa family, of which it was itself abranch. "

A Medley of Pantheism. 

The philosophy of modern Confucianism is wholly pantheistic. There is init no such thing or being as God. The orthodox pantheism of Old Japanmeans that everything in general is god, but nothing in particular isGod; that All is god, but not that God is all. It is a "pantheisticmedley. "[15]

Chu Hi and his Japanese successors, especially Ky[=u]-so, argue finelyand discourse volubly about _Ki_[16] or spirit; but it is not Spirit, orspiritual in the sense of Him who taught even a woman at the well-curbat Sychar. It is in the air. It is in the earth, the trees, the flowers. It comes to consciousness in man. His _Ri_ is the Tao of Lao Tsze, theWay, Reason, Law. It is formless, invisible. 

 "Ri is not separate from Ki, for then it were an empty abstract thing. It is joined to Ki, and may be called, by nature, one decreed, changeless Norm. It is the rule of Ki, the very centre, the reason why Ki is Ki. "

Ten or Heaven is not God or the abode of God, but an abstraction, a sortof Unknowable, or Primordial Necessity. 

 "The doctrine of the Sages knows and worships Heaven, and without faith in it there is no truth. For men and things, the universe, are born and nourished by Heaven, and the 'Way, ' the 'ri, ' that is in all, is the 'Way, ' the 'ri' of Heaven. Distinguishing root and branch, the heart is the root of Heaven and the appearance, the revolution of the sun and moon, the order of the stars, is the branch. The books of the sages teach us to conform to the heart of Heaven and deal not with appearances. "

 "The teaching of the sages is the original truth and, given to men, it forms both their nature and their relationships. With it complete, naught else is needed for the perfect following of the 'Way. ' Let then the child make its parents Heaven, the retainer, his Lord, the wife her husband, and let each give up life for righteousness. Thus will each serve for Heaven. But if we exalt Heaven above parent or Lord, we shall come to think we can serve it though they be disobeyed and like tiger or wolf shall rejoice to kill them. To such fearful end does the Western learning lead. .. . Let each one die for duty, there is naught else we can do. "

Thus wrote Ohashi Junzo, as late as 1857 A. D. , the same year in whichTownsend Harris entered Yedo to teach the practical philosophy ofChristendom, and the brotherhood of man as expressed in diplomacy. Ohashi Junzo bitterly opposed the opening of Japan to moderncivilization and the ideas of Christendom. His book was the swan-song ofthe dying Japanese Confucianism. Slow as is the dying, and hard as itsdeath may be, the mind of new Japan has laid away to dust and oblivionthe Téi-shu philosophy. "At present they (the Chinese classics) havefallen into almost total neglect, though phrases and allusions borrowedfrom them still pass current in literature, and even to some extent inthe language of every-day life. " Séido, the great temple of Confucius inTokyo, is now utilized as an educational Museum. [17]

A study of this subject and of comparative religion, is of immediatepractical benefit to the Christian teacher. The preacher, addressing anaudience made up of educated Japanese, who speaks of God withoutdescribing his personality, character, or attributes as illustrated inRevelation, will find that his hearers receive his term as theexpression for a bundle of abstract principles, or a system of laws, orsome kind of regulated force. They do, indeed, make some reference to a"creator" by using a rare word. Occasionally, their language seems totouch the boundary line on the other side of which is consciousintelligence, but nothing approaching the clearness and definiteness ofthe early Chinese monotheism of the pre-Confucian classics is to bedistinguished. [18] The modern Japanese long ago heard joyfully thewords, "Honor the gods, but keep them far from you, " and he has done it. 

To love God would no more occur to a Japanese gentleman than to have hischild embrace and kiss him. Whether the source and fountain of life ofwhich they speak has any Divine Spirit, is very uncertain, but whetherit has, or has not, man need not obey, much less worship him. Theuniverse is one, the essence is the same. Man must seek to know hisplace in the universe; he is but one in an endless chain; let him findhis part and fulfil that part; all else is vanity. One need not inquireinto the origins or the ultimates. Man is moved by a power greater thanhimself; he has no real independence of his own; everything has its rankand place; indeed, its rank and place is its sole title to a separateexistence. If a man mistakes his place he is a fool, he deservespunishment. 

The Ideals of a Samurai. 

Out of his place, man is not man. Duty is more important than being. Nearly everything in our life is fixed by fate; there may seem to beexceptions, because some wicked men are prosperous and some righteousmen are wretched, but these are not real exceptions to the general rulethat we are made for our environment and fitted to it. And then, again, it may be that our judgments are not correct. Let the heart be right andall is well. Let man be obedient and his outward circumstance isnothing, having no relation to his joy or happiness. Even when as to hisearthly body man passes away, he is not destroyed; the drop againbecomes part of the sea, the spark re-enters the flame, and his lifecontinues, though it be not a conscious life. In this way man is inharmony with the original principle of all things. He outlasts theuniverse itself. 

Hence to a conscientious Samurai there is nothing in this world betterthan obedience, in the ideal of a true man. What he fears most and hatesmost is that his memory may perish, that he shall have no seed, that heshall be forgotten or die under a cloud and be thought treacherous orcowardly or base, when in reality his life was pure and his motiveshigh. "Better, " sang Yoshida Shoin, the dying martyr for his principles, "to be a crystal and to be broken, than to be a tile upon the housetopand remain. "

So, indeed, on a hundred curtained execution grounds, with the dirk ofthe suicide firmly grasped and about to shed their own life-blood, havesung the martyrs who died willingly for their faith in their idea ofYamato Damashii. [19] In untold instances in the national history, menhave died willingly and cheerfully, and women also by thousands, asbrave, as unflinching as the men, so that the story of Japanese chivalryis almost incredible in its awful suicides. History reveals a state ofsociety in which cool determination, desperate courage and fearlessnessof death in the face of duty were quite unique, and which must have hadtheir base in some powerful though abnormal code of ethics. 

This leads us to consider again the things emphasized by Japanese asdistinct from Chinese and Korean[20] Confucianism, and to call attentionto its fruits, while at the same time we note its defects, and showwherein it failed. We shall then show how this old system has alreadywaxed old and is passing away. Christ has come to Japan, and behold anew heaven and a new earth!

New Japan Makes Revision. 

First. For sovereign and minister, there are coming into vogue newinterpretations. This relation, if it is to remain as the first, willbecome that of the ruler and the ruled. Constitutional government hasbegun; and codes of law have been framed which are recognizing therights of the individual and of the people. Even a woman has rightsbefore the law, in relation to husband, parents, brothers, sisters andchildren. It is even beginning to be thought that children have rights. Let us hope that as the rights are better understood the duties will beequally clear. 

It is coming to pass in Japan that even in government, the sovereignmust consult with his people on all questions pertaining to theirwelfare. Although, thus far the constitutional government makes theministers responsible to the Sovereign instead of to the Diet, yet thecontention of the enlightened men and the liberal parties is, that theministers shall be responsible to the Diet. The time seems at hand whenthe sovereign's power over his people will not rest on traditions moreor less uncertain, on history manufactured by governmental order, onmythological claims based upon the so-called "eternal ages, " onprerogatives upheld by the sword, or on the supposed grace of the gods, but will be "broad-based upon the people's will. " The power of therulers will be derived from the consent of the governed. The Emperorwill become the first and chief servant of the nation. 

Revision and improvement of the Second Relation will make filial pietysomething more real than that unto which China has attained, or Japanhas yet seen, or which is yet universally known in Christendom. Thetyranny of the father and of the older brother, and the sale ofdaughters to shame, will pass away; and there will arise in the Japanesehouse, the Christian home. 

It would be hard to say what Confucianism has done for woman. It isprobable that all civilizations, and systems of philosophy, ethics andreligion, can be well tested by this criterion--the position of woman. Confucianism virtually admits two standards of morality, one for man, another for woman. [21] In Chinese Asia adultery is indeed branded as oneof the vilest of crimes, but in common idea and parlance it is a woman'scrime, not man's. So, on the other hand, chastity is a female virtue, itis part of womanly duty, it has little or no relation to man personally. Right revision and improvement of the Third Relation will abolishconcubinage. It will reform divorce. It will make love the basis ofmarriage. It will change the state of things truthfully pictured in suchbooks as the Genji Monogatari, or Romance of Prince Genji, with itsexamples of horrible lust and incests; the Kojiki or Ethnic scripture, with its naïve accounts of filthiness among the gods; the Onna Dai Gaku, Woman's Great Study, with its amazing subordination and moral slavery ofwife and daughter; and The Japanese Bride, of yesterday--all truthfulpictures of Japanese life, for the epoch in which each was written. These books will become the forgotten curiosities of literature, knownonly to the archæologist. 

Improvement and revision of the Fourth Relation, will bring into theJapanese home more justice, righteousness, love and enjoyment of life. It will make possible, also, the cheerful acceptance and glad practiceof those codes of law common in Christendom, which are based upon therights of the individual and upon the idea of the greatest good to thegreatest number. It will help to abolish the evils which come fromprimogeniture and to release the clutch of the dead hand upon theliving. It will decrease the power of the graveyard, and make thoughtand care for the living the rule of life. It will abolish sham andfiction, and promote the cause of truth. It will hasten the reign ofrighteousness and love, and beneath propriety and etiquette lay thebasis of "charity toward all, malice toward none. "

Revision with improvement of the Fifth Relation hastens the reign ofuniversal brotherhood. It lifts up the fallen, the down-trodden and theoutcast. It says to the slave "be free, " and after having said "befree, " educates, trains, and lifts up the brother once in servitude, andhelps him to forget his old estate and to know his rights as well as hisduties, and develops in him the image of God. It says to the hinin ornot-human, "be a man, be a citizen, accept the protection of the law. "It says to the eta, "come into humanity and society, receive theprotection of law, and the welcome of your fellows; let memory forgetthe past and charity make a new future. " It will bring Japan into thefraternity of nations, making her people one with the peoples ofChristendom, not through the empty forms of diplomacy, or by the craftof her envoys, or by the power of her armies and navies reconstructed onmodern principles, but by patient education and unflinching loyalty tohigh ideals. Thus will Japan become worthy of all the honors, which thehighest humanity on this planet can bestow. 

The Ideal of Yamato Damashii Enlarged. 

In this our time it is not only the alien from Christendom, with hishostile eye and mordant criticism, who is helping to undermine thatsystem of ethics which permitted the sale of the daughter to shame, theintroduction of the concubine into the family and the reduction ofwoman, even though wife and mother, to nearly a cipher. It is not onlythe foreigner who assaults that philosophy which glorified the vendetta, kept alive private war, made revenge in murder the sweetest joy of theSamurai and suicide the gate to honor and fame, subordinated the familyto the house, and suppressed individuality and personality. It is thenative Japanese, no longer a hermit, a "frog in the well, that knows notthe great ocean" but a student, an inquirer, and a critic, who assaultsthe old ethical and philosophical system, and calls for a new waybetween heaven and earth, and a new kind of Heaven in which shall be aCreator, a Father and a Saviour. The brain and pen of New Japan, as wellas its heart, demand that the family shall be more than the house andthat the living members shall have greater rights as well as duties, than the dead ancestors. They claim that the wife shall shareresponsibility with the husband, and that the relation of husband andwife shall take precedence of that of the father and son; that themother shall possess equal authority with the father; that the wife, whether she be mother or not, shall not be compelled to share her homewith the concubine; and that the child in Japan shall be born in thehome and not in the herd. The sudden introduction of the Christian ideasof personality and individuality has undoubtedly wrought peril to theframework of a society which is built according to the Confucianprinciples; but faith in God, love in the home, and absolute equalitybefore the law will bring about a reign of righteousness such as Japanhas never known, but toward the realization of which Christian nationsare ever advancing. 

Even the old ideal of the Samurai embodied in the formula YamatoDamashii will be enlarged and improved from its narrow limits andferocious aspects, when the tap-root of all progress is allowed tostrike into deeper truth, and the Sixth Relation, or rather the firstrelation of all, is taught, namely, that of God to Man, and of Man toGod. That this relation is understood, and that the Samurai ideal, purified and enlarged, is held by increasing numbers of Japan'sbrightest men and noblest women, is shown in that superb Christianliterature which pours from the pens of the native men and women in theJapanese Christian churches. Under this flood of truth the old obstaclesto a nobler society are washed away, while out of the enriched soilrises the new Japan which is to be a part of the better Christendom thatis to come. Christ in Japan, as everywhere, means not destruction, butfulfilment. 

CHAPTER VI - THE BUDDHISM OF NORTHERN ASIA

 "Life is a dream is what the pilgrim learns, Nor asks for more, but straightway home returns. " --Japanese medieval lyric drama. 

 "The purpose of Buddha's preaching was to bring into light the permanent truth, to reveal the root of all suffering and thus to lead all sentient beings into the perfect emancipation from all passions. "--Outlines of the Mahayana. 

 "Buddhism will stand forth as the embodiment of the eternal verity that as a man sows he will reap, associated with the duties of mastery over self and kindness to all men, and quickened into a popular religion by the example of a noble and beautiful life. "--Dharmapala of Ceylon. 

 "Buddhism teaches the right path of cause and effect, and nothing which can supersede the idea of cause and effect will be accepted and believed. Buddha himself cannot contradict this law which is the Buddha, of Buddhas, and no omnipotent power except this law is believed to be existent in the universe. 

 "Buddhism does not quarrel with other religions about the truth . .. Buddhism is truth common to every religion regardless of the outside garment. "--Horin Toki, of Japan. 

 "Death we can face; but knowing, as some of us do, what is human life, which of us is it that without shuddering could (if we were summoned) face the hour of birth?" -De Quinccy. 

 The prayer of Buddhism, "Deliver us from existence. " The prayer of the Christian, "Deliver us from evil. "

 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. "--Genesis. 

 "I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. "--Jesus. 

CHAPTER VI - THE BUDDHISM OF NORTHERN ASIA

Pre-Buddhistic India. 

Does the name of Gautama, the Buddha, stand for a sun-myth or for ahistoric personage? One set of scholars and writers, represented byProfessor Kern, [1] of Leyden, thinks the Buddha a mythical personage. Another school, represented by Professor T. Rhys Davids, [2] declaresthat he lived in human flesh and breathed the air of earth. We acceptthe historical view as best explaining the facts. 

In order to understand a religion, in its origin at least, we must knowsome of the conditions out of which it arose. Buddhism is one of theprotestantisms of the world. Yet, is not every religion, in one sense, protestant? Is it not a protest against something to which it opposes adifference? Every new religion, like a growing plant, ignores or rejectscertain elements in the soil out of which it springs. It takes up andassimilates, also, other elements not used before, in order to produce aflower or fruit different from other growths out of the same soil. Yetwhether the new religion be considered as a development, fulfilment, orprotest, we must know its historical perspective or background. Tounderstand the origin of Buddhism, one of the best preparations is toread the history of India and especially of the thought of her manygenerations; for the landmarks of the civilizations of India, as a Hindumay proudly say, are its mighty literatures. At these let us glance. [3]

The age of the Vedas extends from the year 2000 to 1400 B. C. , and thehistory of this early India is wonderfully like that of America. Duringthis era, the Hindus, one of the seven Aryan tribes of which thePersian, Greek, Latin, Celtic, Sclav and Teutonic form the other six, descending from the mid-Asian plateau, settled the Punjab in NorthwestIndia. They drove the dark-skinned aborigines before them and reclaimedforest and swamp to civilization, making the land of the seven riversbright with agriculture and brilliant with cities. This was the gloriousheroic age of joyous life and conquest, when men who believed in aHeavenly Father[4] made the first epoch of Hindu history. 

Then followed the epic age, 1400-1000 B. C. , when the area ofcivilization was extended still farther down the Ganges Valley, thesplendor of wealth, learning, military prowess and social life excellingthat of the ancestral seats in the Punjab. Amid differences of wars anddiplomacy with rivalries and jealousies, a common sacred language, literature and religion with similar social and religious institutions, united the various nations together. In this time the old Vedas werecompiled into bodies or collections, and the Brahmanas and theUpanishads, besides the great epic poems, the Mahabharata and theRamayana were composed. 

The next, or rationalistic epoch, covers the period from 1000 B. C. To320 B. C. , when the Hindu expansion had covered all India, that is, thepeninsula from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Then, all India, includingCeylon, was Hinduized, though in differing degrees; the purest Aryancivilization being in the north, the less pure in the Ganges Valley andsouth and east, while the least Aryan and more Dravidian was in Bengal, Orissa, and India south of the Kistna River. 

This story of the spread of Hindu civilization is a brilliant one, andseems as wonderful as the later European conquest of the land, and ofthe other "Indians" of North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Beside the conquests in material civilization of these our fellow-Aryans(who were the real Indians, and who spoke the language which is thecommon ancestor of our own and of most European tongues), what impressesus most of all, in these Aryans, is their intellectual energy. TheHindus of the rationalistic age made original discoveries. They inventedgrammar, geometry, arithmetic, decimal notation, and they elaboratedastronomy, medicine, mental philosophy and logic (with syllogism) beforethese sciences were known or perfected in Greece. In the seventh centurybefore Christ, Kapila taught a system of philosophy, of which that ofthe Europeans, Schopenhaur and Hartmann, seems largely a reproduction. 

Following this agnostic scheme of thought, came, several centurieslater, the dualistic Yoga[5] system in which the chief feature is theconception of Deity as a means of final emancipation of the human soulfrom further transmigration, and of union with the Universal Spirit orWorld Soul. There is, however, perhaps no sadder chapter in the historyof human thought than the story of the later degeneration of the Yogasystem into one of bloody and cruel rites in India, and of superstitionin China. 

Still other systems followed: one by Gautama, of the same clan or familyof the later Buddha, who develops inference by the construction ofsyllogism; while Kanada follows the atomic philosophy in which the atomsare eternal, but the aggregates perishable by disintegration. 

Against these schools, which seemed to be dangerous "new departures, "orthodox Hindus, anxious for their ancient beliefs and practices as laiddown in the Vedas, started fresh systems of philosophy, avowedly more inconsonances with their ancestral faith. One system insisted on theprimitive Vedic ritual, and another laid emphasis on the belief in aUniversal Soul first inculcated in the Upanishads. 

Conditions out of which Buddhism Arose. 

Whatever we may think of these schools of philosophy, or the connectionwith or indebtedness of Gautama, the Buddha, to them, they reveal to usthe conceptions which his contemporaries had of the universe and thebeings inhabiting it. These were honest human attempts to find God. Inthem the various beings or six conditions of sentient existence aredevas or gods; men; asuras or monsters; pretas or demons; animals; andbeings in hell. Furthermore, these schools of Hindu philosophy show usthe conditions out of which Buddhism arose, furnish us with itsterminology and technical phrases, reveal to us what the reformerproposed to himself to do, and, what is perhaps still more important, show us the types to which Buddhism in its degeneration and degradationreverted. The strange far-off oriental words which today scholarsdiscuss, theosophists manipulate, and charlatans employ as catchpennieswere common words in the every-day speech of the Hindu people, two orthree thousand years ago. 

Glancing rapidly at the condition of religion in the era ushering in thebirth of Buddha, we note that the old joyousness of life manifested inthe Vedic hymns is past, their fervor and glow are gone. In the morningof Hindu life there was no caste, no fixed priesthood, and no idols; butas wealth, civilization, easy and settled life succeeded, the taste forpompous sacrifices conducted by an hereditary priestly caste increased. Greater importance was laid upon the detail of the ceremonies, theattention of the worshipper being turned from the deities "to theminutiæ of rites, the erection of altars, the fixing of the properastronomical moments for lighting the fire, the correct pronunciation ofprayers, and to the various requisite acts accompanying a sacrifice. "[6]In the chapter of decay which time wrote and literature reflects, wefind "grotesque reasons given for every minute rite, dogmaticexplanation of texts, penances for every breach of form and rule, andelaborate directions for every act and moment of the worshipper. "

The literature shows a degree of credulity and submission on the part ofthe people and of absolute power on the part of the priests, whichreminds us of the Middle Ages in Europe. The old inspiring wars with theaborigines are over. The time of bearing a noble creed, meaning cultureand civilization as against savagery and idolatry, is past, and onlyintestine quarrels and local strife have succeeded. The age of creativeliterature is over, and commentators, critics and grammarians havesucceeded. Still more startling are the facts disclosed by literaryhistory. The liquid poetry has become frozen prose; the old flaming fuelof genius is now slag and ashes. We see Hindus doing exactly what Jewishrabbis, and after them Christian schoolmen and dogma-makers, did withthe old Hebrew poems and prophecies. Construing literally the prayers, songs and hopes of an earlier age, they rebuild the letter of the textinto creeds and systems, and erect an amazing edifice of steel-framedand stone-cased tradition, to challenge which is taught to be heresy andimpiety. The poetical similes used in the Rig Vedas have beentransformed into mythological tales. In the change of language the Vedasthemselves are unreadable, except by the priests, who fatten on popularbeliefs in the transmigration of souls and in the power of priestcraftto make that transmigration blissful--provided liberal gifts are dulyforthcoming. Idolatry and witchcraft are rampant. Some saviour, somelight was needed. 

Buddhism a Logical Product of Hindu Thought. 

At such a time, probably 557 B. C. , was born Shaka, of the Muni clan, atKapilavastu, one hundred miles northeast of Benares. We pass over thedetails[7] of the life of him called Prince, Lord, Lion of the Tribe ofShaka, and Saviour; of his desertion of wife and child, called the firstGreat Renunciation; of his struggles to obtain peace; of hisenlightenment or Buddhahood; of his second or Greater Renunciation; ofmerit on account of austerities; and give the story told in a mountainof books in various tongues, but condensed in a paragraph by RomeshChunder Dutt. 

 "At an early age, Prince Gautama left his royal home, and his wife, and new-born child, and became a wanderer and a mendicant, to seek a way of salvation for man. Hindu rites, accompanied by the slaughter of innocent victims, repelled his feelings. Hindu philosophy afforded him no remedy, and Hindu penances and mortifications proved unavailing after he had practised them for years. At last, by severe contemplation, he discovered the long coveted truth; a holy and calm life, and benevolence and love toward all living creatures seemed to him the essence of religion. Self-culture and universal love--this was his discovery--this is the essence of Buddhism. "[8]

From one point of view Buddhism was the logical continuance of AryanHindoo philosophy; from another point of view it was a new departure. The leading idea in the Upanishads is that the object of the wise manshould be to know, inwardly and consciously, the Great Soul of all; andby this knowledge his individual soul would become united to the SupremeBeing, the true and absolute self. This was the highest point reached inthe old Indian philosophy[9] before Buddha was born. 

So, looking at Buddhism in the perspective of Hindu history and thought, we may say that it is doubtful whether Gautama intended to found a newreligion. As, humanly speaking, Saul of Tarsus saved Christianity frombeing a Jewish sect and made it universal, so Gautama extricated the newenthusiasm of humanity from the priests. He made Aryan religion theproperty of all India. What had been a rare monopoly as narrow asJudaism, he made the inheritance of all Asia. Gautama was a protestantand a reformer, not an agnostic or skeptic. It is more probable that hemeant to shake off Brahmanism and to restore the pure and original formof the Aryan religion of the Vedas, as far as it was possible to do so. In one sense, Buddhism was a revolt against hereditary and sacerdotalprivilege--an attack of the people against priestcraft. The Buddha andhis disciples were levellers. In a different age and clime, but along asimilar path, they did a work analogous to that of the so-calledAnabaptists in Europe and Independents in England, centuries later. 

It is certain, however, that Buddhism has grown logically out of ancientHinduism. In its monastic feature--one of its most strikingcharacteristics--we see only the concentration and reduction to system, of the old life of the ascetics and religious mendicants recognized andrespected by Hinduism. For centuries the Buddhist monks and nuns wereregarded in India as only a new sect of ascetics, among many otherswhich flourished in the land. 

The Buddhist doctrine of karma, or in Japanese, _ingwa_, of cause andeffect, whereby it is taught that each effect in this life springs froma cause in some previous incarnation, and that each act in this lifebears its fruit in the next, has grown directly out of the Hindu idea ofthe transmigration of souls. This idea is first inculcated in theUpanishads, and is recognized in Hindu systems of philosophy. 

So also the Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana, or the attainment of a sinlessstate of existence, has grown out of the idea of final union of theindividual soul with the Universal Soul, which is also inculcated in theUpanishads. Yet, as we shall see, the Buddhists were, in the eyes of theBrahmans, atheists, because in the ken of these new levellers gods andmen were put on the same plane. Brahmanism has never forgiven Buddhismfor ignoring the gods, and the Hindoos finally drove out the followersof Gautama from India. It eventuated that after a millenium or so ofBuddhism in India, the old gods, Brahma, Indra, etc. , which at first hadbeen shut out from the ken of the people, by Gautama, found their placesagain in the popular faith of the Buddhists, who believed that the godsas well as men, were all progressing toward the blessed Nirvana--thatsinless life and holy calm, which is the Buddhist's heaven andsalvation. 

It is certainly very curious, and in a sense amusing, to findflourishing in far-off Japan the old gods of India, that one wouldsuppose to have been utterly dead and left behind in oblivion. Asacknowledged devas or kings and bodhisattvas or soon-to-be Buddhas, nota few once defunct Hindu gods, utterly unknown to early Buddhism, haveforced their way into the company of the elect. Though most of them havenot gained the popularity of the indigenous deities of Nippon, they yetattract many worshippers. They remind one that amid the coming of thesons of Elohim before Jehovah, "the satan" came also. [10]

From another point of view Buddhism was a new religion; for it sweptaway and out of the field of its vision the whole of the World orUniversal Soul theory. "It proclaimed a salvation which each man couldgain for himself and by himself, in this world during this life, withoutthe least reference to God, or to gods, either great or small. " "Itplaced the first importance on knowledge; but it was no longer aknowledge of God, it was a clear perception of the real nature as theysupposed it to be of men and things. " In a word, Gautama never reachedthe idea of a personal self-existent God, though toward that truth hegroped. He was satisfied too soon. [11] His followers were even moreeasily satisfied with abstractions. When Gautama saw the power over thehuman heart of inward culture and of love to others, he obtained peace, he rested on certainty, he became the Buddha, that is, the enlightened. Perhaps he was not the first Buddhist. It may be that the historicalGautama, if so he is worthy to be called, merely made the sect or thenew religion famous. Hardly a religion in the full sense of the word, Buddhism did not assume the rôle of theology, but sought only to knowmen and things. In one sense Buddhism is atheism, or rather, atheistichumanism. In one sense, also, the solution of the mystery of God, oflife, and of the universe, which Gautama and his followers attained, wasone of skepticism rather than of faith. Buddhism is, relatively, a verymodern religion; it is one of the new faiths. Is it paradoxical to saythat the Buddhists are "religious atheists?"

The Buddhist Millennium in India. 

Let us now look at the life of the Founder. Day after day, thepure-souled teacher attracted new disciples while he with alms-bowl wentaround as mendicant and teacher. Salvation merely by self-control, andlove without any rites, ceremonies, charms, priestly powers, gods ormiracles, formed the burden of his teachings. "Thousands of people lefttheir homes, embraced the holy order and became monks, ignoring caste, and relinquishing all worldly goods except the bare necessaries of life, which they possessed and enjoyed in common. " Probably the first monastic_system_ of the world, was that of the Indian Buddhists. 

The Buddha preached the good news during forty-five years. After hisdeath, five hundred of his followers assembled at Rajagriha and chantedtogether the teachings of Gautama, to fix them in memory. A hundredyears later, in 377 B. C. , came the great schism among the Buddhists, outof which grew the divisions known as Northern and Southern Buddhism. There was disagreement on ten points. A second council was thereforecalled, and the disputed points determined to the satisfaction of oneside. Thereupon the seceders went away in large numbers, and thedifferences were never healed; on the contrary, they have widened in thecourse of ages. 

The separatists began what may be called the Northern Buddhisms ofNepal, Tibet, China, Korea and Japan. The orthodox or Southern Buddhistsare those of Ceylon, Burma and Siam. The original canon of SouthernBuddhism is in Pali; that of Northern Buddhism is in Sanskrit. The oneis comparatively small and simple; the other amazingly varied andvoluminous. The canon of Southern scripture is called the Hinayana, theLittle or Smaller Vehicle; the canon of Northern Buddhism is named theMahayana or Great Vehicle. Possibly, also, besides the Southern andNorthern Buddhisms, the Buddhism of Japan may be treated by itself andnamed Eastern Buddhism. 

In the great council called in 242 B. C. , by King Asoka, who may betermed the Constantine of Buddhism, the sacred texts were again chanted. It was not until the year 88 B. C. In Ceylon, six hundred years afterGautama, that the three Pitakas, Boxes or Baskets, were committed towriting in the Pali language. In a word, Buddhism knows nothing ofsacred documents or a canon of scripture contemporary with its firstdisciples. 

The splendid Buddhist age of India lasted nearly a thousand years, andwas one of superb triumphs in civilization. It was an age of spiritualemancipation, of freedom from idol worship, of nobler humanity and ofpeace. [12] It was followed by the Puranic epoch and the dark ages. ThenBuddhism was, as some say, "driven out" from the land of its birth, finding new expansion in Eastern and Northern Asia, and again, a stillmore surprising development in the ultima-Thule of the Asiaticcontinent, Japan. There is now no Buddhism in India proper, the faithbeing represented only in Ceylon and possibly also on the main land, bythe sect of the Jains, and peradventure in Persia by Babism whichcontains elements from three religions. [13] Like Christianity, Buddhismwas "driven out" of its old home to bless other nations of the world. Itis probably far nearer the truth to say that Buddhism was never expelledfrom India, but rather that it died by disintegration and relapse. [14]It had become Brahmanism again. The old gods and the old idol-worshipcame back. It is in Japan that the ends of the earth, eastern andwestern civilization, and the freest and fullest or at least the latestdevelopments of Christianity and of Buddhism, have met. 

In its transfer to distant lands and its developments throughout EasternAsia, the faith which had originated in India suffered many changes. Dividing into two great branches, it became a notably different religionaccording as it moved along the southern, the northern, or the easternchannel. By the vehicle of the Pali language it was carried to Ceylon, Siam, Burma, Cambodia and the islands of the south; that is, to southernor peninsular and insular Asia. Here there is little evidence of anystriking departure from the doctrines of the Pali Pitakas; and, asSouthern Buddhism does not greatly concern us in speaking of thereligions of Japan, we may pass it by. For although the books andwritings belonging to Southern Buddhism, and comprehended under theformula of the Hinayana or Smaller Vehicle, have been studied in China, Korea and Japan, yet they have had comparatively little influence upondoctrinal, ritualistic, or missionary development in Chinese Asia. 

Astonishingly different has been the case with the Northern Buddhismswhich are those of Nepal, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Korea andJapan. As luxuriant as the evolutions of political and dogmaticChristianity and as radical in their departures from the primitivesimplicity of the faith, have been these forms of Buddhist doctrine, ritual and organization. We cannot now dwell upon the wonderful detailsof the vast and complicated system, differing so much in variouscountries. We pass by, or only glance at, the philosophy of the Punjaub;the metaphysics of Nepal--with its developments into what some writersconsider to be a close approach to monotheism, and others, indeed, monotheism itself; the system of Lamaism in Tibet, which has paralleledso closely the development of the papal hierarchy; the possibly twothousand years' growth and decay of Chinese Buddhism; the varieties ofthe Buddhism of Mongolia--almost swamped in the Shamanisticsuperstitions of these dwellers on the plains; the astonishing success, quick ripening, decay, and almost utter annihilation, among the learnedand governing classes, of Korean Buddhism;[15] and study in detail onlyEastern or Japanese Buddhism. 

We shall in this lecture attempt but two things:

I. A summary of the process of thought by which the chief features ofthe Northern Buddhisms came into view. 

II. An outline of the story of Japanese Buddhism during the first threecenturies of its existence. 

The Development of Northern Buddhism

Leaving the early Buddha legends and the solid ground of history, themakers of the newer Buddhist doctrines in Nepal occupied themselves withdeveloping the theory of Buddhahood and of the Buddhas;[16] for we mustever remember that Buddha[17] is not a proper name, but a commonadjective meaning enlightened, from the root to know, perceive, etc. They made constant and marvellous additions to the primitive doctrine, giving it a momentum which gathered force as the centuries went on; and, as propaganda, it moved against the sun. 

This development theory ran along the line of _personification_. Notbeing satisfied with "the wheel of the law, " it personified both the huband the spokes. It began with the spirit of kindness out of which allhuman virtues rise, and by the power of which the Buddhist organizationwill conquer all sin and unbelief and become victorious throughout theworld. This personification is called the Maitreya Buddha, theunconquerable one, or the future Buddha of benevolence, the Buddha whois yet to come. Here was a tremendous and revolutionary movement in thenew faith, the beginning of a long process. It was as though theChristians had taken the particular attributes, justice, mercy, etc. , ofGod and, after personifying each one, deified it, thus multiplying gods. 

What was the soil for the new sowing, and what was the harvest to bereaped in due time?

With many thousands of India Buddhists whose minds were already steepedin Brahministic philosophy and mythology, who were more given tospeculation and dreaming than to self-control and moral culture, and whomourned for the dead gods of Hinduism, the soil was already prepared fora growth wholly abnormal to true Buddhism, but altogether in keepingwith the older Brahministic philosophies from which these dreamers hadbeen but partially converted to Buddhism. [18]

The seed is found in the doctrine which already forms part of the systemof the Little Vehicle, when it tells of the personal Buddhas and theBuddhas elect, or future Buddhas. In the Jataka stories, or Birth tales, "the Buddha elect" is the title given to each of the beings, man, angel, or animal, who is held to be a Bodhisattva, or the future Buddha in oneof his former births. The title Bodhisattva[19] is the name given to abeing whose Karma will produce other beings in a continually ascendingscale of goodness until it becomes vested in a Buddha. Or, in the morecommon use of the word, a Bodhisattva (Japanese bosatsu) is a beingwhose essence has become intelligence, and who will have to pass throughhuman existence once more only before entering Nirvana. 

In Southern Buddhist temples, the pure white image of Maitreya issometimes found beside the idol representing Gautama or the historicalBuddha. While in Southern Buddhism the idea of this possibility ofdevelopment seems to have been little seized upon and followed up, inNorthern Buddhism as early as 400 A. D. The worship of two Buddhas electnamed Manjusri and Avalokitesvara, or personified Wisdom and Power, hadalready become general. Manjusri, [20] the Great Being or "Prince Royal, "is the personification of wisdom, and especially of the mystic religiousinsight which has produced the Great Vehicle or canon of NorthernBuddhism; or, as a Japanese author says, the third collection of theTripitaka was that made by Manjusri and Maitreya. Avalokitesvara, [21]the Lord of View or All-sided One, is the personification of power, themerciful protector and preserver of the world and of men. Both arefrequently and voluminously mentioned in the Saddharma Pundarika, [22] inwhich the good law is made plain by flowers of rhetoric, and of which weshall have occasion frequently to speak. Manjusri is the mythical authorof this influential work, [23] the twenty-fourth chapter being devoted toa glorification of the character, the power, and the advantages to bederived from the worship of Avalokitesvara. 

The Creation of Gods. 

Possibly the name of Manjusri may be derived from that of the Indianmendicant, the traditional introducer of Buddhism and its accompanyingcivilization into Nepal. The Tibetans identify him with the minister ofa great King Strongstun, who lived in the seventh century of our era andwho was the great patron of Buddhism into Tibet. He is the founder ofthat school of thought which ended in the Great Vehicle, --the literatureof Northern Buddhism. [24] From Nepal to Japan, in the books of theNorthern Buddhists there is certainly much confusion between themetaphysical being and the legendary civilizer and teacher of Nepal. Theother name, Avalokitesvara, which means the Lord of View, "the lord wholooks down from on high, " instead of being a purely metaphysicalinvention, may he only an adaptation of one epithet of Shiva, whichmeant Master of View. 

Later and by degrees the attributes were separated and each one waspersonified. For example, the power of Avalokitesvara was separated fromhis protecting care and providence. His power was personified as thebearer of the thunder-bolt, or the lightning-handed one; and this newpersonification added to the two other Buddhas elect, made a triad, thefirst in Northern Buddhism. In this triad, the thunder-bolt holder wasVagrapani; Manjusri was the deified teacher; and Avalokitesvara was theSpirit of the Buddhas present in the church. Before many centuries hadelapsed, these imaginary beings, with a few others, had become gods towhom men prayed; and thus Buddhism became a religion with some kind oftheism, --which Gautama had expressly renounced. 

If any one wants proof of this reversion into the old religions ofIndia, he has only to notice that the name, given to the new god made bypersonification of the attribute of power, Vagrapani, or Vadjradhara, orthe bearer of the thunder-bolt, had formerly been used as an epithet ofthe old fire-god of the Vedas, Indra. 

It were tedious to recount all the steps in the further development ofNorthern Buddhism. [25] Suffice it to say, that out of ideas andprinciples set forth in the earlier Buddhism, and under the generatingforce reborn from old Brahminism, the Dhyani Buddhas (that is theBuddhas evolved out of the mind in mystic trance) were given their electBuddhas; and so three sets of five were co-ordinated. [26] That is, first, five pre-penultimate Buddhas; then their Bodhisattvas orpenultimate Buddhas; and then the ultimate or human Buddhas, of whichGautama was one. Or, first abstraction; then pre-human effluence; thenemanation. 

All this multiplication of beings is unknown to Southern Buddhism, unknown to the Saddharma Pundarika, and very probably unknown also tothe Chinese pilgrims who visited India in the fifth and seventhcenturies. Professor Rhys Davids, in his compact little manual ofBuddhism, says:[27]

 "Among those hypothetical beings--the creations of a sickly scholasticism, hollow abstractions without life or reality--the fourth Amitabha, 'Immeasurable Light, ' whose Bodhisatwa is Avalokitesvara, and whose emanation is Gautama, occupies of course the highest and most important rank. Surrounded by innumerable Bodhisatwas, he sits enthroned under a Bo-tree in Sukhavati, i. E. , the Blissful, a paradise of heavenly joys, whose description occupies whole tedious books of the so-called Great Vehicle. By this theory, each of the five Buddhas has become three, and the fourth of these five sets of three is the second Buddhist Trinity, the belief in which must have arisen after the seventh century of our era. "

Buddhism has been called the light of Asia, and Gautama its illuminator;but certainly the light has not been pure, nor the products of itsillumination wholesome. Pardon an illustration. In Christian churchesand cathedrals of Europe, there is still a great prejudice against theuse of pipes, and of gas made from coal, because of the machinery and ofthe impure emanations. The prejudice is a wholesome one; for we all knowthat most of the elements forming common illuminating gas are worthlessexcept to convey the very small amount of light-giving material, andthat these elements in combustion vitiate the air and give offdeleterious products which corrode, tarnish and destroy. Now thoughBuddhist doctrine may have been the light of India, yet to reach theNorthern and Eastern nations of Asia it had, apparently, to beadulterated for conveyance, as much as is the illuminating gas in ourcities. From the first, Northern Buddhism showed a wonderful affinity, not only for Brahministic superstitions and speculations, but for almosteverything else with which it came in contact in countries beyond India. Instead of combating, it absorbed. It adapted itself to circumstances, and finding certain beliefs prevalent among the people, it imbibed them, and thus gained by accretion until its bulk, both of beliefs and ofdisciples, was in the inverse ratio of its purity. Even to-day, theoccult theosophy of "Isis Unveiled, " and of the school of writers suchas Blavatsky, Olcott, etc. , seems to be a perfectly logical product ofthe Northern Buddhisms, and may be called one of them; yet it is simplya repetition of what took place centuries ago. Most of the primitivebeliefs and superstitions of Nepal and Tibet were absorbed in the everhungry and devouring system of Buddhistic scholasticism. 

The Making of a Pantheon. 

Let us glance again at this Nepal Buddhism. In the tenth century we findwhat at first seems to be a growth out of Polytheism into Monotheism, for a new Being, to whom the attributes of infinity, self-existence andomniscience are ascribed, is invented and named Adi-Buddha, or theprimordial Buddha. According to the speculations of the thinkers, he hadevolved himself out of the five Dhyani-Buddhas by the exercise of thefive meditations, while each of these had evolved out of itself bywisdom and contemplation, the corresponding Buddhas elect. Again, eachof the latter evolved out of his own essence a material world, --ourpresent world being the fourth of these, that is of Avaloki. One almostmight consider that this setting forth of the primordial Buddha was realMonotheism; but on looking more carefully one sees that it is as littlereal Monotheism as was possible in the system of Gnosticism. Indeed theforce of evolution could not stop here; for, since even this primordialBuddha rested upon Ossa of hypothesis piled upon Pelion of hypothesis, there must be other hypotheses yet to come, and so the Tantra system, acompound of old Brahminism with the magic and witchcraft and Shamanismof Northern Asia burst into view. As this was to travel into Japan andbe hailed as purest Buddhism, let us note how this tenth century Tantrasystem grew up. To see this clearly, is to look upon the parable of theman with the unclean spirit being acted out on a vast scale in history. 

In the sixth century of our era, one Asanga, or Asamga, wrote theShastra, called the Shastra Yoga-chara Bhumi. [28] With great dexterityhe erected a sort of clearing-house for both the corrupt Brahminism andcorrupt Buddhism of his day, and exchanging and rearranging the gods anddevils in both systems, he represented them as worshippers andsupporters of the Buddha and Avalokitesvara. In such a system, the oldprimitive Buddhism of the noble eight-fold path of self-conquest andpure morals was utterly lost. Instead of that, the worshipper gave hiswhole powers to obtaining occult potencies by means of magic phrases andmagic circles. Then grew up whole forests of monasteries and temples, with an outburst of devilish art representing many-headed and many-eyedand many-handed idols on the walls, on books, on the roadside, withmanifold charms and phrases the endless repetitions of which weresupposed to have efficacy with the hypothetical being who filled theheavens. That was _the_ age of idols for China as well as for India; andthe old Chinese house, once empty, swept and garnished by Confucianism, was now filled with a mob of unclean spirits each worse than the first. With more courageous logic than the more matter-of-fact Chinese, theTibetan erected his prayer-mills[29] and let the winds of heaven and theflowing waters continually multiply his prayers and holy syllables. Andthese inventions were duly imported into Japan, and even now are farfrom being absent. [30]

Passing over for the present the history of Buddhism in China, [31]suffice it to say that the Buddhism which entered Japan from Korea inthe sixth century, was not the simple atheism touched with morality, thebald skepticism or benevolent agnosticism of Gautama, but a religionalready over a thousand years old. It was the system of the NorthernBuddhists. These, dissatisfied, or unsatisfied, with absorption into apassionless state through self-sacrifice and moral discipline, hadevolved a philosophy of religion in which were gods, idols and anapparatus of conversion utterly unknown to the primitive faith. 

Buddhism Already Corrupted when brought to Japan. 

This sixth century Buddhism in Japan was not the army with banners, which was introduced still later with the luxuriances of the fullydeveloped system, its paradise wonderfully like Mohammed's and itsover-populated pantheon. It was, however, ready with the necessarymachinery, both material and mental, to make conquest of a people whichhad not only religious aspirations, but also latent aestheticpossibilities of a high order. As in its course through China thisNorthern Buddhism had acted as an all-powerful absorbent of localbeliefs and superstitions, so in Japan it was destined to make a moreremarkable record, and, not only to absorb local ideas but actually tocause the indigenous religion to disappear. 

Let us inquire who were the people to whom Buddhism, when alreadypossessed of a millenium of history, entered its Ultima Thule in EasternAsia. At what stage of mutual growth did Buddhism and the Japanese meeteach other?

Instead of the forty millions of thoroughly homogeneous people inJapan--according to the census of December 31, 1892--all being loyalsubjects of one Emperor, we must think of possibly a million of hunters, fishermen and farmers in more or less warring clans or tribes. Thesewere made up of the various migrations from the main land and the driftof humanity brought by the ocean currents from the south; Ainos, Koreans, Tartars and Chinese, with probably some Malay and Nigritostock. In the central part of Hondo, the main island, the Yamato tribedominated, its chief being styled Suméru-mikoto, or Mikado. To the southand southwest, the Mikado's power was only more or less felt, for theYamato men had a long struggle in securing supremacy. Northward andeastward lay great stretches of land, inhabited by unsubdued anduncivilized native tribes of continental and most probably of Koreanorigin, and thus more or less closely akin to the Yamato men. Stillnorthward roamed the Ainos, a race whose ancestral seats may have beenin far-off Dravidian India. Despite the constant conflicts between theYamato people who had agriculture and the beginnings of government, lawand literature, and their less civilized neighbors, the tendency toamalgamation was already strong. The problem of the statesman, was toextend the sway of the Mikado over the whole Archipelago. 

Shint[=o] was, in its formation, made use of as an engine to conquer, unify and civilize all the tribes. In one sense, this conquest of menhaving lower forms of faith, by believers in the Kami no Michi, or Wayof the Gods, was analogous to the Aryan conquest of India and theDravidians. However this may be, the energy and valor displayed in theseearly ages formed the ideal of Yamato Damashii (The Spirit ofunconquerable Japan), which has so powerfully influenced the modernJapanese. We shall see, also, how grandly Buddhism also came to be apowerful force in the unification of the Japanese people. At first, thenew faith would be rejected as an alien invader, stigmatized as aforeign religion, and, as such, sure to invoke the wrath of the nativegods. Then later, its superiority to the indigenous cult would be seenboth by the wise and the practically minded, and it would be welcomedand enjoyed. 

The Inviting Field. 

Never had a new religion a more inviting field or one more sure ofsuccess, than had Buddhism on stepping from the Land of Morning Dawn tothe Land of the Rising Sun. Coming as a gorgeous, dazzling anddisciplined array of all that could touch the imagination, stimulate theintellect and move the heart of the Japanese, it was irresistible. Forthe making of a nation, Shint[=o] was as a donkey engine, compared tothe system of furnaces, boilers, shaft and propeller of aten-thousand-ton steel cruiser, moved by the energies of a million yearsof sunbeam force condensed into coal and released again throughtransmigration by fire. 

All accounts in the vernacular Japanese agree, that their Butsu-d[=o] orBuddhism was imported from Korea. In the sixteenth year of Kéitai, thetwenty-seventh Mikado (of the list made centuries after, and theeleventh after the impossible line of the long-lived or mythicalMikados), A. D. 534, it is said that a man from China brought with him animage of Buddha into Yamato, and setting it up in a thatched cottageworshipped it. The people called it "foreign-country god. " Visitorsdiscussed with him the religion of Shaka, as the Japanese callShakyamuni, and some little knowledge of Buddhism was gained, but nonotable progress was made until A. D. 552, which is generally acceptedand celebrated as the year of the introduction of the faith into Japan. Then a king of Hiaksai in Korea, sent over to the court and to theMikado golden images of the Buddha and of the triad of "precious ones, "with Sutras and sacred books. These holy relics are believed to be stillpreserved in the famous temple of Zenk[=o]ji, [32] belonging to thetemple of the Tendai Sect at Nagano in Northern Japan, this shrine beingdedicated to Amida and his two followers Kwannon (Avalokitesvara) andDai-séi-shi (Mahastanaprapta). This group of idols, as the custodian ofthe shrine will tell you, was made by Shaka himself out of gold, foundat the base of the tree which grows at the centre of the universe. Afterremaining in Korea for eleven hundred and twelve years, it was broughtto Japan. Mighty is the stream of pilgrims which continually sets towardthe holy place. A common proverb declares that even a cow can find herway thither. 

In A. D. 572 and again in 584, new images, sutras and teachers came overfrom another part of Korea. The Mikado called a council to determinewhat should be done with the idols, to the worship of which he washimself inclined; but a majority were against the idea of insulting thenative gods by receiving the presents and thus introducing a foreignreligion. The minister of state, however, one Soga no Inamé, expressedhimself in favor of Buddhism, and put the images in his country housewhich he converted into a temple. When, soon after, the land wasafflicted with a pestilence, the opponents of the new faith attributedit to the wrath of the gods at the hospitality given to the new idols. War broke out, fighting took place, and the Buddhist temple was burnedand the idols thrown into the river, near Osaka. Great portentsfollowed, and the enemies of Buddhism were, it is said, burned up byflames descending from heaven. 

The tide then turned in favor of the Indian faith, and Soga rebuilt histemple. Priests and missionaries were invited to come over from Korea, being gladly furnished by the allies of Japan from the state of Shinra, and Buddhism again flourished at the court, but not yet among thepeople. Once more, fighting broke out; and again the temple of the aliengods was destroyed, only to be rebuilt again. The chief champion ofBuddhism was the son of a Mikado, best known by his posthumous title, Sh[=o]toku, [33] who all his life was a vigorous defender and propagatorof the new faith. Through his influence, or very probably through theefforts of the Korean missionaries, the devastating war between theJapanese and Koreans was ended. In the peace which followed, notableprogress was made through the vigor of the missionaries encouraged bythe regent Sh[=o]toku, so that at his death in the year A. D. 621, therewere forty-six temples, and thirteen hundred and eighty-five priests, monks and nuns in Japan. Many of the most famous temples, which are nowfull of wealth and renown, trace their foundations to this era ofSh[=o]toku and of his aunt, the Empress Suiko (A. D. 593-628), who werefriendly to the new religion. Sh[=o]toku may be almost called thefounder of Japanese Buddhism. Although a layman, he is canonized andstands unique in the Pantheon of Eastern Buddhism, his image beingprominently visible in thousands of Japanese temples. 

Legend, in no country more luxurious than in Japan, tells us that theexotic religion made no progress until Amida, the boundlessly MercifulOne, assuming the shape of a concubine of the imperial prince whoafterward became the Mikado Yomé, gave birth to Sh[=o]toku, who washimself Kwannon or the goddess of mercy in human form; and that when hegrew up, he took to wife an incarnation of the Buddha elect, Mahastana-prapta, or in Japanese Dai-séi-shi, whose idol is honored atZenk[=o]ji. 

The New Faith Becomes Popular. 

Then Buddhism became popular, passing out from the narrow circle of thecourt to be welcomed by the people. In A. D. 623, monks came overdirectly from China, and we find mentioned two sects, the Sanron and theJ[=o]jitsu, which are no longer extant in Japan. In about A. D. 650 thefame of Yuan Chang (Hiouen Thsang) the Chinese pilgrim to India, or theholy land, reached-Japan; and his illustrious example wasenthusiastically followed. History now frequently repeated itself. TheJapanese monk, D[=o]sh[=o], crossed the seas to China to gaze upon theface and become the pupil of that illustrious Chinese pilgrim, who hadseen Buddha Land. Later on, other monks crossed to the land of Sinim, until we find that in this and succeeding centuries, hundreds ofJapanese in their frail junks, braved the dangers of the stormy ocean, in order to study Sanskrit, to read the old scriptures, to meet the newlights of learning or revelation, and to become versed in the latestfashions of religion. We find the pilgrims returning and founding newsects or sub-sects, and stimulating by their enthusiasm the monks andthe home missionaries. In the year A. D. 700 the custom of cremation wasintroduced. This wrought not only a profound change in customs, but alsobecame the seed of a rich crop of superstitions; since out of thecremated bodies of the saints came forth the _shari_ or, in Sanskrit, _sarira_. These hard substances or pellets, preserved in crystalcabinets, are treated as holy gems or relics. Thus venerated, theybecome the nuclei of cycles of fairy lore. 

In A. D. 710, the great monastery at Nara was founded; and here we mustnotice or at least glance at the great throng of civilizing influencesthat came in with Buddhism, and at the great army of artists, artisansand skilled men and women of every sort of trade and craft. We note thatwith the building of this great Nara monastery came another proof ofimprovement and the added element of stability in Japanese civilization. The ancient dread which the Japanese had, of living in any place where aperson had died was passing away. The nomad life was being given up. Thesuccessor of a dead Mikado was no longer compelled to build himself anew capital. The traveller in Japan, familiar with the ancient poetry ofthe Many[=o]-shu, finds no fewer than fifty-eight sites[34] as the earlyhomes of the Japanese monarchy. Once occupying the proud position ofimperial capitals, they are now for the most part mere hamlets, oftentimes mere names, with no visible indication of former humanhabitation; while the old rivers or streams once gay with barges filledwith silken-robed lords and ladies, have dried up to mere washerwomen'srunnels. For the first time after the building of this Buddhistmonastery, the capital remained permanent, Nara being the imperialresidence during seventy-five years. Then beautiful Ki[=o]to was chosen, and remained the residence of successive generations of emperors until1868. In A. D. 735, we read of the Kégon sect. Two years later a largemonastery, with a seven-storied pagoda alongside of it, was ordered tobe built in every province. These, with the temples and theirsurroundings, and with the wayside shrines beginning to spring up likeexotic flowers, made a striking alteration in the landscape of Japan. The Buddhist scriptures were numerously copied and circulated among thelearned class, yet neither now nor ever, except here and there infragments, were they found among the people. For, although the Buddhistcanon has been repeatedly imported, copied by the pen and in moderntimes printed, yet no Japanese translation has ever been made. Themethods of Buddhism in regard to the circulation of the scriptures arethose, not of Protestantism but of Roman Catholicism. 

In the same year, the Mikado called for contributions from all thepeople for the building of a colossal image of the Buddha, which was tobe of bronze and gilded. Yet, fearing that the Shint[=o] gods might beoffended, a skilful priest named Giyoku, --probably the same man whointroduced the potter's wheel into Japan, --was sent to the shrine of theSun-goddess in Isé to present her with a shari or relic of the Buddha, and find out how she would regard his project. After seven days andnights of waiting, the chapel doors flew open and the loud-voiced oraclewas interpreted in a favorable sense. The night following the return ofthe priest, the Mikado dreamed that the sun-goddess appeared to him inher own form and said "The sun is Birushana" (Vairokana). This meantthat the chief deity of the Japanese proclaimed herself an avatar orincarnation of one of the old Hindu gods. [35] She also approved theproject of the image; and in this same year, 759, native gold was foundin Japan, which sufficed for the gilding of the great idol that, aftereleven hundred years and many vicissitudes, still stands, the glory of amultitude of pilgrims. 

In A. D. 754 a famous priest, who introduced the new Ritsu Sect, was ableto convert the Mikado and obtain four hundred converts in the imperialcourt. Thirteen years later, another tremendous triumph of Buddhism wasscored and a deadly blow at Shint[=o] was struck. The Buddhist priestspersuaded the Mikados to abandon their ancient title of Sumeru and adoptthat of Tenn[)o]; (Heavenly King or Tenshi) Son of Heaven, after theChinese fashion. At the same time it was taught that the emperor couldgain great merit and sooner become a Buddha, by retiring from the activecares of the throne and becoming a monk, with the title of H[=o]-[=o], or Cloistered Emperor. This innovation had far-reaching consequences, profoundly altering the status of the Mikado, giving sensualism on theone hand and priestcraft on the other, their coveted opportunity, changing the ruler of the nation from an active statesman into a recluseand the recluse into a pious monk, or a licentious devotee, as the casemight be. It paved the way for the usurpation of the government by theunscrupulous soldier, "the man on horseback, " who was destined to ruleJapan for seven hundred years, while the throne and its occupant were inthe shadow. One of a thousand proofs of the progress of the propagandascheme is seen in the removal of the Shint[=o] temple which had stood atNikk[=o], and the erection in its place of a Buddhist temple. In A. D. 805 the famous Tendai, and in 806 the powerful Shingon Sect wereintroduced. All was now ready in Japan for the growth not only of onenew Buddhism, but of several varieties among the Northern Buddhismswhich so arouse the astonishment of those who study the simple Paliscriptures that contain the story of Gautama, and who know only thesouthern phase of the faith, that is to Asia, relatively, whatChristianity is to Europe. We say relatively, for while Buddhism madeChinese Asia gentle in manners and kind to animals, it covered the landwith temples, monasteries and images; on the other hand the religion ofJesus filled Europe not only with churches, abbeys, monasteries andnunneries, but also with hospitals, orphan asylums, lighthouses, schoolsand colleges. Between the fruits of Christendom and Buddhadom, let theworld judge. 

Survey and Summary. 

To sum up: Buddhism is the humanitarian's, and also the skeptic's, solution of the problem of the universe. Its three great distinguishingcharacteristics are atheism, metempsychosis and absence of caste. It wasin its origin pure democracy. As against despotic priesthood andoppressive hierarchy, it was congregational. Theoretically it is so yet, though far from being so practically. It is certainly sacerdotal andaristocratic in organization. As in any other system which has so vast ahierarchy with so many grades of honor and authority, its theory ofdemocracy is now a memory. First preached in a land accursed by casteand under spiritual and secular oppressions, it acknowledged no caste, but declared all men equally sinful and miserable, and all equallycapable of being freed from sin and misery through Buddhahood, that is, knowledge or enlightenment. [36]

The three-fold principle laid down by Gautama, and now in dogma, literature, art and worship, a triad or formal trinity, is, Buddha, theattainment of Buddha-hood, or perfect enlightenment, through meditationand benevolence; Karma, the law of cause and effect; and Dharma, discipline or order; or, the Lord, the Law and the Church. Paying noattention to questions of cosmogony or theogony, the universe isaccepted as an ultimate fact. Matter is eternal. Creation exists but nota Creator. All is god, but God is left out of consideration. The godsare even less than Buddhas. Humanity is glorified and the stress of allteaching is upon this life. In a word: a sinless life, attainable byman, through his own exertions in this world, above all the powers orbeings of the universe, is the essence of original Buddhism. OriginalNirvana meant death which ends all, extinction of existence. 

Gautama's immediate purpose was to emancipate himself and his followersfrom the fetters of Brahminism. He tried to leave the world of Hinduphilosophy behind him and to escape from it. 

Did he succeed? Partially. 

Buddha hoped also to rise above the superstitions of the common people, but in this he was again only partially successful. [37] "The cloudsreturned after the rain. " The old dead gods of Brahminism came backunder new names and forms. The malarial exhalations of corruptBrahmanistic philosophy, continually poisoned the atmosphere whichBuddha's disciples breathed. Still worse, as his religion transmigratedinto other lands, it became itself a history of transformation, untilto-day no religion on earth seems to be such a kaleidoscopicphantasmagoria. Polytheism is rampant over the greater part of theBuddhist world to-day. In the larger portion of Chinese Asia, pantheismdominates the mind. In modern Babism, --a mixture of Mohammedanism, Christianity and Buddhism, --there are streaks of dualism. If Monotheismhas ever dawned on the Buddhist world, it has been in fitful pulses asin auroral flashes, soon to leave darkness darker. 

For us is this lesson: Buddhism, brought face to face with the problemof the world's evil and possible improvement, evades it; begs the wholequestion at the outset; prays: "Deliver us from existence. Save us fromlife and give us as little as possible of it. " Christianity faces theproblem and flinches not; orders advance all along the line of endeavorand prays: "Deliver us from evil;" and is ever of good cheer, becauseCaptain and leader says: "I have overcome the world. " Go, win it for me. "I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it moreabundantly. "

CHAPTER VII - RIY[=O]BU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

 "All things are nothing but mind. "

 "The doctrines of Buddhism have no fixed forms. "

 "There is nothing in things themselves that enables us to distinguish in them either good or evil, right or wrong. It is but man's fancy that weighs their merits and causes him to choose one and reject the other. "

 "Non-individuality is the general principle of Buddhism. "--Outlines of the Mah[=a]y[=a]na. 

 "It (Shint[=o]) was smothered before reaching maturity, but Buddhism and Confucianism had to disguise and change in order to enter Japan. "

 "Life has a limited span and naught may avail to extend it. This is manifested by the impermanence of human beings. But yet whenever necessary I will hereafter make my appearance from time to time as a god, a sage, or a Buddha. "--Last words of Shaka the Buddha, in Japanese biography. 

 "It is our opinion that Buddhism cannot long hold its ground, and that Christianity must finally prevail throughout all Japan. .. . Now, when Buddhism and Christianity are in conflict for the ascendency, this indifference of the Japanese people to the difference of sects is a great disadvantage to Buddhism. That they should worship Jesus Christ with the same mind as they do _Inari_ or _Mi[=o]jin_ is not at all inconsistent in their estimation or contrary to their custom. "--Fukuzawa, of T[=o]ki[=o]. 

 "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him. "--Elijah. 

 "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?"--Jesus. 

 "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?"--James. 

 "What concord hath Christ with Belial?"--Paul. 

CHAPTER VII - RIY[=O]BU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

Syncretism in Religion. 

Two centuries and a half of Buddhism in Japan, showed the leaders andteachers of the Indian faith that complete victory over the whole nationwas yet very far off. The court had indeed been invaded and won. Eventhe Mikado, the ecclesiastical head of Shint[=o], and the incarnationand vicar of the heavenly gods, had not only embraced Buddhism, but inmany instances had shorn the hair and taken the vows of the monk. Yetthe people clung tenaciously to their old traditions, customs andworship; for their gods were like themselves and indeed were ofthemselves, since Shint[=o] is only a transfiguration of Japanese life. In the Japanese of those days we can trace the same traits which webehold in the modern son of Nippon, especially his intense patriotismand his warlike tendencies. To convert these people to the peacefuldogmas of Siddartha and to make them good Buddhists, something more thanteaching and ritual was necessary. It was indispensable that thereshould be complete substitution, all along the ruts and paths ofnational habit, and especially that the names of the gods and thefestivals should be Buddhaized. 

Popular customs are nearly immortal and ineradicable. Though wars maycome, dynasties rise and fall, and convulsions in nature take place, yetthe people's manners and amusements are very slow in changing. If, inthe history of Christianity, the European missionaries found itnecessary in order to make conquest of our pagan forefathers, to baptizeand re-name without radically changing old notions and habits, so did itseem equally indispensable that in Japan there should be some system ofreconciliation of the old and the new, some theological revolution, which should either fulfil, absorb, or destroy Shint[=o]. 

In the histories of religions in Western Asia, Northern Africa andEurope, we are familiar with efforts at syncretism. We have seen howPhilo attempted to unite Hebrew righteousness and Greek beauty, and toharmonize Moses and Plato. We know of Euhemerus, who thought he read inthe old mythologies not only the outlines of real history, but thehieroglyphics of legend and tradition, truth and revelation. [1] Studentsof Church history are well aware that this principle of interpretationwas followed only too generously by Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius, Chrysostom and others of the Church Fathers. Indeed, itwould be hard to find in any of the great religions of the world anutter absence of syncretism, or the union of apparently hostilereligious ideas. In the Thousand and One Nights, we have an example inpopular literature. We see that the ancient men of India, Persia andpre-Mohammedan Arabia now act and talk as orthodox Mussulmans. Inmatters pertaining to art and furniture, the statue of Jupiter in Romeserves for St. Peter, and in Japan that of the Virgin and child for theBuddha and his mother. [2]

What, however, chiefly concerns the critic and student of religions isto inquire how far the process has been natural, and the efforts ofthose who have brought about the union have been honest, and theirmotives pure. The Bible pages bear witness, that Israelites too oftentried to make the same fountain give forth sweet waters and bitter, andto grow thistles and grapes on the same stem, by uniting the cults ofJehovah and the Baalim. King Solomon's enterprises in the same directionare more creditable to him as a politician than as a worshipper. [3] Inthe history of Christianity one cannot commend the efforts either of theGnostics or the neo-Platonists, nor always justify the medievalmissionaries in their methods. Nor can we accurately describe assuccessful the ingenuity of Vossius, the Dutch theologian, who, following the scheme of Euhemerus, discovered the Old Testamentpatriarchs in the disguise of the gods of Paganism. Nor, even thoughGermany be the land of learning, can the clear-headed scholar agree withsome of her rationalists, who are often busy in the same field ofindustry, setting forth wild criticism as "science. "

The Kami and the Buddhas. 

In Japan, to solve the problem of reconciliation between the ancienttraditions of the divine ancestors and the dogmas of the Indian cult, itwas necessary that some master spirit, profoundly learned in the twoWays, of the Kami and of the Buddhas, should be bold, and also as itseems, crafty and unscrupulous. To convert a line of theocraticemperors, whose authority was derived from their alleged divine originand sacerdotal character, into patrons and propagandists of Buddhism, and to transform indigenous Shint[=o] gods into Buddhas elect, orBuddhas to come, or Buddhas in a former state of existence, were tasksthat might appall the most prodigious intellect, and even strain thecapacities of what one might imagine to be the universal religion forall mankind. 

Yet from such a task continental Buddhism had not shrunk before and didnot shrink then, nor indeed from it do the insular Japanese sects shrinknow. Indeed, Buddhism is quite ready to adopt, absorb and swallow upJapanese Christianity. With all encompassing tentacles, and withcolossal powers of digestion and assimilation, Northern Buddhism haddrawn into itself a large part of the Brahmanism out of which itoriginally sprang, [4] reversing the old myth of Chronos by swallowingits parents. It had gathered in, pretty much all that was in the heavensabove and the earth beneath and the waters that were under the earth, inNepal, Tibet, China, and Korea. Thoroughly exercised and disciplined, itwas ready to devour and digest all that the imagination of Japan hadconceived. 

We must remember that, at the opening of the ninth century, the Buddhismrampant in China and indeed throughout Chinese Asia was the Tantrasystem of Yoga-chara. [5] This compound of polytheism and pantheism, withits sensuous paradise, its goddess of mercy and its pantheon of everysort of worshipable beings, was also equipped with a system ofphilosophy by which Buddhism could be adapted to almost every yearningof human nature in its lowest or its highest form, and by which thingsapparently contradictory could be reconciled. Furthermore--and this isnot the least important thing to consider when the work to be done isfor the ordinary man as an individual and for the common people in themass--it had also a tremendous apparatus for touching the imaginationand captivating the fancy of the unthinking and the uneducated. 

For example, consider the equipment of the Buddhist priests of the ninthcentury in the matter of art alone. Shint[=o] knows next to nothing ofart, [6] and indeed one might almost say that it knows little ofcivilization. It is like ultra-Puritanic Protestantism and Iconoclasm. Buddhism, on the contrary, is the mother of art, and art is herever-busy child and handmaid. The temples of the Kami were bald andbare. The Kojiki told nothing of life hereafter, and kept silence on ahundred points at which human curiosity is sure to be active, and atwhich the Yoga system was voluble. Buddhism came with a set of visiblesymbols which should attract the eye and fire the imagination, andwithin ethical limits, the passions also. It was a mixed and variegatedsystem, --a resultant of many forces. [7] It came with the thought ofIndia, the art-influence of Greece, the philosophy of Persia, thespeculations of the Gnostics and, in all probability, with ideasborrowed indirectly from Nestorian or other forms of Christianity; andthus furnished, it entered Japan. 

The Mission of Art. 

Thus far the insular kingdom had known only the monochrome sketches ofthe Chinese painters, which could have a meaning for the educated fewalone. The composite Tantra dogmas fed the fancy and stimulated theimagination, filling them with pictures of life, past, present andfuture. "The sketch was replaced by the illumination. " Whole schools ofartists, imported from China and Korea, multiplied their works andattracted the untrained senses of the people, by filling the templeswith a blaze of glory. "This result was sought by a gorgeous but studiedplay of gold and color, and a lavish richness of mounting andaccessories, that appear strangely at variance with the begging bowl andpatched garments of primitive Buddhism. "[8] The change in the Japanesetemple was as though the gray clouds had been kissed by the sun and madeto laugh rainbows. The country of the Fertile Plain of Sweet Flags wastransformed. It suddenly became the land wherein gods grew not singlybut in whole forests. Like the Shulamite, when introduced among thejewelled ladies of Solomon's harem, so stood the boor amid the sheen andgold of the new temples. 

 "Gold was the one thing essential to the Buddhist altar-piece, and sometimes, when applied on a black ground, was the only material used. In all cases it was employed with an unsparing hand. It appeared in uniform masses, as in the body of the Buddha or in the golden lakes of the Western Paradise; in minute diapers upon brocades and clothing, in circlets and undulating rays, to form the glory surrounding the head of Amitaba; in raised bosses and rings upon the armlets or necklets of the Bodhisattvas and Devas, and in a hundred other manners. The pigments chosen to harmonize with this display were necessarily body colors of the most pronounced lines, and were untoned by any trace of chiaroscuro. Such materials as these would surely try the average artist, but the Oriental painter knew how to dispose them without risk of crudity or gaudiness, and the precious metal, however lavishly applied, was distributed over the picture with a judgment that would make it difficult to alter or remove any part without detriment to the beauty of the work. "[9]

In our day, Japanese art has won its own place in the world's temple ofbeauty. Even those familiar with the master-pieces of Europe do nothesitate to award to the artists of Nippon a meed of praise which, within certain limits, is justly applied to them equally with themasters of the Italian, the Dutch, the Flemish, or the French schools. It serves our purpose simply to point out that art was a powerful factorin the religious conquest of the Japanese for the new doctrines of theYoga system, which in Japan is called Riy[=o]bu, or Mixed Buddhism. 

We say Mixed Buddhism rather than Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o], for Shint[=o] wasless corrupted than swallowed up, while Buddhism suffered one moredegree of mixture and added one more chapter of decay. It increased inits visible body, while in its mind it became less and less the religionof Buddha and more and more a thing with the old Shint[=o] heart stillin it, making a strange growth in the eyes of the continental believers. To the Northern and Southern was now added an Eastern or JapaneseBuddhism. 

Who was the wonder-worker that annexed the Land of the Gods to Buddhadomand re-read the Kojiki as a sutra, and all Japanese history andtraditions as only a chapter of the incarnations of Buddha?

K[=o]b[=o] the Wonder Worker. 

The Philo and Euhemerus of Japan was the priest Kukai, who was born inthe province of Sanuki, in the year 774. He is better known by hisposthumous title K[=o]b[=o] Daishi, or the Great Teacher who promulgatesthe Law. By this name we shall call him. About his birth, life anddeath, have multiplied the usual swaddling bands of Japanese legend andtradition, [10] and to his tomb at the temple on Mount K[=o]-ya, theCampo Santo of Japanese Buddhism, still gather innumerable pilgrims. The"hall of ten thousand lamps, " each flame emblematic of the Wisdom thatsaves, is not, indeed, in these days lighted annually as of old; but thevulgar yet believe that the great master still lives in his mausoleum, in a state of profoundly silent meditation. Into the hall of bones nearby, covering a deep pit, the teeth and "Adam's apple" of the crematedbodies of believers are thrown by their relatives, though the pit iscleared out every three years. The devotees believe that by thusdisposing of the teeth and "Adam's apple, " they obtain the samespiritual privileges as if they were actually entombed there, that is, of being born again into the heaven of the Bodhisattva or the Pure Landof Absolute Bliss, by virtue of the mystic formulas repeated by thegreat master in his lifetime. 

Let us sketch the life of K[=o]b[=o], First named Toto-mono, or Treasure, by his parents, who sent him toKi[=o]t[=o] to be educated for the priesthood, the youth spent fouryears in the study of the Chinese classics. Dissatisfied with theteachings of Confucius, he became a disciple of a famous Buddhistpriest, named Iwabuchi (Rock-edge or throne). Soon taking upon himselfthe vows of the monk, he was first named Kukai, meaning "space and sea, "or heaven and earth. [11] He overcame the dragons that assaulted him, byprayers, by spitting at them the rays of the evening star which hadflown from heaven into his mouth and by repeating the mystic formulascalled Dharani. [12] Annoyed by hobgoblins with whom he was obliged toconverse, he got rid of them by surrounding himself with a consecratedimaginary enclosure into which they were unable to enter against hiswill. 

We mention these legends only to call the attention to the fact thatthey are but copies of those already accepted in China at that time, andare the logical and natural fruit of the Tantra school at which we haveglanced. In 804, K[=o]b[=o] was appointed to visit the Middle Kingdom asa government student. By means of his clever pen and calligraphic skillhe won his way into the Chinese capital. He became the favored discipleof a priest who taught him the mystic doctrines of the Yoga. Havingacquired the whole of the system, and equipped himself with a largelibrary of Buddhist doctrinal works and still more with every sort ofecclesiastical furniture and religious goods, he returned to Japan. 

Multitudes of wonders are reported about K[=o]b[=o], all of which showthe growth of the Tantra school. It is certain that his erudition wasimmense, and that he was probably the most learned man of Japan in thatage, and possibly of any other age. Besides being a Japanese Ezra inmultiplying writings, he is credited with the invention of thehira-gana, or running script, and if correctly so, he deserves on thisaccount alone an immortal honor equal to that of Cadmus or Sequoia. Thekana[13] is a syllabary of forty-seven letters, which by diacriticalmarks, may be increased to seventy. The kata-kana is the square or printform, the hira-kana is the round or "grass" character for writing. Though not as valuable as a true phonetic alphabet, such as the Koreansand the Cherokees possess, the _i-ro-ha_, or kana script, even though asyllabary and not an alphabet, was a wonderful aid to popular writingand instruction. 

Evidently the idea of the i-ro-ha, or Japanese ABC, was derived from theSanskrit alphabet, or, what some modern Anglo-Indian has called theDeva-Nagari or the god-alphabet. There is no evidence, however, to showthat K[=o]b[=o] did more than arrange in order forty-seven of theeasiest Chinese signs then used, in such a manner that they conveyed ina few lines of doggerel the sense of a passage from a sutra in which themortality of man and the emptiness of all things are taught, and thedoctrine of Nirvana is suggested. [14] Hokusai, the artist, in a sketchwhich embodies the popular idea of this bonze's immense industry, represents him copying the shastras and sutras. K[=o]b[=o] is on a seatbefore a large upright sheet of paper. He holds a brush-pen in hismouth, and one in each of his hands and feet, all moving at once. [15]Favorite portions of the Buddhist scriptures were indeed so rapidlymultiplied in Japan in the ninth century, as to suggest the idea, that, even in this early age, block printing had been imported from China, whence also afterward, in all probability, it was exported into Europebefore the days of Gutenberg and Coster. [16] The popular imagination, however, was more easily moved on seeing five brushes kept at work andall at once by the muscles in the fingers, toes and mouth of one man. Yet, had his life lasted six hundred years instead of sixty, he couldhardly have graven all the images, scaled all the mountain peaks, confounded all the sceptics, wrought all the miracles and performed allthe other feats with which he is popularly credited. [17]

K[=o]b[=o] Irenicon. 

K[=o]b[=o] indeed was both the Philo and Euhemerus of Japan, plus alarge amount of priestly cunning and what his enemies insist wasdishonesty and forgery. Soon after his return from China, he went to thetemples of Isé, [18] the most holy place of Shint[=o]. [19] Taking areverent attitude before the chief shrine, that of Toko Uké Bimé no Kamior Abundant-Food-Lady-God, or the deified Earth as the producer of foodand the upholder of all things upon its surface, the suppliant waitedpatiently while fasting and praying. 

In this, K[=o]b[=o] did but follow out the ordinary Shint[=o] plan forsecuring god-possession and obtaining revelation; that is, by starvingboth the stomach and the brain. [20] After a week's waiting he obtainedthe vision. The Food-possessing Goddess revealed to him the yoke (orYoga) by which he could harness the native and the imported gods to thechariot of victorious Buddhism. She manifested herself to him anddelivered the revelation on which his system is founded, and which, briefly stated, is as follows:

All the Shint[=o] deities are avatars or incarnations of Buddha. Theywere manifestations to the Japanese, before Gautama had become theenlightened one, or the jewel in the lotus, and before the holy wheel ofthe law or the sacred shastras and sutras had reached the island empire. Further more, provision was made for the future gods and deified holyones, who were to proceed from the loins of the Mikado, or otherJapanese fathers, according to the saying of Buddha which is thusrecorded in a Japanese popular work:

 "Life has a limited span, and naught may avail to extend it. This is manifested by the impermanence of human beings, but yet, whenever necessary, I will hereafter make my appearance from time to time as a god (Kami), a sage (Confucian teacher), or a Buddha (Hotoké). "[21]

In a word, the Shint[=o] goddess talked as orthodox (Yoga) Buddhism asthe ancient characters of the Indian, Persian and pre-Islam-Arabicstories in the Arabian Nights now talk the purest Mohammedanism. [22]According to the words put into Gautama's mouth at the time of hisdeath, the Buddha was already to reappear in the particular form and inall the forms, acceptable to Shint[=o]ists, Confucianists, or Buddhistsof whatever sect. 

Descending from the shrine of vision and revelation, with a completescheme of reconciliation, with correlated catalogues of Shint[=o] andBuddhist gods, with liturgies, with lists of old popular festivals newlynamed, with the apparatus of art to captivate the senses, K[=o]b[=o]forthwith baptized each native Shint[=o] deity with a newChinese-Buddhistic name. For every Shint[=o] festival he arranged acorresponding Buddhist's saints' day or gala time. Then, training up aband of disciples, he sent them forth proclaiming the new irenicon. 

The Hindu Yoga Becomes Japanese Riy[=o]bu. 

It was just the time for this brilliant and able ecclesiastic tosucceed. The power and personal influence of the Mikado were weakening, the court swarmed with monks, the rising military classes were alreadysafely under the control of the shavelings, and the pen of learning hadeverywhere proved itself mightier than the sword and muscle. K[=o]b[=o]'s particular dialectic weapons were those of the Yoga-chara, or in Japanese, the Shingon Shu, or Sect of the True Word. [23] He, likehis Chinese master, taught that we can attain the state of theEnlightened or Buddha, while in the present physical body which was bornof our parents. 

This branch of Buddhism is said to have been founded in India about A. D. 200, by a saint who made the discovery of an iron pagoda inhabited bythe holy one, Vagrasattva, who communicated the exact doctrine to thosewho have handed it down through the Hindoo and Chinese patriarchs. Thebooks or scriptures of this sect are in three sutras; yet the essentialpoint in them is the Mandala or the circle of the Two Parts, or inJapanese Riy[=o]bu. Introduced into China, A. D. 720, it is known as theYoga-chara school. 

K[=o]b[=o] finding a Chinese worm, made a Japanese dragon, able toswallow a national religion. In the act of deglutition and the longprocess of the digestion of Shint[=o], Japanese Buddhism becamesomething different from every other form of the faith in Asia. Notedabove all previous developments of Buddhism for its pantheistictendencies, the Shingon sect could recognize in any Shint[=o] god, demi-god, hero, or being, the avatar in a previous stage of existence ofsome Buddhist being of corresponding grade. 

For example, [24] Amatéras[)u] or Ten-Sh[=o]-Dai-Jin, the sun-goddess, becomes Dai Nichi Ni[=o]rai or Amida, whose colossal effigies stand inthe bronze images Dai Butsu at Nara, Ki[=o]to and Kamakura. Ojin, thegod of war, became Hachiman Dai Bosatsu, or the great Bodhisattva of theEight Banners. Adopted as their patron by the fighting Genji or Minamotowarriors of mediæval times, the Buddhists could not well afford to havethis popular deity outside their pantheon. 

For each of the thirty days of the month, a Bodhisattva, or in Japanesepronunciation Bosatsu, was appointed. Each of these Bodhisattvas becamea Dai Mi[=o] Jin or Great Enlightened Spirit, and was represented as anavatar in Japan of Buddha in the previous ages, when the Japanese werenot yet prepared to receive the holy law of Buddhism. 

Where there were not enough Dai Mi[=o] Jin already existing in nativetraditions to fill out the number required by the new scheme, new titleswere invented. One of these was Ten-jin, Heavenly being or spirit. Thefamous statesman and scholar of the tenth century, Sugawara Michizané, was posthumously named Tenjin, and is even to this day worshipped bymany children of Japan as he was formerly for a thousand years by nearlyall of them, as the divine patron of letters. Kompira, Benten and otherpopular deities, often considered as properly belonging to Shint[=o], "are evidently the offspring of Buddhist priestly ingenuity. "[25] Out ofthe eight millions or so of native gods, several hundred were cataloguedunder the general term Gon-gen, or temporary manifestations of Buddha. In this list are to be found not only the heroes of local tradition, buteven deified forces of nature, such as wind and fire. The custom ofmaking gods of great men after their death, thus begun on a large scaleby K[=o]b[=o], has gone on for centuries. Iyéyas[)u], the politicalunifier of Japan, shines as a star of the first magnitude in the heavensof the Riy[=o]bu system, under the mime of T[=o]-sh[=o]-g[=u], or GreatLight of the East. The common people speak of him as Gon-gen Sama, thelatter word being an honorary form of address for all beings from a babyto a Bosatsu. 

In this way, K[=o]b[=o] arranged a sort of clearing-house or joint-stockcompany in which the Bodhisattvas, kami and other miscellaneous beings, in either the native or foreign religion, were mutually interchangeable. In a large sense, this feat of priestly dexterity was but the repetitionin history, of that of Asanga with the Brahmanism and Buddhism of Indiathree centuries before. It was this Asanga who wrote the Yoga-charaBhumi. The succession of syncretists in India, China and Japan isAsanga, Hiuki[=o] and K[=o]b[=o]. 

The Happy Family of Riy[=o]bu. 

Nevertheless this attempt at making a happy family and ploughing with anox and ass in the same yoke, has not been an unqualified success. Itwill sometimes happen that one god escapes the classification made bythe Buddhists and slips into the fold of Shint[=o], or _vice versa_;while again the label-makers and pasters--as numerous in scholasticBuddhism as in sectarian Christendom--have hard work to make the labelsstick. A popular Gon-gen or Dai-Mi[=o]-jin, whose name and renown hasfor centuries attracted crowds of pilgrims, and yielded fat revenues asregularly as the autumn harvests, is not readily surrendered by the oldBuddhist proprietors, however cleverly or craftily the bonzes may yieldoutward conformity to governmental edicts. On the other hand, theefforts, both archaeological and practical, which have been made inrecent years by fiercely zealous Shint[=o]ists, savor of the smartnessof New Japan more than they suggest either sincerity or edification. Itoften requires the finest tact on the part of both the strenuousBuddhists and the stalwart purists of Shint[=o], to extricate thevarious gods out of the mixture and mess of Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o], and tokeep them from jostling each other. 

This reclaiming and kidnapping of gods and transferring them from onecamp to another, has been especially active since 1870, when, undergovernment auspices, the Riy[=o]bu temples were purged of all Buddhistidols, furniture and influences. The term Dai Mi[=o] Jin, or GreatIllustrious Spirit, is no longer officially permitted to be used of theold kami or gods of Shint[=o], who were known to have existed before thedays of K[=o]b[=o]. In some cases these gods have lost much of theesteem in which they were held for centuries. Especially is this true ofthe infamous rebel of the tenth century, Masakado. [26] On the entranceinto Yedo of the Imperial army, in 1868, his idol was torn from itsshrine and hacked to pieces by the patriots. His place as a deity (KandaDai Mi[=o] Jin, or Great Illustrious Spirit of Kanda) was taken byanother deified being, a brother to the aboriginal earth-god who, in theages of the Kami, "resigned his throne in favor of the Mikado'sancestors when they descended from Heaven. " The apotheosis of the rebelMasakado had been resorted to by the Buddhist canonizers because theunquiet spirit of the dead man troubled the people. This method oflaying a ghost by making a god of him, was for centuries a favorite onein Japanese Buddhism. Indeed, a large part of the practical andparochial duties of the bonzes consists in quieting the restless spiritsof the departed. 

All Japanese popular religion of the past has been intensely local andpatriotic. The ancient idea that Nippon was the first country createdand the centre of the world, has persisted through the ages, modifyingevery imported religion. Hence the noticeable fact in Japanese Buddhism, of the comparative degradation of the Hindu deities and the exaltationof those which were native to the soil. 

The normal Japanese, be he priest or lay brother, theologian orstatesman, is nothing if not patriotic. Even the Chinese gods andgoddesses which, clothed in Indian drapery and still preserving theirAryan features, were imported to Japan, could not hold their own incompetition with the popularity of the indigenous inhabitants of theJapanese pantheon. The normal Japanese eye does not see the ideals ofbeauty in the human face and form in common with the Aryan vision. Benten or Knanon, with the features and drapery of the homelike beautiesof Yamato or Adzuma, have ever been more lovely to the admiring eye ofthe Japanese sailor and farmer, than the Aryan features of the idolsimported from India. So also, the worshipper to whom the lovely sceneryof Japan was fresh from the hands of the kami who were so much likehimself, turned naturally in preference, to the "gods many" of his ownland. 

Succeeding centuries only made it worse for the imported devas or gods, while the kami, or the gods sprung from the soil created by Izanami andIzanagi steadily rose in honor. 

Degradation of the Foreign Deities. 

For example, the Indian saint Dharma is reputed to have come to theDragon-fly Country long before the advent of Buddhism, but the peoplewere not ready for him or his teachings, and therefore he returned toIndia. So at least declares the book entitled San Kai Ri[27] (Mountain, Sea and Earth), which is a re-reading and explanation of Japanesemythology and tradition as recorded in the Kojiki, by a Ki[=o]t[=o]priest of the Shin Shu Sect. Of this Dharma, it is said, that he outdidthe Roman Regulus who suffered involuntary loss of his eyelids at thehands of the Carthaginians. Dharma cut off his own eyelids, because hecould not keep awake. [28] Throwing the offending flesh upon the ground, he saw the tea-plant arise to help holy men to keep vigil. Daruma, asthe Japanese spell his name, has a temple in central Japan. It isrelated that when Sh[=o]toku, the first patron of Buddhism, was one daywalking abroad he found a poor man dying of hunger, who refused toanswer any questions or give his name. Sh[=o]toku ordered food to begiven him, and wrapped his own mantle round him. Next day the beggardied, and the prince charitably had him buried on the spot. Shortlyafterward it was observed that the mantle was lying neatly folded up, onthe tomb, which on examination proved to be empty. The supposed dyingbeggar was no other than the Indian Saint Dharma, and a pagoda was builtover the grave, in which images of the priest and saint wereenshrined. [29] Yet, alas, to-day Daruma the Hindoo and foreigner, despite his avatar, his humility, his vigils and his self-mutilation, has been degraded to be the shop-sign of the tobacconists. Besides beingruthlessly caricatured, he is usually pictured with a scowl, his lidlesseyes as wide open as those upon a Chinese junk-prow or an Egyptiancoffin-lid. Often even, he has a pipe in his mouth--a comicalanachronism, suggestive to the smoker of the dark ages that knew notobacco, before nicotine made the whole world of savage and of civilizedkin. Legless dolls and snow-men are named after this foreigner, whosename is associated almost entirely with what is ludicrous. 

On K[=o]b[=o]'s expounding his scheme to the Mikado, the emperor was sopleased with his servant's ingenuity, that he gave it the name ofRiy[=o]bu[30] Shint[=o]; that is, the two-fold divine doctrine, doubleway of the gods, or amalgamated theology. Henceforth the Japanese couldenter Nirvana or Paradise through a two-leaved gate. As for the people, they also were pleased, as they usually are when change or reform doesnot mean abolition of the old festivals, or of the washings, sousings, and fun at the tombs of their ancestors in the graveyards, or themerry-makings, or the pilgrimages, [31] which are usually only othernames for social recreation, and often for sensual debauch. The Yoga hadbecome a _kubiki_, for Shint[=o] and Buddhism were now harnessedtogether, not indeed as true yoke-fellows, but yet joined as inseparablyas two oxen making the same furrow. 

Many a miya now became a tera. At first in many edifices, the rites ofShint[=o] and Buddhism were alternately performed. The Buddhist symbolsmight be in the front, and the Shint[=o]ist in the rear of the sacredhall, or _vice versa_, with a bamboo curtain between; but gradually thetwo blended. Instead of austere simplicity, the Shint[=o] interiorcontained a museum of idols. 

Image carvers had now plenty to do in making, out of camphor or _hinoki_wood, effigies of such of the eight million or so of kamis as were givenplaces in the new and enlarged pantheon. The multiplication was alwayson the side of Buddhism. Soon, also, the architecture was altered fromthe type of the primitive hut, to that of the low Chinese temple withgreat sweeping roof, re-curved eaves, many-columned auditorium andimposing gateway, with lacquer, paint, gilding and ceilings, on which, in blazing gold and color, were depicted the emblems of the Buddhistparadise. Many of these still remain even after the national purgationof 1870, just as the Christian inscriptions survive in the marblepalimpsests of Mahometan mosques, converted from basilicas, at Damascusor Constantinople. The torii was no longer raised in plain hinoki wood, but was now constructed of hewn stone, rounded or polished. Sometimes itwas even of bronze with gilded crests and Sanskrit monograms, surmounted, it may be, with tablets of painted or stained wood, on whichwere Chinese letters glittering with gold. This departure from theprimitive idea of using only the natural trunks of trees, "somewhat onthe principle of Exodus, 20:25, "[32] was a radical one in the ninthcentury. The elongated barrels with iron hoops, or the rivetedboiler-plate and stove-pipe pattern, in this era of Meiji is a stillmore radical and even scandalous innovation. 

Shint[=o] Buried in Buddhism. 

So complete was the victory of Riy[=o]buism, that for nearly a thousandyears Shint[=o] as a religion, except in a few isolated spots, ceasedfrom sight and sank to a mere mythology or to the shadow of a mythology. The very knowledge even of the ancient traditions was lost in theBuddhaized forms in which the old stories[33] were cast, or in theomnipresent ritual of the Buddhist tera. 

Yet, after all, it is a question as to which suffered most, Buddhism orShint[=o]. Who can tell which was the base and which was the true metalin the alloy that was formed? The San Kai Ri shows how superstitiousmanifold became imbedded in Buddhism. It was not alone through theShingon sect, which K[=o]b[=o] introduced, that this Yoga or union came. In the other great sect called the Tendai, and in the later sects, moreespecially in that of Nichiren, the same principle of absorption wasfollowed. These sects also adopted many elements derived from thegod-way and thus became Shint[=o]ized. Indeed, it seems certain thatthat vast development of Japanese Buddhism, peculiar to Japan andunknown to the rest of the Buddhist world, scouted by the SouthernBuddhists as dreadful heresy, and rousing the indignation of students ofearly Buddhism, like Max Müller and Professor Whitney, is largely owingto this attempted digestion of Japanese mythology. The anaconda mayindeed be able, by reason of its marvellously flexible jaws and itsabundant activity of salivary glands, to swallow the calf, and even theox; but sometimes the serpent is killed by its own voracity, or at leastmade helpless before the destroying hunter. When sweet potatoes andpumpkins are planted in the same hill, and the cooked product comes onthe table, it is hard to tell whether it is tuber or hollow fruit, subterranean or superficial growth, that we are eating. So in Riy[=o]bu, whether it be most _imo_ or _kabocha_ is a fair question. If theBuddhism in Japan did but add a chapter of decay and degradation to thereligion of the Light of Asia, is not this owing to the act ofK[=o]b[=o]--justified indeed by those who imitated his example, yethardly to be called honest? A stroke of ecclesiastical dexterity, it mayhave been, but scarcely a lawful example or an illustrious andcommendable specimen of syncretism in religion. 

Many students have asked what is the peculiar, the characteristicdifference between the Buddhism of Japan and the other Buddhisms of theAsian continent. If there be one cause, leading all others, we inclineto believe it is because Japanese Buddhism is not the Buddhism ofGautama, but is so largely Riy[=o]bu or Mixed. Yet in the alloy, whichingredient has preserved most of its qualities? Is Japanese Buddhismreally Shint[=o]ized Buddhism, or Buddhaized Shint[=o]? Which is theparasite and which the parasitized? Is the hermit crab Shint[=o], andthe shell Buddhism, or _vice versa_? About as many corrupt elements fromShint[=o] entered into the various Buddhist sects as Buddhism gave toShint[=o]. 

This process of Shint[=o]izing Buddhism or of BuddhaizingShint[=o]--that is, of combining Shint[=o] or purely Japanese ideas andpractices with the systems imported from India, went on for fivecenturies. The old native habits and mental characteristics were noteradicated or profoundly modified; they were rather safely preserved inso-called Buddhism, not indeed as dead flies in amber but as livecreatures, fattening on a body, which, every year, while keeping outwardform and name, was being emptied of its normal and typical life. It isno gain to pure water to add either microbes or the food which nourishesthem. 

Buddhism Writes New Chapters of Decay. 

Phenomenally, the victory was that of Buddhism. The mustard-seed hasindeed become a great tree, lodging every fowl of heaven, clean andunclean; but potentially and in reality, the leavening power, as nowseen, seems to have been that of Shint[=o]. Or, to change metaphor, since the hermit crab and the shell were separated by law only onegeneration ago, in 1870, we shall soon, before many generations, discernclearly which has the life and which has only the shell. [34]

There are but few literary monuments[35] of Riy[=o]buism, and it hasleft few or no marks in the native chronicles, misnamed history, whichutterly omit or ignore so many things interesting to the student andhumanist. [36] Yet to this mixture or amalgamation of Buddhism withShint[=o], more probably than to any other direct influence, may also beascribed that striking alteration in the system of Chinese ethics orConfucianism which differentiates the Japanese form from that prevalentin China. That is, instead of filial piety, the relation of parent andchild, occupying the first place, loyalty, the relation of lord andretainer, master and servant, became supreme. Although Buddhism made theMikado first a King (Tenn[=o]) or Son of Heaven (Ten-Shi), and then amonk (H[=o]-[=o]), and after his death a Hotoké or Buddhist deity, itcaused him early to abdicate from actual life. Buddhism is thus directlyresponsible for the habitual Japanese resignation from active lifealmost as soon as it is entered, by men in all classes. Buddhism startedall along and down through the lines of Japanese society the idea ofearly retirement from duty; so that men were considered old at forty, and _hors concours_ before forty-five. [37] Life was condemned as vanityof vanities before it was mature, and old age a friend that nobodywished to meet, [38] although Japanese old age is but European prime. Ina measure, Buddhism is thus responsible for the paralysis of Japanesecivilization, which, like oft-tapped maple-trees, began to die at thetop. This was in accordance with its theories and its literature. In theBible there is, possibly, one book which is pessimistic in tone, Ecclesiastes. In the bulky and dropsical canon of Buddhism there is awhole library of despondency and despair. 

Nevertheless, the ethical element held its own in the Japanese mind; andagainst the pessimism and puerility of Buddhism and the religiousemptiness of Shint[=o], the bond of Japanese society was sought in theidea of loyalty. While then, as we repeat, everything that comes to theJapanese mind suffers as it were "a sea change, into something new andstrange, " is it not fair to say that the change made by K[=o]b[=o] wasat the expense of Buddhism as a system, and that the thing that sufferedreversion was the exotic rather than the native plant? For, in theemergence of this new idea of loyalty as supreme, Shint[=o] and notBuddhism was the dictator. 

Even more after K[=o]b[=o]'s death than during his life, Japan improvedupon her imported faith, and rapidly developed new sects of all degreesof reputableness and disreputableness. Had K[=o]b[=o] lived on throughthe centuries, as the boors still believe;[39] he could not havestopped, had he so desired, the workings of the leaven he had broughtfrom China. From the sixth to the twelfth century, was the missionaryage of Japanese Buddhism. Then followed two centuries of amazingdevelopment of doctrine. Novelties in religion blossomed, fruited andbecame monuments as permanent as the age-enduring forests Hakoné, orNikk[=o]. Gautama himself, were he to return to "red earth" again, couldnot recognize his own cult in Japan. 

In China to-day Buddhism is in a bad state. One writer calls it, "Theemasculated descendant that now occupies the land with its drone ofpriests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of thelearned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with openarms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the lastphase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace andrest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness andcorruption. "[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. Thecommon people of China are to-day Taoists rather than Buddhists. [41]

If this be the position in China, something not very far from it isfound in Japan to-day. Whatever may be the Buddhism of the few learnedscholars, who have imbibed the critical and scientific spirit ofChristendom, and whatever be the professions and representations of itsearnest adherents and partisans, it is certain that popular Buddhism isboth ethically and vitally in a low state. In outward array the systemis still imposing. There are yet, it may be, millions of stone statuesand whole forests of wayside effigies, outdoors andunroofed--irreverently called by the Japanese themselves, "wet gods. "Hosts upon hosts of lacquered and gilded images in wood, sheltered underthe temple tiles or shingles, still attract worshippers. Despiteshiploads of copper Buddhas exported as old metal to Europe and America, and thousands of tons of gods and imps melted into coin or cannon, thereare myriads of metal reminders of those fruits of a religion that onceeducated and satisfied; but these are, in the main, no longer to thenatives instruments of inspiration or compellers to enthusiasm. In thistime of practical charity, they are poor substitutes for those hospitalsand orphan asylums which were practically unknown in Japan until theadvent of Christianity. 

K[=o]b[=o]'s smart example has been followed only too well by the peoplein every part of the country. One has but to read the stacks of books oflocal history to see what an amazing proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions and revelations rests on dreams; how incredibly numerousare the apparitions; how often the floating images of Buddha are foundon the water; how frequently flowers have rained out of the sky; howmany times the idols have spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays--in aword; how often art and artifices have become alleged and acceptedreality. Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature andundergrowth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; fornearly all are copies of K[=o]b[=o]'s model. His cartoon has beenconstantly before the busy weavers of legend. 

It may indeed be said, and said truly, that in its multiplication ofsects and in its growth of legend and superstition, Buddhism has butfollowed every known religion, including traditional Christianityitself. Yet popular Buddhism has reached a point which shows, that, instead of having a self-purgative and self-reforming power, it isapparently still treading in the steps of the degradation whichK[=o]b[=o]began. 

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune. 

We repeat it, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance. Itis to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins. Its _ingwa_ ismanifest. Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as theSeven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to JapaneseBuddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done byK[=o]b[=o], as shown in his Riy[=o]bu system. Not from foreign writersand their fancies, nor even from the books which profess to describethese divinities, do we get such an idea of their real meaning and oftheir influence with the people, as we do by observation of every-daypractice, and a study of the idols themselves and of Japanese folk-lore, popular romance, local history and guidebooks. Those familiardivinities, indeed, at the present day owe their vitality rather to theartists than to priests, and, it may be, have received, together withsome rather rude handling, nearly the whole of their extended popularityand influence from their lay supporters. The Seven Happy Gods of Fortuneform nominally a Buddhist assemblage, and their effigies on thekami-dana or god-shelf, found in nearly every Japanese house, areuniversally visible. The child in Japan is rocked to sleep by thesoothing sound of the lullaby, which is often a prayer to these gods. Even though it may be with laughing and merriment, that, in their namethe evil gods and imps are exorcised annually on New Year's eve, withshowers of beans which are supposed to be as disagreeable to theBuddhist demons "as drops of holy water to the Devil, " yet fewhouseholds are complete without one or more of the images or thepictures of these favorite deities. 

The separate elements of this conglomerate, so typical of Japanesereligion, are from no fewer than four different sources: Brahmanism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shint[=o]ism. "Thus, Bishamon is the Buddhist_Vâis'ramana_[42] and the Brahmanic Kuvera; Benten is Sarasvatî, thewife of Brahmâ; Daikoku is an extremely popularised form of Mahakala, the black-faced Temple Guardian; Hotéi has Taoist attributes, but isregarded as an incarnation of Màitreyâ, the Buddhist Messiah;Fuku-roku-jiu is of purely Taoist origin, and is perhaps apersonification of Lao-Tsze himself; Ju-ró-jin is almost certainly aduplicate of Fuku-roku-jiu; and, lastly, Ebisu, as the son of Izanagiand Izanami, is a contribution from the Shint[=o] hero-worship. "[43] IfRiy[=o]bu Buddhism be two-fold, here is a texture or amalgam that is_shi-bu_, four-fold. Let us watch lest _go-bu_, with Christianity mixedin, be the next result of the process. To play the Japanese game ofgo-ban, with Christianity as the fifth counter, and Jesus as aPalestinian avatar of some Dhyani Buddha, crafty priests in Japan areeven now planning. 

This illustration of the Seven Gods of Happiness, whose localcharacters, functions and relations have been developed especiallywithin the last three or four hundred years, is but one of many thatcould be adduced, showing what proceeded on a larger scale. TheRiy[=o]bu process made it almost impossible for the average native todraw the line between history and mythology. It destroyed the boundarylines, as Pantheism invariably does, between fact and fiction, truth andfalsehood. The Japanese mind, by a natural, possibly by a racial, tendency, falls easily into Pantheism, which may be called the destroyerof boundaries and the maker of chaos and ooze. Pretty much all earlyJapanese "history" is ooze; yet there are grave and learned men, even inthe Constitutional Japan of the Méiji era--masters in their arts andprofessions, graduates of technical and philosophical courses--whosolemnly talk about their "first emperor ascending the throne, B. C. 660, " and to whom the dragon-born, early Mikados, and theirfellow-tribesmen, seen through the exaggerated mists of the Kojiki, aredivine personages. 

The Gon-gen in the Processions. 

While living in Japan between 1870 and 1874, the writer used to enjoywatching and studying the long processions which celebrated thefoundation of temples, national or local festivals, or the completion ofsome great public enterprise, such as the railway between T[=o]kio andYokohama. In rich costume, decoration, and representation most of thecultus-objects were marvels of art and skill. Besides the gala dressesand uniforms, the fantastic decorations and personal adornments, thedances which represented the comedies and tragedies of the gods and thestriking scenes in the Kojiki, there wore colossal images of Kami, Bodhisattvas, Gon-gen, Dai Mi[=o] Jin, and of imps, oni, mythical animalforms and imaginary monsters. [44] More interesting than anything else, however, were the male and female figures, set high upon triumphal carshaving many tiers, and arrayed in characteristic primeval, ancient, medieval, or early modern dress. Some were of scowling, others of benignvisage. In some years, everyone of the eight hundred and eight streetsof Yedo sent its contribution of men, money, decorations, or vehicles. 

As seen by four kinds of spectators, the average ignorant native, theShint[=o]ist, the learned Buddhist, and the critical historical scholar, these effigies represented three different characters or creations. Especially were those divine personages called Gon-gen worth the studyof the foreign observer. 

(1) The common boor or streetman saluted, for example, this or that DaiMi[=o] Jin, as the great illustrious spirit or god of its particulardistrict. To this spirit and image he prayed; in his honor he madeofferings; his wrath he feared; and his smile he hoped to win, for theGon-gen was a divine being. 

(2) To the Shint[=o]ist, who hated Buddhism and the Riy[=o]bu Shint[=o]which had overlaid his ancestral faith, and who scorned and tabooed thisChinese term Dai Mi[=o] Jin, this or that image represented a divineancestor whose name had in it many Japanese syllables, with no defilingChinese sounds, and who was the Kami or patron deity of this or thatneighborhood. 

(3) To the Buddhist, this or that personage, in his lifetime, in theearly ages of Japanese history, had been an avatar of Buddha who hadappeared in human flesh and brought blessings to the people andneighborhood; yet the people of the early ages being unprepared toreceive his doctrine or revelation, he had not then revealed or preachedit; but now, as for a thousand years since the time of the illustriousand saintly K[=o]b[=o], he had his right name and received his justhonors and worship as an avatar of the eternal Buddha. So, althoughBuddhist and Shint[=o]ist might quarrel as to his title, and divide, even to anger, on minor points, they would both agree in letting thecommon people take their pleasure, enjoy the festivals and merriment, and preserve their reverence and worship. 

(4) Still another spectator studied with critical interest the swayingfigure high in air. With a taste for archaeology, he admired theaccuracy of the drapery and associations. He was amused, it may be, withoccasional anachronisms as to garments or equipments. He knew that theoriginal of this personage had been nothing more than a human being, whomight indeed have been conspicuous as a brave soldier in war, or as askilful physician who helped to stop the plague, or as a civilizer whoimported new food or improved agriculture. 

In a word, had this subject of the ancient Mikado lived in modernChristendom, he might be honored through the government, patent office, privy council, the admiralty, the university, or the academy, as thecase or worth might be. He might shine in a plastic representation bythe sculptor or artist, or be known in the popular literature; but hewould never receive religious worship, or aught beyond honor and praise. In this swamping of history in legend and of fact in dogma, we beholdthe fruit of K[=o]b[=o]'s work, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism. 

K[=o]b[=o]'s Work Undone. 

Buddhism calls itself the jewel in the lotus. Japanese poetry asks ofthe dewdrop "why, having the heart of the lotus for its home, does itpretend to be a gem?" For a thousand years Riy[=o]bu Buddhism wasreceived as a pure brilliant of the first water, and then thescholarship of the Shint[=o] revivalists of the eighteenth centuryexposed the fraudulent nature of the unrelated parts and declared thatthe jewel called Riy[=o]bu was but a craftsman's doublet and should besplit apart. Only a splinter of diamond, they declared, crowned a massof paste. Indignation made learning hot, and in 1870 the cement wasliquefied in civil war. The doublet was rent asunder by imperial decree, as when a lapidist melts the mastic that holds in deception adamant andglass, while real diamond stands all fire short of the hydro-oxygenflame. The Riy[=o]bu temples were purged of all Buddhist symbols, furniture, equipment and personnel, and were made again to assume theiraugust and austere simplicity. In the eyes of the purely aestheticcritic, this national purgation was Puritanical iconoclasm; in those ofthe priests, cast out to earn rice elsewise and elsewhere, it wasoutrage, which in individual instances called for reprisal in blood, fire and assassination; to the Shint[=o]ist, it was an exhibition of therighteous judgment of the long-insulted gods; in the ken of the criticalstudent, it seems very much like historic and poetic justice. 

In our day and time, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism furnishes us with a warning, for, looked at from a purely human point of view, what happened toShint[=o] may possibly happen to Japanese Christianity. The successorsof those who, in the ninth century, did not scruple to BuddhaizeShint[=o], and in later times, even our own, to Shint[=o]ize Buddhismwhile holding to Buddha's name and all the revenue possible, willBuddhaize Christianity if they have power and opportunity; and signs arenot wanting to show that this is upon their programme. 

The water of stagnant Buddhism is still a swarming mass, which needscleansing to purity by a knowledge of one God who is Light and Love. Without such knowledge, the manifold changes in Buddhism will but formfresh chapters of degradation and decay. Holding such knowledge, Christianity may pass through endless changes, for this is hercapability by Divine power and the authorization of her Founder. The nowBuddhism of our day is endeavoring to save itself through reformationand progress. In doing so, the danger of the destruction of the systemis great, for thus far change has meant decay. 

CHAPTER VIII - NORTHERN BUDDHISM IN ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

 "To the millions of China, Corea, and Japan, creator and creation are new and strange terms, "--J. H. De Forest. 

 "The Law of our Lord, the Buddha, is not a natural science or a religion, but a doctrine of enlightenment; and the object of it is to give rest to the restless, to point out the Master (the Inmost Man) to those that are blind and do not perceive their Original State. "

 "The Saddharma Pundarika Sutra teaches us how to obtain that desirable knowledge of the mind as it is in itself [universal wisdom] . .. Mind is the One Reality, and all Scriptures are the micrographic photographs of its images. He that fully grasps the Divine Body of Sakyamuni, holds ever, even without the written Sutra, the inner Saddharma Pundarika in his hand. He ever reads it mentally, even though he would never read it orally. He is unified with it though he has no thought about it. He is the true keeper of the Sutra. "--Zitsuzen Ashitsu of the Tendai sect. 

 "It [Buddhism] is idealistic. Everything is as we think it. The world is my idea. .. . Beyond our faith is naught. Hold the Buddhist to his creed and insist that such logic destroys itself, and he triumphs smilingly, 'Self-destructive! Of course it is. All logic is. That is the centre of my philosophy. '"

 "It [Buddhism] denounces all desire and offers salvation as the reward of the murder of our affections, hopes, and aspirations. It is possible where conscious existence is believed to be the chief of evils. "--George William Knox. 

 "Swallowing the device of the priests, the people well satisfied, dance their prayers. "--Japanese Proverb. 

 "The wisdom that is from above is . .. Without variance, without hypocrisy. "--James. 

 "The mystery of God, even Christ in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. "--Paul. 

CHAPTER VIII - NORTHERN BUDDHISM IN ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

Chronological Outline. 

In sketching the history of the doctrinal developments of Buddhism inJapan, we note that the system, greatly corrupted from its originalsimplicity, was in 552 A. D. Already a millennium old. Several distinctphases of the much-altered faith of Gautama, were introduced into theislands at various times between the sixth and the ninth century. Fromthese and from others of native origin have sprung the larger Japanesesects. Even as late as the seventeenth century, novelties in Buddhismwere imported from China, and the exotics took root in Japanese soil;but then, with a single exception, only to grow as curiosities in thegarden, rather than as the great forests, which had already sprung fromimported and native specimens. 

We may divide the period of the doctrinal development of Buddhism inJapan into four epochs:

I. The first, from 552 to 805 A. D. , will cover the first six sects, which had for their centre of propagation, Nara, the southern capital. 

II. Then follows Riy[=o]bu Buddhism, from the ninth to the twelfthcenturies. 

III. This was succeeded by another explosion of doctrine wholly andpeculiarly Japanese, and by a wide missionary propagation. 

IV. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, there is little thatis doctrinally noticeable, until our own time, when the new Buddhism ofto-day claims at least a passing notice. 

The Japanese writers of ecclesiastical history classify in three groupsthe twelve great sects as the first six, the two mediæval, and the fourmodern sects. 

In this lecture we shall merely summarize the characteristics of thefirst five sects which existed before the opening of the ninth centurybut which are not formally extant at the present time, and treat morefully the purely Japanese developments. The first three sects may begrouped under the head of the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle, as Southernor primitive orthodox Buddhism is usually called. 

Most of the early sects, as will be seen, were founded upon someparticular sutra, or upon selections or collections of sutras. Theycorrespond to some extent with the manifold sects of Christendom, andyet this illustration or reference must not be misleading. It is not asthough a new Christian sect, for example, were in A. D. 500 to be formedwholly on the gospel of Luke, or the book of the Revelation; nor asthough a new sect should now arise in Norway or Tennessee because of aspecial emphasis laid on a combination of the epistle to the Corinthiansand the book of Daniel. It is rather as though distinct names andorganizations should be founded upon the writings of Tertullian, ofAugustine, of Luther, or of Calvin, and that such sects should acceptthe literary work of these scholars not only as commentaries but as HolyScripture itself. 

The Buddhist body of scriptures has several times been imported andprinted in Japan, but has never been translated into the vernacular. Thecanon[1] is not made up simply of writings purporting to be the words ofBuddha or of the apostles who were his immediate companions orfollowers. On the contrary, the canon, as received in Japan, is made upof books, written for the most part many centuries after the last of thecontemporaries of Gautama had passed away. Not a few of these writingsare the products of the Chinese intellect. Some books held by particularsects as holy scripture were composed in Japan itself, the very booksthemselves being worshipped. Nevertheless those who are apparentlyfarthest away from primitive Buddhism, claim to understand Buddha mostclearly. 

The Standard Doctrinal Work. 

One of the most famous of books, honored especially by several of thelater and larger sects in Japan, and probably the most widely read andmost generally studied book of the canon, is the Saddharma Pundarika. [2]Professor Kern, who has translated this very rhetorical work intoEnglish, thinks it existed at or some time before 250 A. D. , and that inits most ancient form it dates some centuries earlier, possibly as earlyas the opening of the Christian era. It has now twenty-seven chapters, and may be called the typical scripture of Northern Buddhism. It isoverflowingly full of those sensuous images and descriptions of theParadise, in which the imagination of the Japanese Buddhist so revels, and in it both rhetoric and mathematics run wild. Of this book, "thecream of the revealed doctrine, " we shall hear often again. It is thestandard of orthodoxy in Japanese Buddhism, the real genius of which ismonastic asceticism in morals and philosophical scepticism in religion. 

In most of the other sutras the burden of thought is ontology. Doctrinally, Buddhism seems to be less a religion than a system ofphilosophy. Hundreds of volumes in the canon concern themselves almostwholly with ontological speculations. The Japanese mind, [3] as describedby those who have studied most acutely and profoundly its manifestationsin language and literature, is essentially averse to speculation. Yetthe first forms of Buddhism presented to the Japanese, were highlymetaphysical. The history of thought in Japan, shows that theseabstractions of dogma were not congenial to the islanders. The new faithwon its way among the people by its outward sensuous attractions, and byappeals to the imagination, the fancy and the emotions; though the menof culture were led captive by reasoning which they could not answer, even if they could comprehend it. Though these early forms of dogma andphilosophy no longer survive in Japan, having been eclipsed by moreconcrete and sensuous arguments, yet it is necessary to state them inorder to show: first, what Buddhism really is; second, doctrinaldevelopment in the farthest East; and, third, the peculiarities of theJapanese mind. 

In this task, we are happy to be able to rely upon native witness andconfession. [4] The foreigner may easily misrepresent, even whensincerely inclined to utter only the truth. Each religion, in its theoryat least, must be judged by its ideals, and not by its failures. Itstruth must be stated by its own professors. In the "History of TheTwelve Japanese Sects, " by Bunyiu Nanjio, M. A. Oxon. , and in "LeBouddhisme Japonais, " by Ryauon Fujishima, we have the untrammelledutterances, of nine living lights of the religion of Shaka as it is heldand taught in Dai Nippon. The former scholar is a master of texts, andthe latter of philosophy, each editor excelling in his own department;and the two books complement each other in value. 

Buddhism, being a logical growth out of Brahmanism, used the old sacredlanguage of India and inherited its vocabulary. In the Tripitaka, thatis, the three book-baskets or boxes, we have the term for canon ofscripture, in the complete collection of which are _sutra_, _vinaya_ and_abidharma_. We shall see, also, that while Gautama shut out the gods, his speculative followers who claimed to be his successors, opened thedoors and allowed them to troop in again. The democracy of thecongregation became a hierarchy and the empty swept and garnished house, a pantheon. 

A sutra, from the root _siv_, to sew, means a thread or string, and inthe old Veda religion referred to household rites or practices and themoral conduct of life; but in Buddhist phraseology it means a body ofdoctrine. A shaster or shastra, from the Sanskrit root _ças_, to govern, relates to discipline. Of those shastras and sutras we must frequentlyspeak. In India and China some of those sutras are exponents, of schoolsof thought or opinion, or of views or methods of looking at things, rather than of organizations. In Japan these schools of philosophy, incertain instances, become sects with a formal history. 

In China of the present day, according to a Japanese traveller andauthor, "the Chinese Buddhists seem . .. To unite all different sects, soas to make one harmonious sect. " The chief divisions are those of theblue robe, who are allied with the Lamaism of Tibet and whose doctrineis largely "esoteric, " and those of the yellow robe, who accept thethree fundamentals of principle, teaching and discipline. Dhyana orcontemplation is their principle; the Kégon or Avatamsaka sutra and theHokké or Saddharma Pundarika sutra, etc. , form the basis of theirteaching; and the Vinaya of the Four Divisions (Dharmagupta) is theirdiscipline. On the contrary, in Japan there are vastly greaterdiversities of sect, principle, teaching and discipline. 

Buddhism as a System of Metaphysics. 

The date of the birth of the Buddha in India, accepted by the Japanesescholars is B. C. 1027--the day and month being also given withsuspicious accuracy. About nine centuries after Gautama had attainedNirvana, there were eighteen schools of the Hinayana or the doctrine ofthe Smaller Vehicle. Then a shastra or institute of Buddhist ontology innine chapters, was composed, the title of which in English, is, Book ofthe Treasury of Metaphysics. It had such a powerful influence that itwas called an intelligence-creating, or as we say, an epoch-making book. 

This Ku-sha shastra, from the Sanskrit _kosa_, a store, is eclectic, andcontains nine chapters embodying the views of one of the schools, withselections from those of others. It was translated in A. D. 563, intoChinese by a Hindu scholar; but about a hundred years later the famouspilgrim, whom the Japanese call Gen-j[=o], but who is known in Europe asHiouen Thsang, [5] made a better translation, while his disciples addedcommentaries. 

In A. D. 658, two Japanese priests[6] made the sea-journey westward intoChina, as Gen-j[=o] had before made the land pilgrimage into India, andbecame pupils of the famous pilgrim. After long study they returned, bringing the Chinese translation of this shastra into Japan. They didnot form an independent sect; but the doctrines of this shastra, beingeclectic, were studied by all Japanese Buddhist sects. This Ku-shascripture is still read in Japan as a general institute of ontology, especially by advanced students who wish to get a general idea of thedoctrines. It is full of technical terms, and is well named TheStore-house of Metaphysics. 

The Ku-sha teaches control of the passions, and the government ofthought. The burden of its philosophy is materialism; that is, thenon-existence of self and the existence of the matter which composesself, or, as the Japanese writer says: "The reason why all things are sominutely explained in this shastra is to drive away the idea of self, and to show the truth in order to make living beings reach Nirvana. "Among the numerous categories, to express which many technical terms arenecessary, are those of "forms, " eleven in number, including the fivesenses and the six objects of sense; the six kinds of knowledge; theforty-six mental qualities, grouped under six heads; and the fourteenconceptions separated from the mind; thus making in all seventy-twocompounded things and three immaterial things. These latter are"conscious cessation of existence, " "unconscious cessation ofexistence, " and "space. "

The Reverend Shuzan Emura, of the Shin-shu sect of Japan, afterspecifying these seventy-five Dharmas, or things compounded and thingsimmaterial, says:[7] "The former include all things that proceed from acause. This cause is Karma, to which everything existing is due, Spaceand Nirvana alone excepted. Again, of the three immaterial things thelast two are not subjects to be understood by the wisdom not free fromfrailty. Therefore the 'conscious cessation of existence' is consideredas being the goal of all effort to him who longs for deliverance frommisery. "

In a word, this one of the many Buddhisms of Asia is vastly less areligion, in any real sense of the word, than a system of metaphysics. However, the doctrine to be mastered is graded in three Yanas orVehicles; for there are now, as in the days of Shaka, three classes ofbeing, graded according to their ability or power to understand "thetruth. " These are:

(I. ) The Sho-mon or lowest of the disciples of Shaka, or hearers whomeditate on the cause and effect of everything. If acute inunderstanding, they become free from confusion after three births; butif they are dull, they pass sixty kalpas[8] or aeons before they attainto the state of enlightenment. 

(II. ) The Engaku or Pratyeka Buddhas, that is, "singly enlightened, " orbeings in the middle state, who must extract the seeds or causes ofactions, and must meditate on the twelve chains of causation, orunderstand the non-eternity of the world, while gazing upon the fallingflowers or leaves. They attain enlightenment after four births or ahundred kalpas, according to their ability. 

(III. ) The Bodhisattvas or Buddhas-elect, who practise the sixperfections (perfect practice of alms-giving, morality, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom) as preliminaries to Nirvana, which theyreach only after countless kalpas. 

These three grades of pupils in the mysteries of Buddha doctrine, aresaid to have been ordered by Shaka himself, because understanding humanbeings so thoroughly, he knew that one person could not comprehend twoways or vehicles (Yana) at once. People were taught therefore topractise anyone of the three vehicles at pleasure. 

We shall see how the later radical and democratic Japanese Buddhismswept away this gradation, and declaring but the one vehicle (éka), opened the kingdom to all believers. 

The second of the early Japanese schools of thought, is theJ[=o]-jitsu, [9] or the sect founded chiefly upon the shastra which meansThe Book of the Perfection of the Truth, containing selections from andexplanations of the true meaning of the Tripitaka. This shastra was thework of a Hindu whose name means Lion-armor, and who lived about ninecenturies after Gautama. Not satisfied with the narrow views of histeacher, who may have been of the Dharmagupta school (of the fourDisciplines), he made selections of the best and broadestinterpretations then current in the several different schools of theSmaller Vehicle. The book is eclectic, and attempts to unite all thatwas best in each of the Hinayana schools; but certain Chinese teachersconsider that its explanations are applicable to the Great Vehicle also. Translated into Chinese in 406 A. D. , the commentaries upon it soonnumbered hundreds, and it was widely expounded and lectured upon. Commentaries upon this shastra were also written in Korean byD[=o]-z[=o]. From the peninsula it was introduced into Japan. ThisJ[=o]-jitsu doctrine was studied by prince Sh[=o]toku, and promulgatedas a division of the school called San-Ron. The students of theJ[=o]-jitsu school never formed in Japan a distinct organization. 

The burden of the teachings of this school is pure nihilism, or thenon-existence of both self and of matter. There is an utter absence ofsubstantiality in all things. Life itself is a prolonged dream. Theobjects about us are mere delusive shadows or mirage, the product of theimagination alone. The past and the future are without reality, but thepresent state of things only stands as if it were real. That is to say:the true state of things is constantly changing, yet it seems as if thestate of things were existing, even as does a circle of fire seen when arope watch is turned round very quickly. 

Japanese Pilgrims to China. 

The Ris-shu or Vinaya sect is one of purely Chinese origin, and wasfounded, or rather re-founded, by the Chinese priest D[=o]sen, who livedon Mount Shunan early in the seventh century, and claimed to be onlyre-proclaiming the rules given by Gautama himself. He was wellacquainted with the Tripitaka and especially versed in the Vinaya orrules of discipline. His purpose was to unite the teachings of both theGreater and the Lesser Vehicle in a sutra whose burden should be one ofethics and not of dogma. 

The founder of this sect was greatly honored by the Chinese Emperor. Furthermore, he was honored in vision by the holy Pindola orBinzura, [10] who praised the founder as the best man that hadpromulgated the discipline since Buddha himself. In later centuries, successors of the founder compiled commentaries and reproclaimed theteachings of this sect. 

In A. D. 724 two Japanese priests went over to China, and having masteredthe Ris-shu doctrine, received permission to propagate it in Japan. Witheighty-two Chinese priests they returned a few years later, havingattempted, it is said, the journey five times and spent twelve years onthe sea. On their return, they received an imperial invitation to livein the great monastery at Nara, and soon their teachings exerted apowerful influence on the court. The emperor, empress and four hundredpersons of note were received into the Buddhist communion by a Chinesepriest of the Ris-shu school in the middle of the eighth century. TheMikado Sh[=o]-mu resigned his throne and took the vow and robes of amonk, becoming H[=o]-[=o] or cloistered emperor. Under imperialdirection a great bronze image of the Vairokana Buddha, or Perfection ofMorality, was erected, and terraces, towers, images and all theparaphernalia of the new kind of Buddhism were prepared. Even the earthwas embroidered, as it were, with sutras and shastras. Symbolicallandscape gardening, which, in its mounds and paths, variously shapedstones and lanterns, artificial cascades and streamlets, teaches theholy geography as well as the allegories and hidden truths of Buddhism, made the city of Nara beautiful to the eyes of faith as well as ofsight. 

This sect, with its excellence in morality and benevolence, proveditself a beautifier of human life, of society and of the earth itself. Its work was an irenicon. It occupied itself exclusively with the higherethics, the higher meditations and the higher knowledge. Interdictingwhat was evil and prescribing what was good, its precepts varied innumber and rigor according to the status of the disciple, lay orclerical. It is by the observance of the _sila_, or grades of moralperfection, that one becomes a Buddha. Besides making so powerful aconquest at the southern capital, this sect was the one which centuriesafterward built the first Buddhist temple in Yedo. Being ordinary humanmortals, however, both monk and layman occasionally illustrated thedifference between profession and practice. 

These three schools or sects, Ku-sha, J[=o]-jitsu, and Ris-shu, may begrouped under the Hinayana or Smaller Vehicle, with more or lessaffiliation with Southern Buddhism; the others now to be described werewholly of the Northern division. 

The Hoss[=o]-shu, or the Dharma-lakshana sect, as described by the Rev. Dai-ryo Takashi of the Shin-gon sect, is the school which studies thenature of Dharmas or things. The three worlds of desire, form andformlessness, consist in thought only; and there is nothing outsidethought. Nine centuries after Gautama, Maitreya, [11] or the Buddha ofkindness, came down from the heaven of the Bodhisattva to thelecture-hall in the kingdom in central India at the request of theBuddhas elect, and discounted five shastras. After that two Buddhistfathers who were brothers, composed many more shastras and cleared upthe meaning of the Mah[=a]yan[=a]. In 629 A. D. , in his twenty-ninthyear, the famous Chinese pilgrim, Gen-j[=o] (Hiouen-thsang), studiedthese shastras and sciences, and returning to China in 645 A. D. , beganhis great work of translation, at which he continued for nineteen years. One of his disciples was the author of a hundred commentaries on sutrasand shastras. The doctrines of Gen-j[=o] and his disciples were at fourdifferent times, from 653 to 712 A. D. , imported into Japan, and named, after the monasteries in which they were promulgated, the Northern andSouthern Transmission. 

The Middle Path. 

The burden of the teachings of this sect is subjective idealism. Theyembrace principles enjoining complete indifference to mundane affairs, and, in fact, thorough personal nullification and the ignoring of allactions by its disciples. In these teachings, thought only, is real. Aswe have already seen with the Ku-sha teaching, human beings are of threeclasses, divided according to intellect, into higher, middle and lower, for whom the systems of teachings are necessarily of as many kinds. Theorder of progress with those who give themselves to the study of theHoss[=o] tenets, is, [12] first, they know only the existence of things, then the emptiness of them, and finally they enter the middle path of"true emptiness and wonderful existence. "

From the first, such discipline is long and painful, and ultimatevictory scarcely comes to the ordinary being. The disciple, by trainingin thought, by destroying passions and practices, by meditating on theonly knowledge, must pass through three kalpas or aeons. Constantlymeditating, and destroying the two obstacles of passion and cognizablethings, the disciple then obtains four kinds of wisdom and truly attainsperfect enlightenment or Pari-Nirvana. 

The San-ron Shu, as the Three-Shastra sect calls itself, is the sect ofthe Teachings of Buddha's whole life. [13] Other sects are founded uponsingle sutras, a fact which makes the student liable to narrowness ofopinion. The San-ron gives greater breadth of view and catholicity ofopinion. The doctrines of the Greater Vehicle are the principalteachings of Gautama, and these are thoroughly explained in the threeshastras used by this sect, which, it is claimed, contain Buddha's ownwords. The meanings of the titles of the three favorite sutras, are, TheMiddle Book, The Hundred, and The Book of Twelve Gates. Other books ofthe canon are also studied and valued by this sect, but all of them areapt to be perused from a particular point of view; i. E. , that ofPyrronism or infinite negation. 

There are two lines of the transmission of this doctrine, both of themthrough China, though, the introduction to Japan was made from Korea, in625 A. D. Not to dwell upon the detail of history, the burden of thissect's teaching, is, infinite negation or absolute nihilism. Truth isthe inconceivable state, or, in the words of the Japanese writer: "Thetruth is nothing but the state where thoughts come to an end; the rightmeditation is to perceive this truth. He who has obtained thismeditation is called Buddha. This is this doctrine of the San-ron sect. "

This sect, by its teachings of the Middle Path, seems to furnish abridge from the Hinayana or Southern school, to the Mah[=a]yan[=a] orNorthern school of Buddhism. Part of its work, as set forth by the Rev. K[=o]-ch[=o] Ogurasu, of the Shin sect, is to defend the authenticity, genuineness and canonicity of the books which form the Northern body ofscriptures. 

In these two sects Hos-s[=o] and San-ron, called those of Middle Path, and much alike in principle and teaching, the whole end and aim ofmental discipline, is nihilism--in the one case subjective, and in theother absolute, the end and goal being nothing--this view into thenature of things being considered the right one. 

Is it any wonder that such teachings could in the long run satisfyneither the trained intellects nor the unthinking common people ofJapan? Is it far from the truth to suspect that, even when accepted bythe Japanese courtiers and nobles, they were received, only too often, in a Platonic, not to say a Pickwickian, sense? The Japanese is toopolite to say "no" if he can possibly say "yes, " even when he does notmean it; while the common people all over the world, as betweenmetaphysics and polytheism, choose the latter. Is it any wonder that, along with this propagation of Nihilism as taught in the cloisters andthe court, history informs us of many scandals and much immoralitybetween the women of the court and the Buddhist monks?

Such dogmas were not able to live in organized forms, after the nextimportations of Buddhism which came in, not partly but wholly, under thename of the Mah[=a]yan[=a] or Great Vehicle, or Northern Buddhism. Bythe new philosophy, more concrete and able to appeal more closely to theaverage man, these five schools, which, in their discussions, dealtalmost wholly with _noumena_, were absorbed. As matter of fact, none ofthem is now in existence, nor can we trace them, speaking broadly, beyond the tenth century. Here and there, indeed, may be a templebearing the name of one of the sects, or grades of doctrine, andoccasionally an eccentric individual who "witnesses" to the oldmetaphysics; but these are but fossils or historical relics, and aregenerally regarded as such. 

Against such baldness of philosophy not only might the cultivatedJapanese intellect revolt and react, but as yet the common people ofJapan, despite the modern priestly boast of the care of the imperialrulers for what the bonzes still love to call "the people's religion, "were but slightly touched by the Indian faith. 

The Great Vehicle. 

The Kégon-Shu or Avatamsaka-sutra sect, is founded on a certain teachingwhich Gautama is said to have promulgated in nine assemblies held atseven different places during the second week of his enlightenment. Thissutra exists in no fewer than six texts, around each of which hasgathered some interesting mythology. The first two tests were held inmemory and not committed to palm leaves; the second pair are secretlypreserved in the dragon palace of Riu-gu[14] under the sea, and are notkept by the men of this world. The fifth text of 100, 000 verses, wasobtained by a Bodhisattva from the palace of the dragon king of theworld under the sea and transmitted to men in India. The sixth is theabridged text. 

It concerns us to notice that the shorter texts were translated intoChinese in the fourth century, and that later, other translations weremade--36, 000 verses of the fifth text, 45, 000 verses of the sixth text, etc. When the doctrine of the sect had been perfected by the fifthpatriarch and he lectured on the sutra, rays of white light came fromhis mouth, and there rained wonderful heavenly flowers. In A. D. 736 aChinese Vinaya teacher or instructor in Buddhist discipline, namedD[=o]-sen, first brought the Kégon scriptures to Japan. Four years latera Korean priest gave lectures on them in the Golden-Bell Hall of theGreat Eastern Monastery at Nara. He completed his task of expounding thesixty volumes in three years. Henceforth, lecturing on this sutra becameone of the yearly services of the Eastern Great Monastery. 

"The Ké-gon sutra is the original book of Buddha's teachings of hiswhole life. All his teachings therefore sprang from this sutra. If weattribute all the branches to the origin, we may say that there is noteaching of Buddha for his whole life except this sutra. "[15] The titleof the book, when literally translated, isGreat-square-wide-Buddha-flower-adornment-teaching--a title sufficientlyindicative of its rhetoric. The age of hard or bold thinking was givingway to flowery diction, and the Law was to be made easy through finewriting. 

The burden of doctrine is the unconditioned or realistic, pantheism. Nature absolute, or Buddha-tathata, is the essence of all things. Essence and form were in their origin combined and identical. Fire andwater, though phenomenally different, are from the point of view ofBuddha-tathata absolutely identical. Matter and thought are one--that isBuddha-tathata. In teaching, especially the young, it must be rememberedthat the mind resembles a fair page upon which the artist might trace adesign, especial care being needed to prevent the impression of evilthoughts, in order to accomplish which one must completely and alwaysdirect the mind to Buddha. [16] One notable sentence in the text is, "when one first raises his thoughts toward the perfect knowledge, he atonce becomes fully enlightened. "

In some parts of the metaphysical discussions of this sect we arereminded of European mediaeval scholasticism, especially of thatdiscussion as to how many angels could dance on the point of a cambricneedle without jostling each other. It says, "Even at the point of onegrain of dust, of immeasurable and unlimited worlds, there areinnumerable Buddhas, who are constantly preaching the Ké-gon ki[=o](sutra) throughout the three states of existence, past, present andfuture, so that the preaching is not at all to be collected. [17]

A New Chinese Sect. 

In its formal organization the Ten-dai sect is of Chinese origin. It isnamed after Tien Tai, [18] a mountain in China about fifty miles south ofNingpo, on which the book which forms the basis of its tenets wascomposed by Chi-sha, now canonized as a Dai Shi or Great teacher. Itsspecial doctrine of completion and suddenness was, however, transmitteddirectly from Shaka to Vairokana and thence to Maitreya, so that theapostolical succession of its orthodoxy cannot be questioned. 

The metaphysics of this sect are thought to be the most profound of theGreater Vehicle, combining into a system the two opposite ideas of beingand not being. The teachers encourage all men, whether quick or slow inunderstanding, to exercise the principle of "completion" and"suddenness, " together with four doctrinal divisions, one or all ofwhich are taught to men according to their ability. The object of thedoctrine is to make men get an excellent understanding, practise gooddiscipline and attain to the great fruit of Enlightenment orBuddha-hood. 

Out of compassion, Gautama appeared in the world and preached the truthin several forms, according to the circumstances of time and place. There are four doctrinal divisions of "completion, " "secrecy, ""meditation, " and "moral precept, " which are the means of knowing theprinciple of "completion. " From Gautama, Vairokana and Maitreya thedoctrine passed through more than twenty Buddhas elect, and arrived inChina on the twentieth day of the twelfth month, A. D. 401. The deliveryto disciples was secret, and the term used for this esoterictransmission means "handed over within the tower. "

In A. D. 805, two Japanese pilgrims went to China, and received orthodoxtraining. With twenty others, they brought the Ten-dai doctrines intoJapan. During this century, other Japanese disciples of the same sectcrossed the seas to study at Mount Tien Tai. On coming back to Japanthey propagated the various shades of doctrine, so that this main secthas many branches. It was chiefly through these pilgrims from the Westthat the Sanskrit letters, writing and literature were imported. In ourday, evidences of Sanskrit learning, long since neglected and forgotten, are seen chiefly in the graveyards and in charms and amulets. 

Although the philosophical doctrines of Ten-dai are much the same asthose of the Ké-gon sect, being based on pantheistic realism, andteaching that the Buddha-tathata or Nature absolute is the essence ofall things, yet the Ten-dai school has striking and peculiar features ofits own. Instead of taking some particular book or books in the canon, shastra, or sutra, selection or collection, as a basis, the Chinese monkChi-sha first mastered, and then digested the whole canon. Thenselecting certain doctrines for emphasis he supported them by a widerange of quotation, professing to give the gist of the pure teachings ofGautama rather than those of his disciples. In practice, however, theSaddharma Pundarika is the book most honored by this sect; the othersutras being employed mainly as commentary. Furthermore, this sect makesas strenuous a claim for the true apostolical succession from theFounder, as do the other sects. 

The teachers of Ten-dai doctrine must fully estimate character andability in their pupils, and so apportion instruction. In this respectand in not a few others, they are like the disciples of Loyola, and haveproperly been called the Jesuits of Buddhism. They are ascetics, andteach that spiritual insight is possible only through prolonged thought. Their purpose is to recognize the Buddha, in all the forms he hasassumed in order to save mankind. Nevertheless, the highest truths areincomprehensible except to those who have already attained toBuddha-hood. [19] In contrast to the Nichirenites, who give an emotionaland ultra-concrete interpretation and expression to the great sutra, Hokké Ki[=o], the Ten-dai teachers are excessively philosophical andintellectual. 

In its history the Ten-dai sect has followed out its logic. Beingrealistic in pantheism, it reverences not only Gautama the historicBuddha, but also, large numbers of the Hindu deities, the group of idolscalled Jiz[=o], the god Fudo, and Kuannon the god or goddess of mercy, under his or her protean forms. In its early history this sect welcomedto its pantheon the Shint[=o] gods, who, according to the scheme ofRiy[=o]bu Shint[=o], were declared to be avatars or manifestations ofBuddha. The three sub-sects still differ in their worship of the avatarsselected as supreme deities, but their philosophy enables them to sweepin the Buddhas of every age and clime, name and nation. Many otherpersonifications are found honored in the Ten-dai temples. At thegateways may usually be seen the colossal painted and hideous images ofthe two Devas or kings (Ni-O). These worthies are none other than Indraand Brahma of the old Vedic mythology. 

Space and time--which seem never to fail the Buddhists in theirliterature--would fail us to describe this sect in full, or to show indetail its teachings, wherein are wonderful resemblances to Europeanideas and facts--in philosophy, to Hegel and Spinoza find in history, toJesuitism. Nor can we stay to point out the many instances in which, invading the domain of politics, the Ten-dai abbots with their armies ofmonks, having made their monasteries military arsenals and issuing forthclad in armor as infantry and cavalry, have turned the scale of battleor dictated policies to emperors. Like the Praetorian guard of Rome orthe clerical militia in Spain, these men of keen intellect have lefttheir marks deep upon the social and political history of the country inwhich they dwelt. They have understood thoroughly the art of practisingreligion for the sake of revenue. To secure their ends, priests havemade partnerships with other sects; in order to hold Shint[=o] shrines, they have married to secure heirs and make office hereditary; andfinally in the Purification of 1870, when the Riy[=o]bu system was blownto the winds by the Japanese Government, not a few priests of this sectbecame laymen, in order to keep both office and emolument in thepurified Shint[=o] shrines. 

The Sect of the True Word. 

It is probable that the conquest and obliteration of Shint[=o] mighthave been accomplished by some priest or priests of the Ten-dai sect, had such a genius as K[=o]b[=o] been found in its household; but thisgreat achievement was reserved for the man who introduced into Japan theShin-gon Shu, or Sect of the True Word. The term _gon_ is the equivalentof Mantra, [20] a Sanskrit term meaning word, but in later use referringto the mystic salutations addressed to the Buddhist gods. "The doctrineof this sect is a great secret law. It teaches us that we can attain tothe state of the 'Great Enlightened, ' that is the state of 'Buddha, 'while in the present physical body, which was born of our parents (andwhich consists of six elements, [21] Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Ether, andKnowledge), if we follow the three great secret laws, regarding Body, Speech, and Thought. "[22]

The history of the transmission of the doctrine from the greatest of thespirit-bodied Buddhas to the historic founder, Vagrabodhi, is carefullygiven. The latter was a man very learned in regard to many doctrines ofBuddhism and other religious, and was especially well acquainted withthe deepest meaning of the doctrine of this sect, which he taught inIndia for a considerable time. The doctrine is recorded in severalsutras, yet the essential point is nothing but the Mandala, or circle ofthe two parts, or, in Japanese, Riy[=o]bu. 

The great preacher, Vagrabodhi, in 720 A. D. , came with his disciples tothe capital of China, and translated the sacred books, seventy-seven innumber. This doctrine is the well-known Yoga-chara, which has been wellset forth by Doctor Edkins in his scholarly volume on Chinese Buddhism. As "yoga" becomes in plain English "yoke, " and as "mantra" is from thesame root as "man" and "mind, " we have no difficulty in recognizing theoriginal meaning of these terms; the one in its nobler significancereferring to union with Buddha or Gnosis, and the other to the thoughttaking lofty expression or being debased to hocus-pocus in charm oramulet. Like the history of so many Sanskrit words as now uttered inevery-day English speech, the story of the word mantra forms a pictureof mental processes and apparently of the degradation of thought, or, assome will doubtless say, of the decay of religion. The term mantra meantfirst, a thought; then thought expressed; then a Vedic hymn or text;next a spell or charm. Such have been the later associations, in India, China and Japan with the term mantra. 

The burden of the philosophy of the Shin-gon, looked at from one pointof view, is mysticism, and from another, pantheism. One of the forms ofBuddha is the principle of everything. There are ten stages of thought, and there are two parts, "lengthwise" and "crosswise" or exoteric andesoteric. Other doctrines of Buddhism represent the first, or exotericstage; and those of the Shin-gon or true word, the second, or esoteric. The primordial principle is identical with that of Maha-Vairokana, oneof the forms[23] of Buddha. The body, the word and the thought are thethree mysteries, which being found in all beings, animate and inanimate, are to be fully understood only by Buddhas, and not by ordinary men. 

To show the actual method of intellectual procedure in order to reachBuddha-hood, many categories, tables and diagrams are necessary; but thecrowning tenet, most far reaching in its practical influence, is theteaching that it is possible to reach the state of Buddha-hood in thispresent body. 

As discipline for the attainment of excellence along the path marked outin the "Mantra sect, " there are three mystic rites: (1) worshipping theBuddha with the hand in certain positions called signs; (2) repeatingDharani, or mystic formulas; (3) contemplation. 

K[=o]b[=o] himself and all those who imitated him, practised fasting inorder to clear the spiritual eyesight. The thinking-chairs, soconspicuous in many old monasteries, though warmed at intervals throughthe ages by the living bodies of men absorbed in contemplation, arerarely much worn by the sitters, because almost absolute cessation ofmotion characterizes the long and hard thinkers of the Shin-gonphilosophers. The idols in the Shin-gon temples represent many a saintand disciple, who, by perseverance in what a critic of Buddhism calls"mind-murder, " and the use of mystic finger twistings and magicformulas, has won either the Nirvana or the penultimate stage of theBodhisattva. 

In the sermons and discourses of Shin-gon, the subtle points of anargument are seized and elaborated. These are mystical on the one side, and pantheistic on the other. It is easily seen how Buddha, being inJapanese gods as well as men, and no being without Buddha, the way ismade clear for that kind of a marriage between Buddhism and Shint[=o], in which the two become one, and that one, as to revenue and advantage, Buddhism. 

Truth Made Apparent by One's Own Thought. 

The Japanese of to-day often speak of these seven religious bodies whichwe have enumerated and described, as "the old sects, " because much ofthe philosophy, and many of the forms and prayers, are common to all, or, more accurately speaking, are popularly supposed to be; while thepriests, being celibates, refrain from saké, flesh and fish, and fromall intimate relations with women. Yet, although these sects areconsidered to be more or less conformable to the canon of the GreaterVehicle, and while the last three certainly introduce many of itscharacteristic features--one sect teaching that Buddha-hood could beobtained even in the present body of flesh and blood--yet the idea ofParadise had not been exploited or emphasized. This new gospel was to beintroduced into Japan by the J[=o]-d[=o] Shu or Sect of the Pure Land. 

Before detailing the features of J[=o]-d[=o], we call attention to thefact that in Japan the propagation of the old sects was accompanied byan excessive use of idols, images, pictures, sutras, shastras and allthe furniture thought necessary in a Buddhist temple. The course ofthought and action in the Orient is in many respects similar to that inthe Occident. In western lands, with the ebb and flow of religioussentiment, the iconolater has been followed by the iconoclast, and theovercrowded cathedrals have been purged by the hammer and fire of theProtestant and Puritan. So in Japan we find analogous, though notexactly similar, reactions. The rise and prosperity of the believers inthe Zen dogmas, which in their early history used sparingly the eikon, idol and sutra, give some indication of protest against too much use ofexternals in religion. May we call them the Quakers of JapaneseBuddhism? Certainly, theirs was a movement in the direction ofsimplicity. 

The introduction of the Zen, or contemplative sect, did, in a sense, both precede and follow that of Shingon. The word Zen is a shortenedform of the term Zenna, which is a transliteration into Chinese of theSanskrit word Dhyana, or contemplation. It teaches that the truth is notin tradition or in books, but in one's self. Emphasis is laid onintrospection rather than on language. "Look carefully within and thereyou will find the Buddha, " is its chief tenet. In the Zen monasteries, the chair of contemplation is, or ought to be, always in use. 

The Zen Shu movement may be said to have arisen out of a reactionagainst the multiplication of idols. It indicated a return to simplerforms of worship and conduct. Let us inquire how this was. 

It may be said that Buddhism, especially Northern Buddhism, is a vast, complicated system. It has a literature and a sacred canon which one canthink of only in connection with long trains of camels to carry, orfreight trains to transport, or ships a good deal bigger than theMayflower to import. Its multitudinous rules and systems of disciplineappall the spirit and weary the flesh even to enumerate them; so that, from one point of view, the making of new sects is a necessity. Theseare labor-saving inventions. They are attempts to reduce the great bulkof scriptures to manageable proportions. They seek to find, as it were, the mother-liquor of the great ocean, so as to express the truth in acrystal. Hence the endeavors to simplify, to condense; here, by aselection of sutras, rather than the whole collection; there, byemphasis on a single feature and a determination to put the whole thingin a form which can be grasped, either by the elect few or by the peopleat large. 

The Zen sect did this in a more rational way than that set forth asorthodox by later priestcraft, which taught that to the believer whosimply turned round the revolving library containing the canon, themerit of having read it all would be imputed. The rin-z[=o][24] foundnear the large temples, --the cunning invention of a Chinese priest inthe sixth century, --soon became popular in Japan. The great woodenbook-case turning on a pivot contains 6, 771 volumes, that being thenumber of canonical volumes enumerated in China and Japan. 

The Zen sect teaches that, besides all the doctrines of the Greater andthe Lesser Vehicles, whether hidden or apparent, there is one distinctline of transmission of a secret doctrine which is not subject to anyutterance at all. According to their tenet of contemplation, one is tosee directly the key to the thought of Buddha by his own thought, thusfreeing himself from the multitude of different doctrines--the number ofwhich is said to be eighty-four thousand. In fact, Zen Shu or "Dhyanasect" teaches the short method of making truth apparent by one's ownthought, apart from the writings. 

The story of the transmission of the true Zen doctrine is this:

 "When the blessed Shaka was at the assembly on Vulture's Peak, there came the heavenly king, who offered the Buddha a golden-colored flower and asked him to preach the law. The Blessed One simply took the flower and held it in his hand, but said no word. No one in the whole assembly could tell what he meant. The venerable Mahahasyapa alone smiled. Than the Blessed One said to him, 'I have the wonderful thought of Nirvana, the eye of the Right Law, which I shall now give to you. '[25] Thus was ushered in the doctrine of thought transmitted by thought. "

After twenty-eight patriarchs had taught the doctrine of contemplation, the last came into China in A. D. 520, and tried to teach the Emperor thesecret key of Buddha's thought. This missionary Bodhidharma was thethird son of a king of the Kashis, in Southern India, and the historicoriginal of the tobacconist's shop-sign in Japan, who is known asDaruma. The imperial Chinaman was not yet able to understand the secretkey of Buddha's thought. So the Hindu missionary went to the monasteryon Mount Su, where in meditation, he sat down cross-legged with his faceto a wall, for nine years, by which time, says the legend, his legs hadrotted off and he looked like a snow-image. During that period, peopledid not know him, and called him simply the Wall-gazing Brahmana. Afterward he had a number of disciples, but they had different viewsthat are called the transmissions of the skin, flesh, or bone of theteacher. Only one of them got the whole body of his teachings. Two greatsects were formed: the Northern, which was undivided, and the Southern, which branched off into five houses and seven schools. The Northern Sectwas introduced into Japan by a Chinese priest in 729 A. D. , while theSouthern was not brought over until the twelfth century. In both it istaught that perfect tranquillity of body and mind is essential tosalvation. The doctrine is the most sublime one, of thought transmittedby thought being entirely independent of any letters or words. Anothername for them is, "The Sect whose Mind Assimilates with Buddha, " directfrom whom it claims to have received its articles of faith. 

Too often this idea of Buddhaship, consisting of absolute freedom frommatter and thought, means practically mind-murder, and the emptiness ofidle reverie. 

Contrasting modern reality with their ancient ideal, it must beconfessed that in practice there is not a little letter worship and agood deal of pedantry; for, in all the teachings of abstract principlesby the different sects, there are endless puns or plays upon words inthe renderings of Chinese characters. This arises from that antithesisof extreme poverty in sounds with amazing luxuriance in writtenexpression, which characterizes both the Chinese and Japanese languages. 

In the temples we find that the later deities introduced into theBuddhist pantheon are here also welcome, and that the triads or groupsof three precious ones, the "Buddhist trinity, " so-called, [26] aresurrounded by gods of Chinese or Japanese origin. The Zen sect, according to its professions and early history, ought to be indifferentto worldly honors and emoluments, and indeed many of its devotees are. Its history, however, shows how poorly mortals live up to theirprinciples and practise what they preach. Furthermore, these professorsof peace and of the joys of the inner life in the S[=o]-t[=o] orsub-sect have made the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth years of Meiji, orA. D. 1893 and 1894, famous and themselves infamous by theirlong-continued and scandalous intestine quarrels. Of the threesub-sects, those called Rin-zai and S[=o]-t[=o], take their names fromChinese monks of the ninth century; while the third, O-baku, founded inJapan in the seventeenth century, is one of the latest importations ofChinese Buddhistic thought in the Land of the Rising Sun. 

Japanese authors usually classify the first six denominations at whichwe have glanced, some of which are phases of thought rather thanorganizations, as "the ancient sects. " Ten-dai and Shin-gon are "themedieval sects. " The remaining four, of which we shall now treat, andwhich are more particularly Japanese in spirit and development, are "themodern sects. "

CHAPTER IX - THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

 "A drop of spray cast by the infinite I hung an instant there, and threw my ray To make the rainbow. A microcosm I Reflecting all. Then back I fell again, And though I perished not, I was no more. "-- The Pantheist's Epitaph. 

 "Buddhism is essentially a religion of compromise. "

 "Where Christianity has One Lord, Buddhism has a dozen. "

 "I think I may safely challenge the Buddhist priesthood to give a plain historical account of the Life of Amida, Kwannon, Dainichi, or any other Mah[=a]y[=a]na Buddha, without being in serious danger of forfeiting my stakes. "

 "Christianity openly puts this Absolute Unconditioned Essence in the forefront of its teaching. In Buddhism this absolute existence is only put forward, when the logic of circumstances compels its teachers to have recourse to it. "--A. Lloyd, in The Higher Buddhism in the Light of the Nicene creed. 

 "Now these six characters, 'Na-mu-A-mi-da-Butsu, ' Zend-[=o] has explained as follows: 'Namn' means [our] following His behest--and also [His] uttering the Prayer and bestowing [merit] upon us. 'Amida Butsu' is the practice of this, consequently by this means a certainty of salvation is attained. "

 "By reason of the conferring on us sentient creators of this great goodness and great merit through the utterance of the Prayer, and the bestowal [by Amida] the evil Karma and [effect of the] passions accumulated through the long Kalpas, since when there was no beginning, are in a moment annihilated, and in consequence, those passions and evil Karma of ours all disappearing, we live already in the condition of the steadfast, who do not return [to revolve in the cycle of Birth and Death]. "--Renny[=o] of the Shin sect, 1473. 

 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. "--John. 

 "The Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. "--James. 

CHAPTER IX - THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

The Western Paradise. 

We cannot take space to show how, or how much, or whether at all, Buddhism was affected by Christianity, though it probably was. Sufficeit to say that the J[=o]-d[=o] Shu, or Sect of the Pure Land, was thefirst of the many denominations in Buddhism which definitely and clearlyset forth that especial peculiarity of Northern Buddhism, the WesternParadise. The school of thought which issued in J[=o]-d[=o] Shu wasfounded by the Hindoo, Memio. In A. D. 252 an Indian scholar, learned inthe Tripitaka, came to China, and translated one of the great sutras, called Amitayus. This sutra gives a history of Tathagata Amitabha, [1]from the first spiritual impulses which led him to the attainment ofBuddha-hood in remote Kalpas down to the present time, when he dwells inthe Western World, called the Happy, where he receives all living beingsfrom every direction, helping them to turn away from confusion and tobecome enlightened. [2] The apocalyptic twentieth chapter of the HokkéKi[=o] is a glorification of the transcendent power of the Tathagatas, expressed in flamboyant oriental rhetoric. 

We have before called attention to the fact that, with themultiplication of sutras or the Sacred Canon and the vast increase ofthe apparatus of Buddhism as well as of the hardships of brain and bodyto be undergone in order to be a Buddhist, it was absolutely necessarythat some labor-saving system should be devised by which the burdencould be borne. Now, as a matter of fact, all sects claim to found theirdoctrine on Buddha or his work. According to the teaching of certainsects, the means of salvation are to be found in the study of the wholecanon, and in the practice of asceticism and meditation. On thecontrary, the new lights of Buddhism who came as missionaries intoChina, protested against this expenditure of so much mental and physicalenergy. One of the first Chinese propagators of the J[=o]-d[=o] doctrinedeclared that it was impossible, owing to the decay of religion in hisown age, for anyone to be saved in this way by his own efforts. Hence, instead of the noble eight-fold path of primitive Buddhism, or of thecomplicated system of the later Buddhistic Phariseeism of India, hesubstituted for the difficult road to Nirvana, a simple faith in theall-saving power of Amida. In one of the sutras it is taught, that if aman keeps in his memory the name of Amida one day, or seven days, theBuddha together with Buddhas elect, will meet him at the moment of hisdeath, in order to let him be born in the Pure Land, and that thismatter has been equally approved by all other Buddhas of ten differentdirections. 

One of the sutras, translated in China during the fifth century, contains the teaching of Buddha, which he delivered to the wife of theKing of Magudha, who on account of the wickedness of her son was feelingweary of this world. He showed her how she might be born into the PureLand. Three paths of good actions were pointed out. Toward the end ofthe particular sutra which he advised her to read and recite, Buddhasays: "Let not one's voice cease, but ten times complete the thought, and repeat the formula, of the adoration of Amida. " "This practice, "adds the Japanese exegete and historian, "is the most excellent of all. "

How well this latter teaching is practised may be demonstrated when onegoes into a Buddhist temple of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect in Japan, and hearsthe constant refrain, --murmured by the score or more of listeners to thesermon, or swelling like the roar of the ocean's waves, on festivaldays, when thousands sit on the mats beneath the fretted roof to enjoythe exposition of doctrine--"Namu Amida Butsu"--"Glory to the EternalBuddha!"[3]

The apostolical succession or transmission through the patriarchs andapostles of India and China, is well known and clearly stated, withalduly accredited and embellished with signs and wonders, in thehistorical literature of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect. In Buddhism, as inChristianity, the questions relating to True Churchism, High Churchism, the succession of the apostles, teachers and rulers, and the validity ofthis or that method of ordination, form a large part of the literatureof controversy. Nevertheless, as in the case of many a Christian sectwhich calls itself the only true church, the date of the organization ofJ[=o]-d[=o] was centuries later than that of the Founder and apostles ofthe original faith. Five hundred years after Zen-d[=o] (A. D. 600-650), the great propagator of the J[=o]-d[=o] philosophy, H[=o]-nen, thefounder of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect, was born; and this phase of organizedBuddhism, like that of Shin Shu and Nichirer Shu, may be classed underthe head of Eastern or Japanese Buddhism. 

When only nine years of age, the boy afterward called H[=o]-nen, wasconverted by his father's dying words. He went to school in his nativeprovince, but his priest-teacher foreseeing his greatness, sent him tothe monastery of Hiyéizan, near Ki[=o]to. The boy's letter ofintroduction contained only these words: "I send you an image of theBodhisattva, (Mon-ju) Manjusri. " The boy shaved his head and receivedthe precepts of the Ten-dai sect, but in his eighteenth year, waivingthe prospect of obtaining the headship of the great denomination, hebuilt a hut in the Black Ravine and there five times read through thefive thousand volumes[4] of the Tripitaka. He did this for the purposeof finding out, for the ordinary and ignorant people of the present day, how to escape from misery. He studied Zen-d[=o]'s commentary, andrepeated his examination eight times. At last, he noticed a passage init beginning with the words, "Chiefly remember or repeat the name ofAmida with a whole and undivided heart. " Then he at once understood thethought of Zen-d[=o], who taught in his work that whoever at any timepractises to remember Buddha, or calls his name even but once, will gainthe right effect of going to be born in the Pure Land after death. ThisJapanese student then abandoned all sorts of practices which he hadhitherto followed for years, and began to repeat the name of AmidaBuddha sixty thousand times a day. This event occurred in A. D. 1175. 

H[=o]-nen, Founder of the Pure Land Sect. 

This path-finder to the Pure Land, who developed a special doctrine ofsalvation, is best known by his posthumous title of H[=o]-nen. Duringhis lifetime he was very famous and became the spiritual preceptor ofthree Mikados. After his death his biography was compiled in forty-eightvolumes by imperial order, and later, three other emperors copied orrepublished it. In the history of Japan this sect has been one of themost influential, especially with the imperial and sh[=o]gunal families. In Ki[=o]to the magnificent temples and monasteries of Chi[=o]n-in, andin T[=o]ki[=o] Z[=o]-j[=o]-ji, are the chief seats of the two principaldivisions of this sect. The gorgeous mausoleums, --well known to everyforeign tourist, --at Shiba and Uyéno in T[=o]ki[=o], and the clusteredand matchless splendors of Nikk[=o], belong to this sect, which has beenunder the patronage of the illustrious line of the Tokugawa, [5] whileits temples and shrines are numbered by many thousands. 

The doctrine of the J[=o]-d[=o], or the Pure Land Sect, is easilydiscerned. One of Buddha's disciples said, that in the teachings of theMaster there are two divisions or vehicles. In the Maha-yana also thereare two gates; the Holy path, and the Pure Land. The Smaller Vehicle isthe doctrine by which the immediate disciples of Buddha and those forfive hundred years succeeding, practised the various virtues anddiscipline. The gateway of the Maha-yana is also the doctrine, by whichin addition to the trainings mentioned, there are also understood thethree virtues of spiritual body, wisdom and deliverance. The man who isable successfully to complete this course of discipline and practice isno ordinary person, but is supposed to possess merit produced from goodactions performed in a former state of existence. The doctrine by whichman may do so, is called the gate of the Holy Path. 

During the fifteen hundred years after Buddha there were from time totime, such personages in the world, who attained the end of the HolyPath; but in these latter days people are more insincere, covetous andcontentious, and the discipline is too hard for degenerate times andmen. The three trainings already spoken of are the correct causes ofdeliverance; but if people think them as useless as last year's almanac, when can they complete their deliverance? H[=o]-nen, deeply meditatingon this, shut up the gate of the Holy Path and opened that of the PureLand; for in the former the effective deliverance is expected in thisworld by the three trainings of morality, thought and learning, but inthe latter the great fruit of going to be born in the Pure Land afterdeath, is expected through the sole practice of repeating Buddha's name. 

Moreover, it is not easy to accomplish the cause and effect of the HolyPath, but both those of the doctrine of the Pure Land are very easy tobe completed. The difference is like that between travelling by land andtravelling by water. [6] The doctrines preached by the Buddha areeighty-four thousand in number; that is to say, he taught one kind ofpeople one system, that of the Holy Path, and another kind that of thePure Land. The Pure Land doctrine of H[=o]-nen was derived from thesutra preached by the great teacher Shaka. 

This simple doctrine of "land travel to Paradise" was one which thepeople of Japan could easily understand, and it became amazinglypopular. Salvation along this route is a case of being "carried to theskies on flowery beds of ease, while others sought to win the prize andsailed through bloody seas. "

Largely through the influence of J[=o]-d[=o] Shu and of those sects mostclosely allied to it, the technical terms, peculiar phraseology andvocabulary of Buddhism became part of the daily speech of the Japanese. When one studies their language he finds that it is a complicatedorganism, including within itself several distinct systems. Just as thehuman body harmonizes within itself such vastly differing organizedfunctions as the osseous, digestive, respiratory, etc. , so, embedded inwhat is called the Japanese language, there are, also, a Chinesevocabulary, a polite vernacular, one system of expression for superiors, another for inferiors, etc. Last of all, there is, besides a peculiarsystem of pronunciation taught by the priests, a Buddhist language, which suggests a firmament of starry and a prairie of flowery metaphors, with intermediate deeps of space full of figurative expressions. 

In our own mother tongue we have something similar. The dialect ofCanaan, the importations of Judaism, the irruptions of Hebraic idioms, phrases and names into Puritanism, and the ejaculations of thecamp-meeting, which vein and color our English speech, may give someidea of the variegated strains which make up the Japanese language. Further, the peculiar nomenclature of the Fifth Monarchy men, is fullyparalleled in the personal names of priests and even of laymen in Japan. 

Characteristics of the J[=o]-d[=o] Sect. 

H[=o]-nen teaches that the solution of abstract questions and doctrinalcontroversies is not needed as means of grace to promote the work ofsalvation. Whether the priests and their followers were learned anddevout, or the contrary, mattered little as regards the final result, asall that is necessary is the continual repetition of the prayer toAmida. 

It may be added that his followers practise the master's precepts withemphasis. Their incessant pounding upon wooden fish-drums andbladder-shaped bells during their public exercises, is as noisy as afrontier camp-meeting. The rosary is a notable feature in the privatedevotions of the Buddhists, but the J[=o]-d[=o] sect makes especial useof the double rosary, which was invented with the idea of beingmanipulated by the left hand only; this gave freedom to the right hand, "facilitating a happy combination of spiritual and secular duty. " Atfunerals of believers a particular ceremony was exclusively practised bythis sect, at which the friends of the deceased sat in a circle facingthe priest, making as many repetitions as possible. [7]

In Mohammedan countries, blind men, who cannot look down into thesurrounding gardens or house tops at the pretty women in or on them, butwho have clear and penetrating voices, are often chosen us muezzins toutter the call to prayer from the minarets. On much the same principle, in Old Japan, J[=o]-d[=o] priests, blind to metaphysics, but handsome, elegantly dressed and with fine delivery, went about the streets singingand intoning prayers, rich presents being made to them, especially bythe ladies. The J[=o]-d[=o] people cultivate art and aestheticornamentation to a notable degree. They also understand the art offictitious and sensational miracle-mongering. It is said that Zen-d[=o], the famous Chinese founder of this Chinese sect, when writing hiscommentary, prayed for a wonderful exhibition of supernatural power. Thereupon, a being arrayed as a priest of dignified presence gave himinstruction on the division of the text in his first volume. HenceZen-d[=o] treats his own work as if it were the work of Buddha, and saysthat no one is allowed either to add or to take away even a word orsentence of the book. 

The Pure Land is the western world where Amida lives. It is perfectlypure and free from faults. Those who wish to go thither will certainlybe re-born there, but otherwise they will not. This world, on thecontrary, is the effect of the action of all beings, so that even thosewho do not wish to be born here are nevertheless obliged to come. Thisworld is called the Path of Pain, because it is full of all sorts ofpains, such as birth, old age, disease, death, etc. This is therefore aworld not to be attached to, but to be estranged and separated from. Onewho is disgusted with this world, and who is filled with desire for thatworld, will after death be born there. Not to doubt about these words ofBuddha, even in the slightest degree, is called deep faith; but if oneentertains the least doubts he will not be born there. Hence the saying:"In the great sea of the law of Buddha, faith is the only means toenter. "

Salvation Through the Merits of Another. 

In this absolute trust in the all-saving power of Amida as compared withthe ways promulgated before, we see the emergence of the Buddhistdoctrine of justification by faith, the simplification of theology, anda revolt against Buddhist scholasticism. The Japanese technical term, "_tariki_, " or relying upon the strength of another, renouncing all ideaof _ji-riki_ or self-power, [8] is the substance of the J[=o]-d[=o]doctrine; but the expanded term _ta-riki chin no ji-riki_, or"self-effort depending on another, " while expressing the whole dogma, israther scornfully applied to the J[=o]-d[=o]ists by the men of the Shinsect. The invocation of Amida is a meritorious act of the believer, muchrepetition being the substance of this combination of personal andvicarious work. 

H[=o]-nen, after making his discovery, believing it possible for allmankind eventually to attain to perfect Buddhaship, left, as we haveseen, the Ten-dai sect, which represented particularism and laidemphasis on the idea of the elect. H[=o]-nen taught Buddhistuniversalism. Belief and repetition of prayer secure birth into the PureLand after the death of the body, and then the soul moves onward towardthe perfection of Buddha-hood. 

The Japanese were delighted to have among them a genius who could thusJapanize Buddhism, and J[=o]-d[=o] doctrine went forth conquering and toconquer. From the twelfth century, the tendency of Japanese Buddhism isin the direction of universalism and democracy. In later developments ofJ[=o]-d[=o], the pantheistic tendencies are emphasized and thesyncretistic powers are enlarged. While mysticism is a striking featureof the sect and the attainment of truth is by the grace of Amida, yetthe native Kami of Japan are logically accepted as avatars of Buddha. History had little or no rights in the case; philosophy was dictator, and that philosophy was H[=o]-nen's. Those later Chinese deities made bypersonifying attributes or abstract ideas, which sprang up after theintroduction of Buddhism into China, are also welcomed into the templesof this sect. That the common people really believe that they themselvesmay attain Buddha-hood at death, and enter the Pure Land, is shown inthe fact that their ordinary expression for the dead saint is Hotoké--ageneral term for all the gods that were once human. Some popularproverbs indicate this in a form that easily lends itself to irreverenceand merriment. 

The whole tendency of Japanese Buddhism and its full momentum were nowtoward the development of doctrine even to startling proportions. Instead of the ancient path of asceticism and virtue with agnosticismand atheism, we see the means of salvation put now, and perhaps tooeasily, within the control of all. The pathway to Paradise was made notonly exceedingly plain, but also extremely easy, perhaps evenridiculously so; while the door was open for an outburst of new andlocal doctrines unknown to India, or even to China. The rampant vigorwith which Japanese Buddhism began to absorb everything in heaven, earthand sea, which it could make a worshipable object or cause to stand as aKami or deity to the mind, will be seen as we proceed. The nativeproverb, instead of being an irreverent joke, stands for an actualtruth--"Even a sardine's head may become an object of worship. "

"Reformed" Buddhism. 

We now look at what foreigners call "Reformed" Buddhism, which some evenimagine has been borrowed from Protestant Christianity--notwithstandingthat it is centuries older than the Reformation in Europe. 

The Shin Shu or True Sect, though really founded on the J[=o]-d[=o]doctrines, is separate from the sect of the Pure Land. Yet, besidesbeing called the Shin Shu, it is also spoken of as the J[=o]-d[=o] ShinShu or the True Sect of the Pure Land. It is the extreme form of theProtestantism of Buddhism. It lays emphasis on the idea of salvationwholly through the merits of another, but it also paints in richer tintsthe sensuous delights of the Western Paradise. As the term Pure Land isantithetical to that of the Holy Path, so the word Shin, or True, expresses the contrary of what are termed the "temporary expedients. "

While some say that we should practise good works, bring our stock ofmerits to maturity, and be born in the Pure Land, others say that weneed only repeat the name of Amida in order to be born in the Pure Land, by the merit produced from such repetition. These doctrines concerningrepetitions, however, are all considered but "temporary expedients. " Soalso is the rigid classification, so prominent in "the old sects, " ofall beings or pupils into three grades. As in Islam or Calvinism, allbelievers stand on a level. To Shin-ran the Radical, the practices evenof J[=o]-d[=o] seemed complicated and difficult, and all that appearednecessary to him was faith in the desire of Amida to bless and save. ToShinran, [9] faith was the sole saving act. 

To rely upon the power of the Original Prayer of Amitabha Buddha withthe whole heart and give up all idea of _ji-riki_ or self-power, iscalled the truth. This truth is the doctrine of this sect of Shin. [10]In a word, not synergism, not faith _and_ works, but faith only is theteaching of Shin Shu. 

Shinran, the founder of this sect in Japan, was born A. D. 1173 and diedin the year 1262. He was very naturally one who had been first educatedin the J[=o]-d[=o] sect, then the ruling one at the imperial court inKi[=o]to. Shall we call him a Japanese Luther, because of his insistenceon salvation by faith only? He is popularly believed to have beendescended from one of the Shint[=o] gods, being on his father's side thetwenty-first in the line of generation. On his mother's side he was ofthe lineage of the Minamoto or Genji, a clan sprung from Mikados andfamous during centuries for its victorious warriors. H[=o]-nen was histeacher, and like his teacher, Shinran studied at the great monasterynear Ki[=o]to, learning first the doctrine of the Tendai, and then, atthe age of twenty-nine, receiving from H[=o]-nen the tenets of theJ[=o]-d[=o] sect. Shortly after, at thirty years of age, he began topromulgate his doctrines. Then he took a step as new to Buddhism, as wasLuther's union with Katharine von Bora, to the ecclesiasticism of histime. He married a lady of the imperial court, named Tamayori, who wasthe daughter of the Kuambaku or premier. 

Shinran thus taught by example, if not formally and by written precept, that marriage was honorable, and that celibacy was an invention of thepriests not warranted by primitive Buddhism. Penance, fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society whether as hermitsor in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed bythis sect. Monasteries imposing life-vows are unknown within its pale. Family life takes the place of monkish seclusion. Devout prayer, purity, earnestness of life and trust in Buddha himself as the only worker ofperfect righteousness, are insisted upon. Morality is taught to be moreimportant than orthodoxy. 

In practice, the Shin sect even more than the J[=o]-d[=o], teaches thatit is faith in Buddha, which accomplishes the salvation of the believer. Instead of waiting for death in order to come under the protection ofAmida, the faithful soul is at once received into the care of theBoundlessly Compassionate. In a word, the Shin sect believes ininstantaneous conversion and sanctification. Between the Roman and theReformed soteriology of Christendom, was Melancthonism or theco[=o]perate union of the divine and the human will. So, the oldBuddhism prior to Shinran taught a phase of synergism, or the union offaith and works. Shinran, in his "Reformed" Buddhism, taught thesimplicity of faith. 

So also _in_ regard to the sacred writings, Shinran opposed the San-ronschool and the three-grade idea. The scriptures of other sects are inSanskrit and Chinese, which only the learned are able to read. Thespecial writings of Shinran are in the vernacular. Three of the sutras, also, have been translated into Japanese and expressed in the kanascript. Singleness of purpose characterised this sect, which was oftencalled Monto, or followers of the gate, in reference to its unity oforganization, and the opening of the way to all by Shinran and thedoctrine taught by him. Yet, lest the gate might seem too broad, theShin teachers insist that morality is as important as faith, and indeedthe proof of it. The high priests of Shin Shu have ever held a highposition and wielded vast influence in the religious development of thepeople. While the temples of other sects are built in sequestered placesamong the hills, those of Shin Shu are erected in the heart of cities, on the main streets, and at the centres of population, --the priestsusing every means within their power to induce the people to come tothem. The altars are on an imposing scale of magnificence and gorgeousdetail. No Roman Catholic church or cathedral can outshine the splendorof these temples, in which the way to the Western Paradise is made soclear and plain. Another name for the sect is Ikko. 

After the death of Shinran, his youngest daughter and one of hisgrandsons erected a monastery near his tomb in the eastern suburbs ofKi[=o]to, to which the Mikado gave the title of Hon-guanji, or Monasteryof the Original Vow. This was in allusion to the vow made by Amida, thathe would not accept Buddhaship except under the condition that salvationbe made attainable for all who should sincerely desire to be born intohis kingdom, and signify their desire by invoking his name tentimes. [11] It is upon the passage in the sutra where this vow isrecorded, that the doctrine of the sect is based. Its central idea isthat man is to be saved by faith in the mercy of the boundlesslycompassionate Amida, and not by works or vain repetitions. Within ourown time, on November 28, 1876, the present reigning Mikado bestowedupon Shinran the posthumous title Ken-shin Dai-shi, or Great Teacher ofthe Revelation of Truth. 

The Protestants of Japanese Buddhism. 

This is the sect which, being called "Reformed" Buddhism[12] andresembling Protestantism in so many points, both large and minute, foreigners think has been borrowed or imitated from EuropeanProtestantism. [13] As matter of fact, the foundation principles ofShin-Shu are at least six hundred years old. They are perfectly clear inthe writings of the founder, [14] as well as in those of his successorRenni[=o], [15] who wrote the Ofumi or sacred writings, now daily read bythe disciples of this denomination. With the characteristic object ofreaching the masses, they are written, as we have shown, not in themixed Chinese and Japanese characters, but in the common script, orkana, which all the people of both sexes can read. Within the last twodecades the Shin educators have been the first to organize their schoolsof learning on the models of those in Christendom, so that their youngmen might be trained to resist Shint[=o] or Christianity, or to measurethe truth in either. Their new temples also show European influence inarchitecture and furniture. Liberty of thought and action, andincoercible desire to be free from governmental, traditional, ultra-ecclesiastical, or Shint[=o] influence--in a word, protestantismin its pure sense, is characteristic of the great sect founded byShinran. 

Indeed the Shin sect, which sprang out of the J[=o]-d[=o], maintainsthat it alone professes the true teaching of H[=o]-nen, and that theJ[=o]-d[=o] sect has wandered from the original doctrines of itsfounder. Whereas the J[=o]-d[=o] or Pure Land sect believes that Amidawill come to meet the soul of the believer on its separation from thebody, in order to conduct it to Paradise, the Shin or True Sect of thePure Land believes in immediate salvation and sanctification. Itpreaches that as soon as a man believes in Amida he is taken by himunder him merciful protection. Some might denominate these people theMethodists of Buddhism. 

One good point in their Protestantism is their teaching that morality isof equal importance with faith. To them Buddha-hood means the perfectionand unlimitedness of wisdom and compassion. "Therefore, " writes one, "knowing the inability of our own power we should believe simply in thevicarious Power of the Original Prayer. If we do so, we are incorrespondence with the wisdom of the Buddha and share his greatcompassion, just as the water of rivers becomes salt as soon as itenters the sea. For this reason this is called the faith in the OtherPower. "

To their everlasting honor, also, the Shin believers have probably ledall other Japanese Buddhists in caring for the Eta, even as theyprobably excel in preaching the true spiritual democracy of allbelievers, yes, even of women. [16] "According to the earlier and generalview of Buddhism, women are condemned, in virtue of the pollution oftheir nature, to look forward to rebirth in other forms. By nopossibility can they, in their existence as women, reach the highergrades of holiness which lead to Nirvana. According to the Shin Shusystem, on the other hand, a believing woman may hope to attain the goalof the Buddhist at the close of her present life. "[17] This doctrineseems to be founded on that passage in the eleventh chapter of theSaddharma Pundarika, in which the daughter of S[=a]gara, theN[=a]ga-king, loses her sex as female and reappears as a Bodhisattva ofmale sex. [18]

The Shin sect is the largest in Japan, having more than twice as manytemples as any four of the great sects, and five thousand more than theSo-d[=o] or sub-sect of J[=o]-d[=o], which is the next largest; or, overnineteen thousand in all. It is also supposed to be one of the richestand most powerful of all the Japanese sects. In reality, however, itpossesses no fixed property, and is dependent entirely upon thevoluntary contributions of its adherents. To-day, it is probably themost active of them all in education, learning and missionary operationsin Yezo, China and Korea. 

Interesting as is the development of the J[=o]-d[=o] and Shin sects, which became popular largely through their promulgation of dogmasfounded on the Western Paradise, we must not forget that both of thempreached a new Buddha--not the real figure in history, but an unhistoricand unreal phantom, the creation and dream of the speculator andvisionary. Amida, the personification of boundless light, is one of theluxuriant growths of a sickly scholasticism--a hollow abstractionwithout life or reality. Amidaism is utterly repudiated by many JapaneseBuddhists, who give no place to his idol on their altars, and rejectutterly the teaching as to Paradise and salvation through the merits ofanother. 

Yet these two special developments by natives, though embodyingtendencies of the Japanese mind, did not reach the limit to whichNorthern Buddhism was to go in those almost incredible lengths, whichprompted Professor Whitney[19] to call it "the high-faluting school, "and which we have seen in our own time under the cultivation of westernadmirers. 

The Nichiren Sect. 

The Japanese mind runs to pantheism as naturally as an unprunedgrape-vine runs to fibre and leaves. 

When Nichiren, the ultra-patriotic and ultra-democratic bonze, saw thelight in A. D. 1222, he was destined to bring religion not only down toman, but even down to the beasts and to the mud. He founded theSaddharma-Pundarika sect, now called Nichiren Shu. 

Born at Kominato, near the mouth of Yedo Bay, he became a neophite inthe Shin-gon sect at the age of twelve, and was admitted into thepriesthood when but fifteen years old. Then he adopted his name, whichmeans Sun-lotus, because, according to a typical dream very common inKorea and Japan, his mother thought that she had conceived by the sunentering her body. Through a miracle, he acquired a thorough knowledgeof the whole Buddhist canon, in the course of which he met with words, which he converted into that formula which is constantly in the mouth ofthe members of the Nichiren sect, Namu-my[=o]-ho-ren-gé-ky[=o]--"O, theSutra of the Lotus of the Wonderful Law. "[20] His history, full ofamazing activity and of romantic adventure, is surrounded by a perfectsunrise splendor, or, shall we say, sunset gorgeousness, of mythologyand fable. The scenes of his life are mostly laid in the region of themodern T[=o]ki[=o], and to the cultivated traveller, its story lendsfascinating charms to the landscape in the region of Yedo Bay. Nichirenwas a fiery patriot, and ultra-democratic in his sympathies. He was aradical believer in "Japan for the Japanese. " He was an ecclesiastical_Soshi_. He felt that the developments of Buddhism already made, werenot sufficiently comprehensive, or fully suited to the common people. So, in A. D. 1282, he founded a new sect which gradually included withinits pantheon all possible Buddhas, and canonized pretty nearly all thesaints, righteous men and favorite heroes known to Dai Nippon. Nichirenfirst made Japan the centre of the universe, and then brought religiondown to the lowest. He considered that the period in which he lived wasthe latter day of the law, and that all creatures ought to share in themerit of Buddha-hood. Only the original Buddha is the real moon in thesky, but all Buddhas of the subordinate states are like the images ofthe moon, reflected upon the waters. All these different Buddhas, bethey gods or men, beasts, birds or snakes, are to be honored. Indeed, they are both honored and worshipped in the Nichiren pantheon. Besidesthe historic Buddha, this sect, which is the most idolatrous of all, admits as objects of its reverence such personages as Nichiren, thefounder; Kato Kiyomasa, the general who led the army of invasion inKorea and was the persecutor of the Christians; and Shichimen--a wordwhich means seven points of the compass or seven faces. This Shichimenis the being that appeared to Nichiren as a beautiful woman, butdisappeared from his sight in the form of a snake, twenty feet long, covered with golden scales and armed with iron teeth. It is now deifiedunder the name meaning the Great God of the Seven Faces, and isidentified with the Hindoo deity Siva. 

Another idol usually seen in the Nichiren temples is Mioken. Under thisname the pole star is worshipped, usually in the form of a Buddha with awheel of a Buddha elect. Standing on a tortoise, with a sword in hisright hand, and with the left hand half open--a gesture which symbolizesthe male and female principles in the physical world, and theintelligence and the law in the spiritual world--Mioken is a strikingfigure. Indeed, the list of glorified animals reminds us somewhat of theancient beast-worship of Egypt. In the Nichiren hierology, it is asthough the symbolical figures in the Book of Revelation had been deifiedand worshipped. It is evident that all the creatures in that Buddhistchamber of imagery, the Hokké Ki[=o], that could possibly be made intogods have received apotheosis. The very book itself is also worshipped, for the Nichirenites are extreme believers in verbal inspiration, andpay divine honors to each jot and tittle of the sutra, which to them isa god. They adore also the triad of the three precious ones, the Buddha, the Rule or Discipline, and the Organization; or, Being, Law, andChurch. The hideous idol, Fudo, "Eleven-faced, " "Horse-headed, ""Thousand-handed, " or girt in a robe of fiery flame, is believed byBuddhists to represent Avalokitesvara; but, in recent times he has beenrecognized, detected and recaptured by the Shint[=o]ists as Kotohira. The goddess Kishi, and that miscellaneous assortment or group known asthe Seven Patrons of Happiness, which form a sort of encyclopaedia ormuseum of curiosities derived from the cults of India, China and Japan, are also components of the amazing menagerie and pantheon of this sect, in which scholasticism run mad, and emotional kindness to animals becomemaudlin, join hands. 

The Ultra-realism of Northern Buddhism. 

Like most of the other Japanese sects, the Nichirenites claim that theirprinciples are contained in the Hok-ké-ki[=o], which is considered theconsummate white flower of Buddhist doctrine and literature. This is theJapanese name for that famous sutra, the Saddharma Pundarika, so oftenmentioned in these chapters but a thousand-fold more so in Japaneseliterature. The Ten-dai and the Nichiren sects are allied, in that bothlay supreme emphasis upon this sutra; but the former interprets it withan intellectual, and the latter with an emotional emphasis. Philosophically, the two bodies have much in common. Outwardly they arevery far apart. One has but to read their favorite scripture, to see thenorm upon which the gorgeous art of Japan has been developed. Probablyno single book in the voluminous canon of the Greater Vehicle gives oneso masterful a key to Japanese Buddhism. Its pages are crowded withsensuous descriptions of all that is attractive to both the reason andthe understanding. Its descriptions of Paradise are those which wouldsuit also the realistic Mussulman. Its rhetoric and visions seem to bethose of some oriental De Quincey, who, out of the dreams of anopium-eater, has made the law-book of a religion. Translated intomatter-of-fact Chinese, none better than Nichiren knew how to presentits realism to his people. 

In its ethical standards, which are two, this sect, like most others, prescribes one course of life for the monk, which is difficult, andanother for the laity, which is easy. The central dogma is that everypart of the universe, including not only gods and men, but animals, plants and the very mud itself, is capable, by successivetransmigrations, of attaining to Buddhaship. In one sense, Nichirenismis the transfiguration of atheistic evolution. In its teachings thereare also two forms: the one, largely in symbol, is intended to attractfollowers; the other, the pure truth, is employed to convert theobstinately ignorant, against their wills. As in the history of thepapal organization in Europe, a materialistic interpretation has beengiven to the canons of dogma and discipline. 

Contrary to the doctrine of those sects which teach the attainment ofsalvation solely through the aid of Amida, or Another, the Nichirenitesinsist that it is necessary for man to work out his own salvation, byobserving the law, by self-examination, by reflecting on the blessingsvouchsafed to the members of this elect and orthodox sect and byconstant prayer. They consider themselves as in the only true church, and their succession to the priesthood, the only valid one. The strictNichiren churchmen will not have the Shint[=o] gods in their householdshrines, nor will they intermarry among the sects. The Nichirenites arealso very fond of controversy, and their language in speaking of othercreeds and sects is not that characteristic of the gentle Buddha. Thepeople of this sect are much given to the belief in demoniacalpossession, and a considerable part of the duty and revenue-yieldingbusiness of the Nichiren priests consists in exorcising the foxes, badgers and other demons, which have possessed subjects who aregenerally women at certain stages of illness or convalescence. Thephenomena and pathology of these disorders seem to be allied to those ofhysteria and hypnotism. 

This popular sect also makes greatest use of charms, spells and amulets, lays great store on pilgrimages, and is very fond of noise-makinginstruments whether prayer-books or the wooden bells or drums which areprominent features in their temples and revival meetings. In one senseit is the Salvation Army of Buddhism, being especially powerful in whatstrikes the eye and ear. The Nichirenites have been well called theRanters of Buddhism. Their revival meetings make Bedlam seem silent, andreduce to gentle murmurs the camp-meeting excesses with which we arefamiliar in our own country. They are the most sectarian of all sects. Their vocabulary of Billingsgate and the ribaldry employed by them evenagainst their Buddhist brethren, cast into the shade those of Christiansectarians in their fiercest controversies. "A thousand years in thelowest of the hells is the atonement prescribed by the Nichirenites forthe priests of all other sects. " When the Parliament of Religions wascalled in Chicago, the successors of Nichiren, with their characteristichigh-church modesty, promptly sent letters to America, warning the worldagainst all other Japanese Buddhists, and denouncing especially thosecoming to speak in the Parliament, as misrepresenting the true doctrinesof Buddha. 

Doctrinal Culmination. 

When the work of Nichiren had been completed, and his realisticpantheism had been able to include within its great receiver andprocesses of Buddha-making, everything from gods to mud, the circle ofdoctrine was complete. K[=o]b[=o]'s leaven had now every possible lumpin which to do its work. All grades of men in Japan, from the mostdevout and intellectual to the most ranting and fanatical, could choosetheir sect. Yet it may be that Buddhism in Nichiren's day was in dangerof stagnation and formalism, and needed the revival which this fierybonze gave it; for, undoubtedly, along with zeal even to bigotry, camefresh life and power to the religion. This invigoration was followed bythe mighty missionary labors of the last half of the thirteenth century, which carried Buddhism out to the northern frontier and into Yezo. Although, from time to time minor sects were formed either limiting ordeveloping further the principles of the larger parent sects, andalthough, even as late as the seventeenth century, a new subsect, theOba-ku of Zen Shu, was imported from China, yet no further doctrinaldevelopments of importance took place; not even in presence of or aftersixteenth century Christianity and seventeenth century Confucianism. 

The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries form the golden age of JapaneseBuddhism. 

In the sixteenth century, the feudal system had split into fragments andthe normal state of the country was that of civil war. Sect was arrayedagainst sect, and the Shin bonzes, especially, formed a great militarybody in fortified monasteries. 

In the first half of the sixteenth century, came the tremendousonslaught of Portuguese Christianity. Then followed the militarism andbloody persecutions of Nobunaga. 

In clashing with the new Confucianism of the seventeenth century, Buddhism utterly weakened as an intellectual power. Though through thefavor of the Yodo sh[=o]guns it recovered lands and wealth, girdeditself anew as the spy, persecutor and professed extirpator ofChristianity, and maintained its popularity with the common people, itwas, during the eighteenth century, among the educated Japanese, as goodas dead. Modern Confucianism and the revival of Chinese learning, resulted in eighteenth century scepticism and in nineteenth centuryagnosticism. 

The New Buddhism. 

In our day and time, Japanese Buddhism, in the presence of aggressiveChristianity, is out of harmony with the times, and the needs offorty-one millions of awakened and inquiring people; and there are deepsearchings of heart. Politically disestablished and its landedpossessions sequestrated by the government, it has had, since 1868, ahistory, first of depression and then of temporary revival. Now, amidmuch mechanical and external activity, the employment of the press, theorganization of charity, of summer schools of "theology, " and of youngmen's and other associations copied from the Christians, it isendeavoring to keep New Japan within its pale and to dictate the future. It seeks to utilize the old bottles for the new vintage. 

There is, however, a movement discernible which may be called the NewBuddhism, and has not only new wine but new wineskins. It is democratic, optimistic, empirical or practical; it welcomes women and children; itis hospitable to science and every form of truth. It is catholic inspirit and has little if any of the venom of the old Buddhistcontrovertists. It is represented by earnest writers who look to naturaland spiritual means, rather than to external and mechanical methods. Asa whole, we may say that Japanese Buddhism is still strong to-day in itsgrip upon the people. Though unquestionably moribund, its death will bedelayed. Despite its apparent interest in, and harmony with, contemporaneous statements of science, it does not hold the men ofthought, or those who long for the spiritual purification and moralelevation of Japan. 

Are the Japanese eager for reform? Do they possess that quality ofemotion in which a tormenting sense of sin, and a burning desire forself-surrender to holiness, are ever manifest?

Frankly and modestly, we give our opinion. We think not. The averageJapanese man has not come to that self-consciousness, that searching ofheart, that self-seeing of sin in the light of a Holy God's countenancewhich the gospel compels. Yet this is exactly what the Japanese need. Only Christ's gospel can give it. 

The average man of culture in Dai Nippon has to-day no religion. He iswaiting for one. What shall be the issue, in the contest between a faiththat knows no personal God, no Creator, no atonement, no gospel ofsalvation from sin, and the gospel which bids man seek and know thegreat First Cause, as Father and Friend, and proclaims that thisInfinite Friend seeks man to bless him, to bestow upon him pardon andholiness and to give him earthly happiness and endless life? Between onereligion which teaches personality in God and in man, and another whichoffers only a quagmire of impersonality wherein a personal god and anindividual soul exist only as the jack-lights of the marsh, merephosphorescent gleams of decay, who can fail to choose? Of the twofaiths, which shall be victor?

CHAPTER X - JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

 "The heart of my country, the power of my country, the Light of my country, is Buddhism. "--Yatsubuchi, of Japan. 

 "Buddhism was the teacher under whose instruction the Japanese nation grew up. "--Chamberlain. 

 "Buddhism was the civilizer. It came with the freshness of religious zeal, and religious zeal was a novelty. It come as the bearer of civilization and enlightenment. "

 "Buddhism has had a fair field in Japan, and its outcome has not been elevating. Its influence has been aesthetic and not ethical. It added culture and art to Japan, as it brought with itself the civilization of continental Asia. It gave the arts, and more, it added the artistic atmosphere. .. . Reality disappears. 'This fleeting borrowed world' is all mysterious, a dream; moonlight is in place of the clear hot sun. .. . It has so fitted itself to its surroundings that it seems indigenous. "--George William Knox. 

 "The Japanese . .. Are indebted to Buddhism for their present civilization and culture, their great susceptibility to the beauties of nature, and the high perfection of several branches of artistic industry. "--Rein. 

 "We speak of _God_, and the Japanese mind is filled with idols. We mention _sin_, and he thinks of eating flesh or the killing of insects. The word _holiness_ reminds him of crowds of pilgrims flocking to some famous shrine, or of some anchorite sitting lost in religions abstraction till his legs rot off. He has much error to unlearn before he can take in the truth-"--R. E. McAlpine. 

 "There in a life of study, prayer, and thought, Kenshin became a saintly priest--not wide In intellect nor broad in sympathies, For such things come not from the ascetic life; But narrow, strong, and deep, and like the stream That rushes fervid through the narrow path Between the rooks at Nikk[=o]--so he grasped, Heart, soul, and strength, the holy Buddha's Law With no room left for doubt, or sympathy For other views. "--Kenshin's Vision. 

 "For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. "--Malachi. 

CHAPTER X - JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

Missionary Buddhism the Measure of Japan's Civilization. 

Broadly speaking, the history of Japanese Buddhism in its missionarydevelopment is the history of Japan. Before Buddhism came, Japan waspre-historic. We know the country and people through very scanty noticesin the Chinese annals, by pale reflections cast by myths, legends andpoems, and from the relics cast up by the spade and plough. Chinesecivilization had filtered in, though how much or how little we cannottell definitely; but since the coming of the Buddhist missionaries inthe sixth century, the landscape and the drama of human life lie beforeus in clear detail. Speaking broadly again, it may be said that almostfrom the time of its arrival, Buddhism became on its active side thereal religion of Japan--at least, if the word "religion" be used in ahigher sense than that connoted by either Shint[=o] or Confucianism. Though as a nation the Japanese of the Méiji era are grossly forgetfulof this fact, yet, as Professor Chamberlain says, [1] "All education wasfor centuries in Buddhist hands. Buddhism introduced art; introducedmedicine; created the folk-lore of the country; created its dramaticpoetry; deeply influenced politics, and every sphere of social andintellectual activity; in a word, Buddhism was the teacher under whoseinstruction the Japanese nation grew up. "

For many centuries all Japanese, except here and there a sternShint[=o]ist, or an exceptionally dogmatic Confucian, have acknowledgedthese patent facts, and from the emperor to the eta, glorified in them. It was not until modern Confucian philosophy entered the Mikado's empirein the seventeenth century, that hostile criticism and polemic tenetsdenounced Buddhism, and declared it only fit for savages. This bitterdenunciation of Buddhism at the lips and hands of Japanese who hadbecome Chinese in mind, was all the more inappropriate, because Buddhismhad for over a thousand years acted as the real purveyor and disperserof the Confucian ethics and culture in Japan. Such denunciation camewith no better grace from the Yedo Confucianists than from the Shint[=o]revivalists, like Motoöri, who, while execrating everything Chinese, failed to remember or impress upon his countrymen the fact, that almostall which constituted Japanese civilization had been imported from theMiddle Kingdom. 

Buddhism, in its purely doctrinal development, seems to be rather asystem of metaphysics than a true religion, being a conglomeration, orrather perhaps an agglomeration, of all sorts of theories relating tothe universe and its contents. Its doctrinal and metaphysical side, however, is to be carefully distinguished from its popular and externalfeatures, for in its missionary development Buddhism may be called asystem of national improvement. The history of its propagation, in theland farthest east from its cradle, is not only the outline of thehistory of Japanese civilization, but is nearly the whole of it. 

Pre-Buddhistic Japan. 

It is not perhaps difficult to reconstruct in imagination the landscapeof Japan in pre-Buddhistic days. Certainly we may, with some accuracy, draw a contrast between the appearance of the face of the earth then andnow. Supposing that there were as many as a million or two of souls inthe Japanese Archipelago of the sixth century--the same area which inthe nineteenth century contains over forty-one millions--we can imagineonly here and there patches of cultivated fields, or terraced gullies. There were no roads except paths or trails. The horse was probably yet acuriosity to the aborigines, though well known to the sons of the gods. Sheep and goats then, as now, were unknown. The cow and the ox were inthe land, but not numerous. [2] In architecture there was probably littlebut the primeval hut. Tools were of the rudest description; yet it isevident that the primitive Japanese were able to work iron and apply itto many uses. There were other metals, though the tell-tale etymology oftheir names in Japanese metallurgy, as in so many other lines ofindustry and articles of daily use, points to a Chinese origin. It isthe almost incredible fact that the Japanese man or woman wore on theperson neither gold nor silver jewelry. In later times, decoration wasadded to the sword hilt and pins were thrust in the hair. 

Possibly a prejudice against metal touching the skin, such as exists inKorea, may account for this absence of jewelry, though silver was notdiscovered until A. D. 675, or gold until A. D. 749. The primitiveJapanese, however, did wear ornaments of ground and polished stone, andthese so numerously as to compel contrast with the severer tastes oflater ages. Some of these magatama--curved jewels or perforatedcylinders--were made of very hard stone which requires skill to drill, cut and polish. Among the substances used was jade, a mineral found onlyin Cathay. [3] Indeed, we cannot follow the lines of industry andmanufactures, of personal adornment and household decoration, ofscientific terms and expressions, of literary, intellectual andreligious experiment, without continually finding that the Japaneseborrowed from Chinese storehouses. Possibly their debt began at the timeof the alleged conquest of Korea[4] in the third century. 

In Japanese life, as it existed before the introduction of Buddhism, there was, with barbaric simplicity, a measure of culture somewhatindeed above the level of savagery, but probably very little that couldbe appraised beyond that of the Iroquois Indians in the days of theirConfederacy. For though granting that there were many interestingfeatures of art, industry, erudition and civilization which have beenlost to the historic memory, and that the research of scholars mayhereafter discover many things now in oblivion; yet, on the other hand, it is certain that much of what has long been supposed to be ofprimitive Japanese origin, and existent before the eighth century, hasbeen more or less infused or enriched with Chinese elements, or has beenimported directly from India, or Persia, [5] or has crystallized intoshape from the mixture of things Buddhistic and primitive Japanese. 

Apart from all speculation, we know that in the train of the firstmissionaries came artisans, and instructors in every line of humanindustry and achievement, and that the importation of the inventions andappliances of "the West"--the West then being Korea and China, and the"Far West, " India--was proportionately as general, as far-reaching, assensational, as electric in its effects upon the Japanese minds, as, inour day, has been the introduction of the modern civilization of Europeand the United States. [6]

The Purveyors of Civilization. 

The Buddhist missionaries, in their first "enthusiasm of humanity, " werenot satisfied to bring in their train, art, medicine, science andimprovements of all sorts, but they themselves, being often learned andpractical men, became personal leaders in the work of civilizing thecountry. In travelling up and down the empire to propagate their tenets, they found out the necessity of better roads, and accordingly, they werelargely instrumental in having them made. They dug wells, establishedferries and built bridges. [7] They opened lines of communication; theystimulated traffic and the exchange of merchandise; they created thecommerce between Japan and China; and they acted as peacemakers andmediators in the wars between the Japanese and Koreans. For centuriesthey had the monopoly of high learning. In the dark middle ages whencivil war ruled, they were the only scholars, clerks, diplomatists, mediators and peacemakers. 

Japanese diet became something new under the direction of the priests. The bonzes taught the wickedness of slaughtering domestic animals, andindeed, the wrong of putting any living thing to death, so that kindnessto animals has become a national trait. To this day it may be said thatJapanese boys and men are, at least within the limits of their light, more tender and careful with all living creatures than are those ofChristendom. [8] The bonzes improved the daily fare of the people, byintroducing from Korea and China articles of food hitherto unknown. Theybrought over new seeds and varieties of vegetables and trees. Furthermore, necessity being the mother of invention, not a few of theshorn brethren made up for the prohibition of fish and flesh, bybecoming expert cooks. They so exercised their talents in the culinaryart that their results on the table are proverbial. Especially did theycultivate mushrooms, which in taste and nourishment are good substitutesfor fish. 

The bonzes were lovers of beauty and of symbolism. They planted thelotus, and the monastery ponds became seats of splendor, and delights tothe eye. Their teachings, metaphysical and mystical, poetical andhistorical, scientific and literary, created, it may be said, theJapanese garden, which to the refined imagination contains far more thanmeets the eye of the alien. [9] Indeed, the oriental imitations in earth, stone, water and verdure, have a language and suggestion far beyond whatthe usual parterres and walks, borders and lines, fountains and statuaryof a western garden teach. It may be said that our "language of flowers"is more luxuriant and eloquent than theirs; yet theirs is very richalso, besides being more subtle in suggestion. The bonzes instilleddoctrine, not only by sermons, books and the emblems and furniture ofthe temples, but they also taught dogma and ethics by the flower-pondsand plots, by the artificial landscape, and by outdoor symbolism of allkinds. To Buddhism our thanks are due, for the innumerable miniaturecontinents, ranges of mountains, geographical outlines and otherhorticultural allusions to their holy lands and spiritual history, seenbeside so many houses, temples and monasteries in Japan. In their floralart, no people excels the Japanese in making leaf and bloom teachhistory, religion, philosophy, aesthetics and patriotism. 

Not only around the human habitation, [10] but within it, the newreligion brought a marvellous change. Instead of the hut, thedwelling-house grew to spacious and comfortable proportions, every partof the Japanese house to-day showing to the cultured student, especiallyto one familiar with the ancient poetry, the lines of its origin anddevelopment, and in the larger dwellings expressing a wealth ofsuggestion and meaning. The oratory and the kami-dana or shelf holdingthe gods, became features in the humblest dwelling. Among the well-to-dothere were of course the gilded ancestral tablets and the worship ofprogenitors, in special rooms, with imposing ritual and equipment, withwhich Buddhism did not interfere; but on the shelf over the door ofnearly every house in the land, along with the emblems of the kami, stood images representing the avatars of Buddha. [11] There, the lightever burned, and there, offerings of food and drink were thrice dailymade. Though the family worship might vary in its length and variety ofceremony, yet even in the home where no regular system was followed, theburning lights and the stated offering made, called the mind up tothoughts higher than the mere level of providing for daily wants. Thevisitation of the priests in time of sorrow, or of joy, or for friendlyconverse, made religion sweetly human. [12]

Outwardly the Buddhist architecture made a profound change in thelandscape. With a settled religion requiring gorgeous ceremonial, thechanting of liturgies by large bodies of priests and the formation ofmonasteries as centres of literary and religious activity, there wererequired stability and permanence in the imperial court itself. While, therefore, the humble village temples arose all over the country, therewere early erected, in the place where the court and emperor dwelt, impressive religious edifices. [13] The custom of migration ceased, and afixed spot selected as the capital, remained such for a number ofgenerations, until finally Héian-j[)o] or the place of peace, latercalled Ki[=o]to, became the "Blossom Capital" and the Sacred City for athousand years. At Nara, where flourished the first six sects introducedfrom Korea, were built vast monasteries, temples and images, and thencethe influence of civilisation and art radiated. From the first, forgetting its primitive democracy and purely moral claims, Buddhismlusted for power in the State. As early as A. D. 624, various grades wereassigned to the priesthood by the government. [14] The sects eagerlysought and laid great stress upon imperial favor. To this day theykeenly enjoy the canonization of their great teachers by letters patentfrom the Throne. 

Ministers of Art. 

On the establishment of the imperial capital, at Ki[=o]to, toward theend of the eighth century, we find still further development andenlargement of those latent artistic impulses with which the HeavenlyFather endowed his Japanese child. That capacity for beauty, both inappreciation and expression, which in our day makes the land of daintydecoration the resort of all those who would study oriental art inunique fulness and decorative art in its only living school--a schoolfounded on the harmonious marriage of the people and the nature of thecountry--is discernible from quite early ages. The people seem to haveresponded gladly to the calls for gifts and labor. The direction fromwhich it is supposed all evils are likely to come is the northeast; thisspecial point of the compass being in pan-Asian spiritual geography thefocus of all malign influences. Accordingly, the Mikado Kwammu, in A. D. 788, built on the highest mountain called Hiyéi a superb temple andmonastery, giving it in charge of the Ten-dai sect, that there shouldever be a bulwark against the evil that might otherwise swoop upon thecity. Here, as on castellated walls, should stand the watchman, who, bythe recitation of the sacred liturgies, would keep watch and ward. Incourse of time this great mountain became a city of three thousandedifices and ten thousand monks, from which the droning of litanies andthe chanting of prayers ascended daily, and where the chief industrieswere, the counting of beads on rosaries and the burning of incensebefore the altars. This was in the long bright day of a prosperity whichhas been nourished by vast sums obtained from the government and nobles. One notes the contrast at the end of our century, when "disestablished"as a religion and its bonzes reduced to beggary, Hiyéi-san is used asthe site of a Summer School of Christian Theology. 

Along with the blossoming of the lotus in every part of the empire, bloomed the grander flowers of sculpture, of painting and of templearchitecture. It was because of the carpenter's craft in buildingtemples that he won his name of Dai-ku, or the great workman. Theartificers of the sunny islands cultivated an ambition, not only toequal but to excel, their continental brethren of the saw and hammer. Yet the carpenter was only the leader of great hosts of artisans thatwere encouraged, of craftsmen that were educated and of industries thatwere called into being by the spread of Buddhism. [15] It was not enoughthat village temples and town monasteries should be built, under animpulse that meant volumes for the development of the country. Theambitious leaders chose sightly spots on mountains whence were lovelyvistas of scenery, on which to erect temples and monasteries, while itseemed to be their further ambition to allow no mountain peak to beinaccessible. With armies of workmen, supported by the contributions ofthe faithful who had been aroused to enthusiasm by the preaching of thebonzes, great swaths were cut in the forest; abundant timber was felled;rocky plateaus were levelled; and elegant monastic edifices were reared, soon to be filled with eager students, and young men in training for thepriesthood. 

Whether the pilgrimage[16] be of Shint[=o] or of Buddhist origin, orsimply a contrivance of human nature to break the monotony of life, weneed not discuss. It is certain that if the custom be indigenous, theimported faith adopted, absorbed and enlarged it. The peregrinationsmade to the great temples and to the mountain tops, being meritoriousperformances, soon filled the roads with more or less devout travellers. In thus finding vent for their piety, the pilgrims mingledsanctification with recreation, enjoying healthful holidays, andcreating trade with varied business, commercial and commissarialactivities, while enlarging also their ideas and learning something ofgeography. Thus, in the course of time, it has come to pass that Japanis a country of which almost every square mile is known, while it iswell threaded with paths, banded with roads, and supplied to aremarkable extent with handy volumes of description and of localhistory. [17] Her people being well educated in their own lore and localtraditions, possessed also a voluminous literature of guidebooks andcyclopedias of information. The devotees were, withal, well instructedand versed in a code of politeness and courtesy, as pilgrimage andtravel became settled habits of a life. As a further result, thenational tongue became remarkably homogeneous. Broadly speaking, it maybe said that the Japanese language, unlike the Chinese in this as it isin almost every other point, has very little dialectic variation. [18]Except in some few remote eddies lying outside the general currents, there is a uniform national speech. This is largely owing to that annualmovement of pilgrims in the summer months especially, habitual duringmany centuries. 

Buddhism coming to Japan by means of the Great Vehicle, or with thefeatures of the Northern development, was the fertile mother of art. Inthe exterior equipment of the temple, instead of the Shint[=o] thatch, the tera or Buddhist edifice called for tiles on its sweeping roof, withornamental terra-cotta at the end of its imposing roof-ridge, or forsheets of copper soon to be made verdant, then sombre and then sable byage and atmosphere. Outwardly the edifice required the application ofpaint and lacquer in rich tints, its recurved roof-edges gladlywelcoming the crest and monogram of the feudal prince, and its railingsand stairways accepting willingly the bronze caps and ornaments. Infront of its main edifice was the imposing gateway with proportionsalmost as massive as the temple itself, with prodigal wealth ofcuriously fitted and richly carved, painted and gilded supports andmorticings, with all the fancies and adornments of the carpenter's art, and having as its frontlet and blazon the splendidly gilt name, style ortitle. Often these were impressive to eye and mind, to an extent whichthe terse Chinese or curt monosyllables could scarcely suggest to analien. [19] The number, forms and positions of the various parts of thetemple easily lent themselves to the expression of the elaboratesymbolism of the India faith. 

Resemblances between Buddhism and Christianity. 

Within the sacred edifice everything to strike the senses was lavishlydisplayed. The passion of the East, as opposed to Greek simplicity, isfor decoration; yet in Japan, decorative art, though sometimes burstingout in wild profusion or running to unbridled lengths, was in the main aregulated mass of splendor in which harmony ruled. Differing though theBuddhist sects do in their temple furniture and altar decorations, theyare, most of them, so elaborately full in their equipment as to suggestrepeatedly the similarity between the Roman Catholic organization, altars, vestments and ritual, and those of Buddhism, and remarks on thispoint seem almost commonplace. Almost everything in Roman Catholicism isfound in Buddhism, [20] and one may even say, _vice versa_, at least inthings exterior. We take the liberty of transcribing here a passage fromthe chapter entitled "Christianity and Foreigners" in The Mikado'sEmpire, written twenty years ago. 

 "Furthermore, the transition from the religion of India to that of Rome was extremely easy. The very idols of Buddha served, after a little alteration with the chisel, for images of Christ. The Buddhist saints were easily transformed into the Twelve Apostles. The Cross took the place of the _torii_. It was emblazoned on the helmets and banners of the warriors, and embroidered on their breasts. The Japanese soldiers went forth to battle like Christian crusaders. In the roadside shrine Kuanon, the Goddess of Mercy, made way for the Virgin, the mother of God. Buddhism was beaten with its own weapons. Its own artillery was turned against it. Nearly all the Christian churches were native temples, sprinkled and purified. The same bell, whose boom had so often quivered the air announcing the orisons and matins of paganism, was again blessed and sprinkled, and called the same hearers to mass and confession; the same lavatory that fronted the temple served for holy water or baptismal font; the same censer that swung before Amida could be refilled to waft Christian incense; the new convert could use unchanged his old beads, bells, candles, incense, and all the paraphernalia of his old faith in celebration of the new. 

 "Almost everything that is distinctive in the Roman form of Christianity is to be found in Buddhism: images, pictures, lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation, pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc. , etc. , etc. "[21]

Nevertheless, these resemblances are almost wholly superficial, and havelittle or nothing to do with genuine religion. Such matters are ofaesthetic and of commercial, rather than of spiritual, interest. Theyconcern priestcraft and vulgar superstition rather than truth andrighteousness. "In point of dogma a whole world of thought separatesBuddhism from every form of Christianity. Knowledge, enlightenment, isthe condition of Buddhistic grace, not faith. Self-perfectionment is themeans of salvation, not the vicarious sufferings of a Redeemer. Noteternal life is the end and active participation in unceasing prayer andpraise, but absorption into Nirvana (Jap. Nehan), practicalannihilation. "[22] At certain points, the metaphysic of Buddhism is soclosely like that of Christian theology, that a connection on reciprocalexchange of ideas is not only possible but probable. In their highestthinking, [23] the sincere Christian and Buddhist approach each other intheir search after truth. 

The key-word of Buddhism is Ingwa, which means law or fate, the chain ofcause and effect in which man is found, atheistic "evolution applied toethics, " the grinding machinery of a universe in which is noCreator-Father, no love, pity or heart. If the cry of the human spirithas compelled the makers of Buddhist theology to furnish a goddess ofmercy, it is but one subordinate being among many. If a boundlesslycompassionate Amida is thought out, it is an imaginary being. The symbolof Buddhism is the wheel of the law, which revolves as mercilessly asceaselessly. [24]

The key-word of Christianity is love, and its message is grace. Itssymbol is the cross, and its sacrament the supper, in token of theinfinite love of the Father who wrote his revelation in a human life. The resemblances between the religions of Gautama and of Jesus, arepurely superficial. They appear to the outward man. The inward mancannot, even from Darien peaks of observation or in his scrutiny _deprofundis_, discover any vital or historical connection between the twofaiths, Christianity and Buddhism. In his theology the Christian saysGod is all; but the Buddhist says All is god. Buddhism says destroy thepassions: Christianity says control them. The Buddhist's watchword isNirvana. The Christian's is Eternal Life in Christ Jesus. [25]

The Temples and Their Symbolism. 

In the vast airy halls of a Buddhist temple one will often see columnsmade of whole tree-trunks, sheeted with gold and supporting massiveceilings which are empanelled and gorgeous with every hue and tint knownto the palette. Besides the coloring, carving and gilding, the richsymbolism strikes the eye and touches the imagination. It is a pleasingstudy for one familiar with the background and world of Buddhism, tonote their revelation and expression in art, as well as to discern whatthe varying sects accept or reject. There is the lotus, in leaf, bud, flower and calyx;[26] the diamond in every form, real and imaginary, with the vagra or emblem of conquest; while on the altars, beside thecentral image, be it that of Shaka or of Amida, are Bodhisattvas orBuddhas by brevet, beings in every state of existence, as well asdeities of many names and forms. Abstract ideas and attributes areexpressed in the art language not only of Japan, Korea and China, butalso in that of India and even of Persia and Greece, [27] until onewonders how an Aryan religion, like Buddhism, could have so conqueredand unified the many nations of Chinese Asia. He wonders, indeed, untilhe remembers how it has itself been transformed and changed in popularsubstance, from lofty metaphysics and ethics into pantheism for theshorn, and into polytheism for the unshorn. 

Looking at early Japanese pictures with the eye of the historian, aswell as of the connoisseur of art, one will see that the first realschool of Japanese art was Buddhistic. The modern school of pictorialart, named from the monkish phrase, Ukioyé--pictures of the PassingWorld--is indeed very interesting to the western student, because itseems to be more in touch with the human nature of the whole world, asdistinct from what is local, Chinese, or sectarian. Yet, casting aglance back of the mediaeval Kano, Chinese and Yamato-Tosa styles, hefinds that Buddhism gave Japan her first examples of and stimulus topictorial art. [28] He sees further that instead of the monochrome ofChinese exotic art, or the first rude attempts of the native pencil, Buddhism began Japanese sculpture, carving and nearly every other formof plastic or pictorial representation, in which are all the elements ofNorthern Buddhism, as so lavishly represented, for example, in thatgreat sutra which is the book, _par excellence_, of Japanese Buddhism, the Saddharma Pundarika. 

Turning from text to art, we behold the golden lakes of joy, themountain of gems, the floating female angels with their marvellousdrapery and lovely faces, the gentle benignity of the goddesses ofmercy, the rays of light and the glory streaming from face and head ofthe holy ones, the splendors of costume, the varied beauties of thelotus, the hosts of ministering intelligences, the luxuriant symbolism, the purple clouds, the wheel of the law, the swastika[29] or doublecross, and the vagra, [30] or diamond trefoil. All that color, perfume, sensuous delights, art and luxury can suggest, are here, together withall the various orders of beings that inhabit the Buddhist universe; andthese are set forth in their fulness and detail. In the six conditionsof sentient existence are devas or gods, men, asuras or monsters, pretasor demons, beasts, and beings in hell. In portraying these, the artistsand sculptors do not always slavishly follow tradition or uniformity. The critical eye notes nearly as much genius, wit and variety as in themediaeval cathedral architecture of Europe. Probably the most populargroups of idols are those of the seven or the thirty-three Kuannon, ofthe six Jizo[31] or compassionate helpers, and of the sixteen or thefive hundred Rakan[32] or circles of primitive disciples of Gautama. Theangelic beings and sweetly singing birds of Paradise are also favoritesubjects of the artists. 

One who has lived alongside the great temples; who knows the dailyroutine and sees what powerful engines of popular instruction they are;who has been present at the great festivals and looked upon the mightykitchens and refectories in operation; and who has gone in and out amongtheir monasteries and examined their records, their genealogies andtheir relics, can see how powerfully Buddhism has moulded the whole lifeof the people through long ages. The village temple is often the epitomeand repository of the social life of the people now living, and of thestory of their ancestors for generations upon generations past. It isthe historico-genealogical society, the museum, the repository ofdocuments and trophies, the place of national thanksgiving and praise, of public sorrow and farewell, a place of rendezvous and separation, thestarting-point of procession, and the centre of festival and joy; andthus it is linked with the life of the people. 

In other respects, also, the temple is like the old village cathedral ofmediaeval Europe. It is in many sects the centre of popular pleasure ofall sorts, both reputable and disreputable. Not only shops and bazaars, fairs and markets, games and sports, cluster around it, but alsocuriosities and works of popular art, the relics of war, and thetrophies of travel and adventure. Except that Buddhism--outside ofIndia--never had the unity of European Christianity, the Buddhist templeis the mirror and encyclopaedia both of history and of contemporarylife. As fame and renown are necessary for the glory of the place or thestructure, favorite gods, or rather their idols, are frequently carriedabout on "starring" tours. At the opening to public view of some famousimage or relic, a great festival or revival called Kai-ch[=o] is held, which becomes a scene of trade and merry-making like that of themediaeval fair or kermis in Europe. The far-oriental is able asskilfully as his western confrère, to mix business and religion and tosuppose that gain is godliness. Further, the manufacture of legendbecomes a thriving industry; while the not-infrequent sensation of apopular miracle is manipulated by the bonzes--for priestcraft in allages and climes is akin throughout the world. It is no wonder that somehonest Japanese, incensed at the shams utilized by the religious, hasstruck out like coin the proverb that rings true--"Good doctrine needsno miracle. "

The Bell and the Cemetery. 

The Buddhist missionaries, and especially the founders of temples, thoroughly understood the power of natural beauty to humble, inspire andsoothe the soul of man. The instinctive love of the Japanese people forfine scenery, was made an ally of faith. The sites for temples werechosen with reference to their imposing surroundings or impressivevistas. Whether as spark-arresters and protectives against fire, or tocompel reverent awe, the loftiest evergreen trees are planted around thesacred structure. These "trees of Jehovah" are compellers to reverence. The _alien's_ hat comes off instinctively--though it may be lessconvenient to shed boots than sandals--as he enters the sacredstructure. 

The great tongueless bell is another striking accessory to the templeservices. Near at hand stands the belfry out of which boom forth tidingsof the hours. In the flow of time and years, the note of the bellbecomes more significant, and in old age solemn, making in the lapse ofcenturies an educating power in seriousness. "As sad as a temple bell"is the coinage of popular speech. Many of the inscriptions, though withless of sunny hope and joy than even Christian grave-stones bear, areyet mournfully beautiful. [33] They preach Buddhism in its reality. Whereas, the general associations of the Christian spire and belfry, apart from the note of time, are those of joy, invitation and good news, those of the tongueless and log-struck bells of Buddhism are sombre andsaddening. "As merry as a marriage bell, " could never be said of theboom from a Buddhist temple, even though it pour waves of sound throughsunny leagues. There is a vast difference between the peal and play ofthe chimes of Europe and the liquid melody which floods the landscape ofChinese Asia. The one music, high in air, seems ever to tell of faith, triumph and aspiration; the other in minor notes, from bells hung low onyokes, perpetually echoes the pessimism of despair, the folly of livingand the joy that anticipates its end. 

Above all, the temple holds and governs the cemetery[34] as well as thecradle; while from it emanate influences that enwrap and surround thevillager, from birth to death. Since the outlawry of Christianity, andespecially since the division of the empire into Buddhist parishes, thebonzes have had the oversight of birth, death, marriage and divorce. Particularly tenacious, in common with priestcraft all over the world, is their clutch upon what they call "consecrated ground. " In a largesense Japan is still, what China has always been, a country governed bythe graveyard. These cities of the dead are usually kept in attractiveorder and made beautiful with flowers in memoriam. The study of epitaphsand mortuary architecture, though not without elements bordering on theludicrous, is enjoyed by the thoughtful student. [35]

 In every community the inhabitants are enrolled at birth at the local temple, whose priests are the authorized religious teachers, and are always expected to take charge of the funerals of those whose names are thus enrolled. So long as an individual remains in the region of the family temple, the tie which binds him to it is exceedingly difficult to break; but if he moves away he is no longer bound by this tie. This explains the fact, so often observed by missionaries, that the membership of Christian churches is made up almost entirely of people who have come from other localities. In the city of Osaka, for instance, it is a very rare thing to find a native Osakan in any of the churches. The same is true in all parts of the country. So long as a Japanese remains in the neighborhood of his family temple it is almost impossible to get him to break the temple tie and join a Christian church; but when he moves to another place he is free to do as he likes. [36]

This statement of a resident in modern Japan will long remain true for alarge part of the empire. 

Political and Military Influences. 

A volume might be written and devoted to Japanese Buddhism as apolitical power; for, having quickly obtained intellectual possession ofthe court and emperor, it dictated the policies of the rulers. In A. D. 624, it was recognized as a state religion, and the hierarchy of priestswas officially established. At this date there were 46 temples andmonasteries, with 816 monks and 569 nuns. As early as the eighthcentury, beginning with Sh[=o]mu, who reigned A. D. 724-728, and who withhis daughter, afterward the female Mikado, became a disciple of Shaka, the habit of the emperors becoming monks, shaving their heads andretiring from public life, came in vogue and lasted until near thenineteenth century. By this means the bonzes were soon enabled to callBuddhism "the people's religion, " and to secure the resources of thenational treasury as an aid to their temple and monastery building, andfor the erection of those images and wayside shrines on which so manymillions of dollars have been lavished. In addition to this subsidizedpropaganda, the Buddhist confessor was too often able, by means of thewife, concubine, or other female member of the household, imperial ornoble, to dictate the imperial policy in accordance with monkish orpriestly ideas. Ugéno D[=o]-ki[=o], a monk, is believed to have aspiredto the throne. Being made premier by the Empress K[=o]-ken, whosepassion for him is the scandal of history, he made no scruple ofextending the power as well as the influence of the Buddhist hierarchy. 

Buddhism had also a distinct influence on the military history of thecountry, [37] and this was greatest during the civil wars of the rivalMikados (1336-1392), when the whole country was a camp and two lines ofnominees claimed to be descendants of the sun-goddess. Japan's onlyforeign wars have been in the neighboring peninsula of Korea, andthither the bonzes went with the armies in the expeditions of the earlycenturies, and in that great invasion of 1592-1597, which has left ascar even to this day on the Korean mind. At home, Buddhist priests onlytoo gladly accompanied the imperial armies of conquest and occupation. During centuries of activity in the southwest and in the far east andextreme north, the military brought the outlying portions of the empire, throughout the whole archipelago, under the sway of the Yamato tribe andthe Mikado's dominion. The shorn clerks not only lived in camp, ministered to the sick and shrived the dying soldier, but wrote textsfor the banners, furnished the amulets and war cries, and were everassistant and valuable in keeping up the temper and morals of thearmies. [38] No sooner was the campaign over and peace had become theorder of the day, than the enthusiastic missionaries began to preach andto teach in the pacified region. They set up the shrines, anon startedthe school and built the temple; usually, indeed, with the aid of thelaw and the government, acting as agents of a politico-ecclesiasticalestablishment, yet with energy and consecration. 

In later feudal days, when the soldier classes obtained the upper hand, overawed the court and Mikado and gradually supplanted the civilauthority, introducing feudalism and martial law, the bonzes oftenrepresented the popular and democratic side. Protesting againstarbitrary government, they came into collision with the warrior rulers, so as to be exposed to imprisonment and the sword. Yet even as refugeesand as men to whom the old seats of activity no longer offered successor comfort, they went off into the distant and outlying provinces, preaching the old tenets and the new fashions in theology. Thus againthey won hosts of converts, built monasteries, opened fresh paths andwere purveyors of civilization. 

The feudal ages in Japan bred the same type of militant priest known inEurope--the military bishop and the soldier monk. So far from Japan'sbeing the "Land of Great Peace, " and Buddhism's being necessarily gentleand non-resistant, we find in the chequered history of the island empiremany a bloody battle between the monks on horseback and in armor. [39]Rival sectarians kept the country disquieted for years. Betweenthemselves and their favored laymen, and the enemy, consisting of therival forces, lay and clerical, in like array, many a bloody battle wasfought. 

The writer lived for one year in Echizen, which, in the fifteenthcentury, was the battle-ground for over fifty years, of warring monks. The abbot of the Monastery of the Original Vow, of the Shin sect, inKi[=o]to, had built before the main edifice a two-storied gate, whichwas expected to throw into the shade every other gateway in Japan, andespecially to humble the pride of the monks of the Tendai sect, inHiyéizan, The monks of the mountain, swarming down into the capitalcity, attacked the gate and monastery of the Shin sect and burned theformer to ashes. The abbot thus driven off by fire, fled northward, and, joined by a powerful body of adherents, made himself possessor of therich provinces of Kaga and Echizen, holding this region for half acentury, until able to rebuild the mighty fortress-monasteries nearKi[=o]to and at Osaka. 

These strongholds of the fighting Shin priests had become so powerful asarsenals and military headquarters, that in 1570, Nobunaga, skilfulgeneral as he was, and backed by sixty thousand men, was unsuccessful inhis attempt to reduce them. For ten years, the war between Nobunaga andthe Shin sectarians kept the country in disorder. It finally ended inthe conflagration of the great religious fortress at Osaka, and theretreat of the monks to another part of the country. By their treacheryand incendiarism, the shavelings prevented the soldiers from enjoyingthe prizes. 

To detail the whole history of the fighting monks would be tedious. Theyhave had a foothold for many centuries and even to the present time, inevery province except that of Satsuma. There, because they treacherouslyaided the great Hidéyoshi to subdue the province, the fiery clansmen, never during Tokugawa days, permitted a Buddhist priest to come. [40]

Literature, and Education. 

In its literary and scholastic development, Japanese Buddhism on itspopular educational side deserves great praise. Although the Buddhistcanon[41] was never translated into the vernacular, [42] and while thelibrary of native Buddhism, in the way of commentary or generalliterature, reflects no special credit upon the priests, yet thehistorian must award them high honor, because of the part taken by themas educators and schoolmasters. [43] Education in ancient and mediaevaltimes was, among the laymen, confined almost wholly to the imperialcourt, and was considered chiefly to be, either as an adjunct to politeaccomplishments, or as valuable especially in preparing young men forpolitical office. [44] From the first introduction of letters until wellinto the nineteenth century, there was no special provision foreducation made by the government, except that, in modern and recenttimes in the castle towns of the Daimi[=o]s, there were schools ofChinese learning for the Samurai. Private schools and school-masters[45]were also creditably numerous. In original literature, poetry, fictionand history, as well as in the humbler works of compilation, in themaking of text-books and in descriptive lore, the pens of many priestshave been busy. [46] The earliest biography written in Japan was ofSh[=o]toku, the great lay patron of Buddhism. In the ages of war themonastery was the ark of preservation amid a flood of desolation. 

The temple schools were early established, and in the course ofcenturies became at times almost coextensive with the empire. Besidesthe training of the neophytes in the Chinese language and thevernacular, there were connected with thousands of temples, schools inwhich the children, not only of the well-to-do, but largely of thepeople, were taught the rudiments of education, chiefly reading andwriting. Most of the libraries of the country were those in monasteries. Although it is not probable that K[=o]b[=o] invented the Kana or commonscript, yet it is reasonably certain that the bonzes[47] were the chiefinstrument in the diffusion and popularization of that simple system ofwriting, which made it possible to carry literature down into the homesof the merchant and peasant, and enabled even women and children tobeguile the tedium of their lives. Thus the people expanded theirthoughts through the medium of the written, and later of the printed, page. [48] Until modern centuries, when the school of painters, whichculminated in Hok[)u]sai and his contemporaries, brought a love of artdown to the lowest classes of the people, the only teacher of pictorialand sculptural art for the multitude, was Buddhism. So strong is thispopular delight in things artistic that probably, to this passion asmuch as to the religious instinct, we owe many of the wayside shrinesand images, the symbolical and beautifully prepared landscapes, andthose stone stairways which slope upward toward the shrines on thehill-tops. In Japan, art is not a foreign language; it is vernacular. 

Thus, while we gladly point out how Buddhism, along the paths ofexploration, commerce, invention, sociology, military and politicalinfluence, education and literature, not only propagated religion, butcivilized Japan, [49] it is but in the interest of fairness and truththat we point out that wherein the great system was deficient. If wemake comparison with Christendom and the religion of Jesus, it is lesswith the purpose of the polemic who must perhaps necessarily disparage, and more with the idea of making contrast between what we have seen inJapan and what we have enjoyed as commonplace in the United States andEurope. 

Things Which Buddhism Left Undone. 

In the thirteen hundred years of the life of Buddhism in Japan, what arethe fruits, and what are the failures? Despite its incessant andmultifarious activities, one looks in vain for the hospital, the orphanasylum, the home for elderly men or women or aged couples, or the asylumfor the insane, and much less, for that vast and complicated system oforganized charities, which, even amid our material greed of gain, makecities like New York, or London, or Chicago, so beautiful from the pointof view of humanity. Buddhism did indeed teach kindness to animals, making even the dog, though ownerless and outcast, in a sense sacred. Because of his faith in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, thetoiling laborer will keep his wheels or his feet from harming the cat ordog or chicken in the road, even though it be at risk and trouble andwith added labor to himself. The pious will buy the live birds or eelsfrom the old woman who sits on the bridge, in order to give them lifeand liberty again in air or water. The sacred rice is for sale at thetemples, not only to feed but to fatten the holy pigeons. 

Yet, while all this care is lavished on animals, the human beingsuffers. [50] Buddhism is kind to the brute, and cruel to man. Until theinflux of western ideas in recent years, the hospital and the orphanagedid not exist in Japan, despite the gentleness and tenderness of Shaka, who, with all his merits, deserted his wife and babe in order toenlighten mankind. [51] If Buddhism is not directly responsible for theexistence of that class of Japanese pariahs called _hi-nin_, ornot-human, the name and the idea are borrowed from the sutras; while theexecration of all who prepare or sell the flesh of animals ispersistently taught in the sacred books. These unfortunate bearers ofthe human image, during twelve hundred years and until the fiat of thepresent illustrious emperor made them citizens, were not reckoned in thecensus, nor was the land on which they dwelt measured. The imperialedict which finally elevated the Eta to citizenship, was suggested byone whose life, though known to men as that of a Confucian, was probablyhid with Christ, Yokoi Héishiro. [52] The emperor Mutsuhito, 123d of theline of Japan, born on the day when Perry was on the Mississippi andready to sail, placed over these outcast people in 1871, the protectingaegis of the law. [53] Until that time, the people in this unfortunateclass, numbering probably a million, or, as some say, three millions, were compelled to live outside of the limits of human habitation, havingno lights which society or the law was bound to respect. They were givenfood or drink only when benevolence might be roused; but the donor wouldnever again touch the vessel in which the offering was made. TheEta, [54] though in individual cases becoming measurably rich, rotted andstarved, and were made the filth, and off-scouring of the earth, becausethey were the butchers, the skinners, the leather workers, and thushandled dead animals, being made also the executioners and buriers ofthe dead. After a quarter of a century the citizens, whose ancestry isnot forgotten, suffer social ostracism even more than do the freedslaves of our country, though between them and the other Japanese thereis no color line, but only the streak of difference which Buddhismcreated and has maintained. Nevertheless, let it be said to the eternalhonor of Shin Shu and of some of the minor sects, that they were alwayskind and helpful to the Eta. 

Furthermore it would be hard to discover Buddhist missionary activitiesamong the Ainos, or benefits conferred upon them by the disciples ofGautama. One would suppose that the Buddhists, professing to bebelievers in spiritual democracy, would be equally active among allsorts and conditions of men; but they have not been so. Even in the dayswhen the regions of the Ebisu or barbarians (Yezo) extended farsouthward upon the main island, the missionary bonze was conspicuous byhis absence among these people. It would seem as though the popularnotion that the Ainos are the offspring of dogs, had been fed byprejudices inculcated by Buddhism. It has been reserved for Christianaliens to reduce the language of these simple savages to writing, and toexpress in it for their spiritual benefit the ideas and literature of areligion higher than their own, as well as to erect church edifices andbuild hospitals. 

The Attitude Toward Woman. 

In its attitude toward woman, which is perhaps one of the crucial testsof a religion as well as of a civilization, Buddhism has somewhat to bepraised and much to be blamed for. It is probable that the Japanesewoman owes more to Buddhism than to Confucianism, though relatively herposition was highest under Shint[=o]. In Japan the women are the freestin Asia, and probably the best treated among any Asiatic nation, butthis is not because of Gautama's teaching. [55] Very early in its historyJapanese Buddhism welcomed womanhood to its fraternity and order, [56]yet the Japanese _ama, bikuni_, or nun, never became a sister of mercy, or reached, even within a measurable distance, the dignity of theChristian lady in the nunnery. In European history the abbess is anotable figure. She is hardly heard of beyond the Japanese nunnery, evenby the native scholar--except in fiction. 

So far as we can see, the religion founded by one who deserted his wifeand babe did nothing to check concubinage or polygamy. It simply allowedthese things, or ameliorated their ancient barbaric conditions throughthe law of kindness. Nevertheless, it brought education and culturewithin the family as well as within the court. It would be aninteresting question to discuss how far the age of classic vernacularprose or the early mediaeval literature of romance, which is almostwholly the creation of woman, [57] is due to Buddhism, or how far thecredit belongs, by induction or reaction, to the Chinese movement infavor of learning. Certainly, the faith of India touches and feeds theimagination far more than does that of China. Certainly also, theanimating spirit of most of the popular literature is due to Buddhisticculture. The Shin sect, which permits the marriage of the priests andpreaches the salvation of woman, probably leads all others in accordinghonor to her as well as in elevating her social position. 

Buddhism, like Roman Catholicism, and as compared to Confucianism whichis protestant and masculine, is feminine in its type. In Japan the placeof the holy Virgin Mary is taken by Kuannon, the goddess of mercy; andher shrine is one of the most popular of all. Much the same may be saidof Benten, the queen of the heaven and mistress of the seas. The angelsof Buddhism are always feminine, and, as in the unscriptural and paganconception of Christian angels, have wings. [58] So also in the legendsof Gautama, in the Buddhist lives of the saints, and in legendary loreas well as in glyptic and pictorial art, the female being transfiguredin loveliness is a striking figure. Nevertheless, after all is summed upthat can possibly be said in favor of Buddhism, the position it accordsto woman is not only immeasurably beneath that given by Christianity, but is below that conceded by Shint[=o], which knows not only goddessesand heroines, but also priestesses and empresses. [59]

According to the popular ethical view as photographed in language, literature and art, jealousy is always represented by a female demon. Indeed, most of the tempters, devils, and transformations of humanityinto malign beings, whether pretas, asuras, oni, foxes, badgers, orcats, are females. As the Chinese ideographs associate all things weakor vile with women, so the tell-tale words of Japanese daily speech arebut reflections of the dogmas coined in the Buddhist mint. In Japanese, chastity means not moral cleanliness without regard to sex, but onlywomanly duties. For, while the man is allowed a loose foot, the woman isexpected not only to be absolutely spotless, but also never to show anyjealousy, however wide the husband may roam, or however numerous may bethe concubines in his family. In a word, there is the double standard ofmorals, not only of priest and laity, but of man and woman. The positionof the Japanese woman even of to-day, despite that eagerness once shownto educate her--an eagerness which soon cooled in the governmentschools, but which keeps an even pulse in the Christian home andcollege--is still relatively one of degradation as compared with that ofher sister in Christendom. For this, the mid-Asian religion is notwholly responsible, yet it is largely so. 

Influence on the Japanese Character. 

In regard to the influence of Buddhism upon the morals and character ofthe Japanese, there is much to be said in praise, and much also incriticism. It has aided powerfully to educate the people in habits ofgentleness and courtesy, but instead of aspiration and expectancy ofimprovement, it has given to them that spirit of hopeless resignationwhich is so characteristic of the Japanese masses. Buddhism has sodominated common popular literature, daily life and speech, that alltheir mental procedure and their utterance is cast in the moulds ofBuddhist doctrine. The fatalism of the Moslem world expressed in theidea of Kismet, has its analogue in the Japanese Ingwa, or "cause andeffect, "--the notion of an evolution which is atheistic, but viewed fromthe ethical side. This idea of Ingwa is the key to most Japanese novelsas well as dramas of real life. [60] While Buddhism continually preachesthis doctrine of Karma or Ingwa, [61] the law of cause and effect, asbeing sufficient to explain all things, it shows its insufficiency andemptiness by leaving out the great First Cause of all. In a word, Buddhism is law, but not gospel. It deals much with man, but not withman's relations with his Creator, whom it utterly ignores. Christianitycomes not to destroy its ethics, beautiful as they are, nor to ignoreits metaphysics; but to fulfil, to give a higher truth, and to reveal alarger Universe and One who fills it all--not only law, but a Law-giver. 

CHAPTER XI - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

 "_Sicut cadaver. _"

 "Et fiet unum ovile et unus pastor. "--Vulgate, John x. 16. 

 "He (Xavier) has been the moon of that 'Society of Jesus' of which Ignatius Loyola was the guiding sun. "--S. W. Duffield. 

 "My God I love Thee; not because I hope for Heaven thereby, Nor yet because, who love Thee not, must, die eternally. So would I love Thee, dearest Lord, and in Thy praise will sing; Solely because thou art my God, and my eternal King. " --Hymn attributed to Francis Xavier. 

 "Half hidden, stretching in a lengthened line In front of China, which its guide shall be, Japan abounds in mines of Silver fine, And shall enlighten'd be by holy faith divine. " --Camoens

 "The people of this Iland of Japon are good of nature, curteous aboue measure, and valiant in warre; their justice is seuerely executed without any partialitie vpon transgressors of the law. They are gouerned in great ciuilitie. I meane, not a land better gouerned in the world by ciuill policie. The people be verie superstitious in their religion, and are of diuers opinions. "--Will Adams, October 22, 1611. 

 "A critical history of Japan remains to be written . .. We should know next to nothing of what may be termed the Catholic episode of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, had we access to none but the official Japanese sources. How can we trust those sources when they deal with times yet more remote?"--Chamberlain. 

 "The annals of the primitive Church furnish no instances of sacrifice or heroic constancy, in the Coliseum or the Roman arenas, that were not paralleled on the dry river-beds or execution-grounds of Japan. "

 "They . .. Rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. "--Revelation. 

CHAPTER XI - A CENTURY OF ROMAN CHRISTIANITY

Darkest Japan. 

The story of the first introduction and propagation of RomanChristianity in Japan, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has been told by many writers, both old and new, and in many languages. Recent research upon the soil, [1] both natives and foreigners makingcontributions, has illustrated the subject afresh. Relics and memorialsfound in various churches, monasteries and palaces, on both sides of thePacific and the Atlantic, have cast new light upon the fascinatingtheme. Both Christian and non-Christian Japanese of to-day, in theirtravels in the Philippines, China, Formosa, Mexico, Spain, Portugal andItaly, being keenly alert for memorials of their countrymen, have metwith interesting trovers. The descendants of the Japanese martyrs andconfessors now recognize their own ancestors, in the picture galleriesof Italian nobles, and in Christian churches see lettered tombs bearingfamiliar names, or in western museums discern far-eastern works of artbrought over as presents or curiosities, centuries ago. 

Roughly speaking, Japanese Christianity lasted phenomenally nearly acentury, or more exactly from 1542 to 1637, During this time, embassiesor missions crossed the seas not only of Chinese and Peninsular Asia, circumnavigating Africa and thus reaching Europe, but also sailed acrossthe Pacific, and visited papal Christendom by way of Mexico and theAtlantic Ocean. 

This century of Southern Christianity and of commerce with Europeenabled Japan, which had previously been almost unheard of, exceptthrough the vague accounts of Marco Polo and the semi-mythical storiesby way of China, to leave a conspicuous mark, first upon the countriesof southern Europe, and later upon Holland and England. As in Europeanliterature Cathay became China, and Zipango or Xipangu was recognized asJapan, so also the curiosities, the artistic fabrics, the strange thingsfrom the ends of the earth, soon became familiar in Europe. Besides thetraffic in mercantile commodities, there were exchanges of words. Thelanguages of Europe were enriched by Japanese terms, such as soy, moxa, goban, japan (lacquer or varnish), etc. , while the tongue of Nipponreceived an infusion of new terms, [2] and a notable list of inventionswas imported from Europe. 

We shall merely outline, with critical commentary, the facts of historywhich have been so often told, but which in our day have receivedluminous illustration. We shall endeavor to treat the general phenomena, causes and results of Christianity in Japan in the same judicial spiritwith which we have considered Buddhism. 

Whatever be the theological or political opinions of the observer wholooks into the history of Japan at about the year 1540, he willacknowledge that this point of time was a very dark moment in her knownhistory. Columbus, who was familiar with the descriptions of Marco Polo, steered his caravels westward with the idea of finding Xipangu, with itsabundance of gold and precious gems; but the Genoese did not and couldnot know the real state of affairs existing in Dai Nippon at this time. Let us glance at this. 

The duarchy of Throne and Camp, with the Mikado in Ki[=o]to and theSh[=o]gun at Kamakura, with the elaborate feudalism under it, had falleninto decay. The whole country was split up into a thousand warringfragments. To these convulsions of society, in which only the priest andthe soldier were in comfort, while the mass of the people were littlebetter than serfs, must be added the frequent violent earthquakes, drought and failure of crops, with famine and pestilence. There waslittle in religion to uplift and cheer. Shint[=o] had sunk into theshadow of a myth. Buddhism had become outwardly a system of politicalgambling rather than the ordered expression of faith. Large numbers ofthe priests were like the mercenaries of Italy, who sold their influenceand even their swords or those of their followers, to the highestbidder. Besides being themselves luxurious and dissolute, theirmonasteries were fortresses, in which only the great political gamblers, and not the oppressed people, found comfort and help. Millions of oncefertile acres had been abandoned or left waste. The destruction oflibraries, books and records is something awful to contemplate; and "thetimes of Ashikaga" make a wilderness for the scapegoat of chronology. Ki[=o]to, the sacred capital, had been again and again plundered andburnt. Those who might be tempted to live in the city amid the ruins, ran the risk of fire, murder, or starvation. Kamakura, once theSh[=o]-gun's seat of authority, was, a level waste of ashes. 

Even China, Annam and Korea suffered from the practical dissolution ofsociety in the island empire; for Japanese pirates ravaged their coaststo steal, burn and kill. Even as for centuries in Europe, Christianchurches echoed with that prayer in the litanies: "From the fury of theNorsemen, good Lord, deliver us, " so, along large parts of the desertedcoasts of Chinese Asia, the wretched inhabitants besought their gods toavenge them against the "Wojen. " To this day in parts of Honan in China, mothers frighten their children and warn them to sleep by the fearfulwords "The Japanese are coming. "

First Coming of Europeans. 

This time, then, was that of darkest Japan. Yet the people who lived indarkness saw great light, and to them that dwelt in the shadow of death, light sprang up. 

When Pope Alexander VI. Bisected the known world, assigning the westernhalf, including America to Spain, and the eastern half, including Asiaand its outlying archipelagos to the Portuguese, the latter sailed andfought their way around Africa to India, and past the golden Chersonese. In 1542, exactly fifty years after the discovery of America, Dai Nipponwas reached. Mendez Pinto, on a Chinese pirate junk which had beendriven by a storm away from her companions, set foot upon an islandcalled Tanégashima. This name among the country folks is stillsynonymous with guns and pistols, for Pinto introduced fire-arms, andpowder. [3]

During six months spent by the "mendacious" Pinto on the island, theimitative people made no fewer than six hundred match-locks orarquebuses. Clearing twelve hundred per cent. On their cargo, the threePortuguese loaded with presents, returned to China. Their countrymenquickly flocked to this new market, and soon the beginnings of regulartrade with Portugal were inaugurated. On the other hand, Japanese beganto be found as far west as India. To Malacca, while Francis Xavier waslaboring there, came a refugee Japanese, named Anjiro. The disciple ofLoyola, and this child of the Land of the Rising Sun met. Xavier, everrestless and ready for a new field, was fired with the idea ofconverting Japan. Anjiro, after learning Portuguese and becoming aChristian, was baptized with the name of Paul. The heroic missionary ofthe cross and keys then sailed with his Japanese companion, and in 1549landed at Kagoshima, [4] the capital of Satsuma. As there was no centralgovernment then existing in Japan, the entrance of the foreigners, bothlay and clerical, was unnoticed. 

Having no skill in the learning of languages, and never able to masterone foreign tongue completely, Xavier began work with the aid of aninterpreter. The jealousy of the daimi[=o], because his rivals had beensupplied with fire-arms by the Portuguese merchants, and the plots andwarnings of those Buddhist priests (who were later crushed by theSatsuma clansmen as traitors), compelled Xavier to leave this province. He went first to Hirado, [5] next to Nagat[=o], and then to Bungo, wherehe was well received. Preaching and teaching through his Japaneseinterpreter, he formed Christian congregations, especially atYamaguchi. [6] Thus, within a year, the great apostle to the Indies hadseen the quick sprouting of the seed which he had planted. His ambitionwas now to go to the imperial capital, Ki[=o]to, and there advocate theclaims of Christ, of Mary and of the Pope. 

Thus far, however, Xavier had seen only a few seaports of comparativelysuccessful daimi[=o]s. Though he had heard of the unsettled state of thecountry because of the long-continued intestine strife, he evidentlyexpected to find the capital a splendid city. Despite the armed bands ofroving robbers and soldiers, he reached Ki[=o]to safely, only to findstreets covered with ruins, rubbish and unburied corpses, and a generalsituation of wretchedness. He was unable to obtain audience of eitherthe Sh[=o]gun or the Mikado. Even in those parts of the city where hetried to preach, he could obtain no hearers in this time of war andconfusion. So after two weeks he turned his face again southward toBungo, where he labored for a few months; but in less than two yearsfrom his landing in Japan, this noble but restless missionary left thecountry, to attempt the spiritual conquest of China. One year later, December 2, 1551, he died on the island of Shanshan, or Sancian, in theCanton River, a few miles west of Macao. 

Christianity Flourishes. 

Nevertheless, Xavier's inspiring example was like a shining star thatattracted scores of missionaries. There being in this time of politicalanarchy and religious paralysis none to oppose them, their zeal, withinfive years, bore surprising fruits. They wrote home that there wereseven churches in the region around Ki[=o]to, while a score or more ofChristian congregations had been gathered in the southwest. In 1581there were two hundred churches and one hundred and fifty thousandnative Christians. Two daimi[=o]s had confessed their faith, and in theMikado's minister, Nobunaga (1534-1582), the foreign priests found apowerful supporter. [7] This hater and scourge of the Buddhist priesthoodopenly welcomed and patronized the Christians, and gave them eligiblesites on which to build dwellings and churches. In every possible way heemployed the new force, which he found pliantly political, as well asintellectually and morally a choice weapon for humbling the bonzes, whomhe hated as serpents. The Buddhist church militant had become an armywith banners and fortresses. Nobunaga made it the aim of his life todestroy the military power of the hierarchy, and to humble the priestsfor all time. He hoped at least to extract the fangs of what he believedto be a politico-religious monster, which menaced the life of thenation. Unfortunately, he was assassinated in 1582. To this day thememory of Nobunaga is execrated by the Buddhists. They have deified KatoKiyomasa and Iyéyas[)u], the persecutors of the Christians. To Nobunagathey give the title of Bakadono, or Lord Fool. 

In 1583, an embassy of four young noblemen was despatched by theChristian daimi[=o]s of Kiushiu, the second largest island in theempire, to the Pope to declare themselves spiritual--though as some oftheir countrymen suspected, political--vassals of the Holy See. It wasin the three provinces of Bungo, Omura and Arima, that Christianity wasmost firmly rooted. After an absence of eight years, in 1590, the envoysfrom the oriental to the occidental ends of the earth, returned toNagasaki, accompanied by seventeen more Jesuit fathers--an importantaddition to the many Portuguese "religious" of that order already inJapan. 

Yet, although there was to be still much missionary activity, thoughprinting presses had been brought from Europe for the proper diffusionof Christian literature in the Romanized colloquial, [8] though therewere yet to be built more church edifices and monasteries, and Christianschools to be established, a sad change was nigh. Much seed which wasyet to grow in secret had been planted, --like the exotic flowers whicheven yet blossom and shed their perfume in certain districts of Japan, and which the traveller from Christendom instantly recognizes, thoughthe Portuguese Christian church or monastery centuries ago disappearedin fire, or fell to the earth and disappeared. Though there were to beyet wonderful flashes of Christian success, and the missionaries were totravel over Japan even up to the end of the main island and accompanythe Japanese army to Korea; yet it may be said that with the death ofNobunaga at the hands of the traitor Akéchi, we see the high-water markof the flood-tide of Japanese Christianity. "Akéchi reigned three days, "but after him were to arise a ruler and central government jealous andhostile. After this flood was to come slowly but surely the ebb-tide, until it should leave, outwardly at least, all things as before. 

The Jesuit fathers, with instant sensitiveness, felt the loss of theirchampion and protector, Nobunaga. The rebel and assassin, Akéchi, ambitious to imitate and excel his master, promised the Christians to domore for them even than Nobunaga had done, provided they would inducethe daimi[=o] Takayama to join forces with his. It is the record oftheir own friendly historian, and not of an enemy, that they, led by theJesuit father Organtin, attempted this persuasion. To the honor of theChristian Japanese Takayama, he refused. [9] On the contrary, he marchedhis little army of a thousand men to Ki[=o]to, and, though opposed to aforce of eight thousand, held the capital city until Hidéyoshi, theloyal general of the Mikado, reached the court city and dispersed theassassin's band. Hidéyoshi soon made himself familiar with the wholestory, and his keen eye took in the situation. 

This "man on horseback, " master of the situation and moulder of thedestinies of Japan, Hidéyoshi (1536-1598), was afterward known as theTaik[=o], or Retired Regent. The rarity of the title makes it applicablein common speech to this one person. Greater than his dead master, Nobunaga, and ingenious in the arts of war and peace, Hidéyoshicompelled the warring daimi[=o]s, even the proud lord of Satsuma, [10] toyield to his power, until the civil minister of the emperor, reverentlybowing, could say: "All under Heaven, Peace. " Now, Japan had once more acentral government, intensely jealous and despotic, and with it the newreligion must sooner or later reckon. Religion apart from politics wasunknown in the Land of the Gods. 

Yet, in order to employ the vast bodies of armed men hitherto accustomedto the trade of war, and withal jealous of China and hostile to Korea, Hidéyoshi planned the invasion of the little peninsular kingdom by theseveterans whose swords were restless in their scabbards. After months ofpreparation, he despatched an army in two great divisions, one under theChristian general Konishi, and one under the Buddhist general Kato. After a brilliant campaign of eighteen days, the rivals, takingdifferent routes, met in the Korean capital. In the masterly campaignwhich followed, the Japanese armies penetrated almost to the extremenorthern boundary of the kingdom. Then China came to the rescue and theJapanese were driven southward. 

During the six or seven years of war, while the invaders crossed swordswith the natives and their Chinese allies, and devastated Korea to anextent from which she has never recovered, there were Jesuitmissionaries attending the Japanese armies. It is not possible or evenprobable, however, that any seeds of Christianity were at this time leftin the peninsula. Korean Christianity sprang up nearly two centurieslater, wind-wafted from China. [11]

During the war there was always more or less of jealousy, mostlymilitary and personal, between Konishi and Kato, which however wasaggravated by the priests on either side. Kato, being then and afterwarda fierce champion of the Buddhists, glorified in his orthodoxy, whichwas that of the Nichiren sect. He went into battle with a banneret fullof texts, stuck in his back and flying behind him. His example wascopied by hundreds of his officers and soldiers. On their flags andguidons was inscribed the famous apostrophe of the Nichiren sect, sooften heard in their services and revivals to-day (Namu miy[=o] ho rengé ki[=o]), and borrowed from the Saddharma Pundarika: "Glory be to thesalvation-bringing Lotus of the True Law. "

The Hostility of Hidéyoshi. 

Konishi, on the other hand, was less numerously and perhaps lessinfluentially backed by, and made the champion of, the Europeanbrethren; and as all the negotiations between the invaders and theallied Koreans and Chinese had to be conducted in the Chinese script, the alien fathers were, as secretaries and interpreters, less usefulthan the native Japanese bonzes. 

Yet this jealousy and hostility in the camps of the invaders proved tobe only correlative to the state of things in Japan. Even supposing thestatistics in round numbers, reported at that time, to be exaggerated, and that there were not as many as the alleged two hundred thousandChristians, yet there were, besides scores of thousands of confessingbelievers among the common people, daimi[=o]s, military leaders, courtofficers and many persons of culture and influence. Nevertheless, thepredominating influence at the Ki[=o]to court was that of Buddhism; andas the cult that winks at polygamy was less opposed to Hidéyoshi'ssensualism and amazing vanity, the illustrious upstart was easily madehostile to the alien faith. According to the accounts of the Jesuits, hetook umbrage because a Portuguese captain would not please him byrisking his ship in coming out of deep water and nearer land, andbecause there were Christian maidens of Arima who scorned to yield tohis degrading proposals. Some time after these episodes, an edictappeared, commanding every Jesuit to quit the country within twentydays. There were at this time sixty-five foreign missionaries in thecountry. 

Then began a series of persecutions, which, however, were carried onspasmodically and locally, but not universally or with system. Bitter insome places, they were neutralized or the law became a dead letter, inother parts of the realm. It is estimated that ten thousand new convertswere made in the single year, 1589, that is, the second year after theissue of the edict, and again in the next year, 1590. It might even bereasonable to suppose that, had the work been conducted wisely andwithout the too open defiance of the letter of the law, the awful sequelwhich history knows, might not have been. 

Let us remember that the Duke of Alva, the tool of Philip II. , failingto crush the Dutch Republic had conquered Portugal for his master. Thetwo kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula were now united under one crown. Spain longed for trade with Japan, and while her merchants hoped todisplace their Portuguese rivals, the Spanish Franciscans not scruplingto wear a political cloak and thus override the Pope's bull ofworld-partition, determined to get a foothold alongside of the Jesuits. So, in 1593 a Spanish envoy of the governor of the Philippine Islandscame to Ki[=o]to, bringing four Spanish Franciscan priests, who wereallowed to build houses in Ki[=o]to, but only on the expressunderstanding that this was because of their coming as envoys of afriendly power, and with the explicitly specified condition that theywere not to preach, either publicly or privately. Almost immediatelyviolating their pledge and the hospitality granted them, theseSpaniards, wearing the vestments of their order, openly preached in thestreets. Besides exciting discord among the Christian congregationsfounded by the Jesuits, they were violent in their language. 

Hidéyoshi, to gratify his own mood and test his power as the actualruler for a shadowy emperor, seized nine preachers while they werebuilding churches at Ki[=o]to and Osaka. They were led to theexecution-ground in exactly the same fashion as felons, and executed bycrucifixion, at Nagasaki, February 5, 1597. Three Portuguese Jesuits, six Spanish Franciscans and seventeen native Christians were stretchedon bamboo crosses, and their bodies from thigh to shoulder weretransfixed with spears. They met their doom uncomplainingly. 

In the eye of the Japanese law, these men were put to death, not asChristians, but as law-breakers and as dangerous political conspirators. The suspicions of Hidéyoshi were further confirmed by a Spanishsea-captain, who showed him a map of the world on which were marked thevast dominions of the King of Spain; the Spaniard informing theJapanese, in answer to his shrewd question, that these great conquestshad been made by the king's soldiers following up the priests, the workbeing finished by the native and foreign allies. 

The Political Character of Roman Christianity. 

The Roman Catholic "Histoire del' Église Chrétienne" shows the politicalcharacter of the missionary movement in Japan, a character almostinextricably associated with the papal and other political Christianityof the times, when State and Church were united in all the countries ofEurope, both Catholic and Protestant. Even republican Holland, leader oftoleration and forerunner of the modern Christian spirit, permitted, indeed, the Roman Catholics to worship in private houses or in sacrededifices not outwardly resembling churches, but prohibited all publicprocessions and ceremonies, because religion and politics at that timewere as Siamese twins. Only the Anabaptists held the primitive Christianand the American doctrine of the separation of politics fromecclesiasticism. Except in the country ruled by William the Silent, allmagistrates meddled with men's consciences. [12]

In 1597, Hidéyoshi died, and the missionaries took heart again. TheChristian soldiers returning by thousands from Korea, declaredthemselves in favor of Hidéyori, son of the dead Taik[=o]. Encouraged bythose in power, and by the rising star Iyéyas[)u] (1542-1616), thefathers renewed their work and the number of converts increased. 

Though peace reigned, the political situation was one of the greatestuncertainty, and with two hundred thousand soldiers gathered aroundKi[=o]to, under scores of ambitious leaders, it was hard to keep thesword in the sheath. Soon the line of cleavage found Iyéyas[)u] and hisnorthern captains on one side, and most of the Christian leaders andsouthern daimi[=o]s on the other. In October, 1600, with seventy-fivethousand men, the future unifier of Japan stood on the ever-memorablefield of Sékigahara. The opposing army, led largely by Christiancommanders, left their fortress to meet the one whom they considered ausurper, in the open field. In the battle which ensued, probably themost decisive ever fought on the soil of Japan, ten thousand men losttheir lives. The leading Christian generals, beaten, but refusing out ofprinciple because they were Christians, to take their own lives by_hara-kiri_, knelt willingly at the common blood-pit and had their headsstricken off by the executioner. 

Then began a new era in the history of the empire, and then were laid byIyéyas[)u] the foundation-lines upon which the Japan best known toEurope has existed for nearly three centuries. The creation of a centralexecutive government strong enough to rule the whole empire, and holddown even the southern and southwestern daimi[=o]s, made it still worsefor the converts of the European teachers, because in the Land of theGods government is ever intensely pagan. 

In adjusting the feudal relations of his vassals in Kiushiu, Iyéyas[)u]made great changes, and thus the political status of the Christians wasprofoundly altered. The new daimi[=o]s, carrying out the policy of theirpredecessors who had been taught by the Jesuits, but reversing itsdirection, began to persecute their Christian subjects, and to compelthem to renounce their faith. One of the leading opposers of theChristians and their most cruel persecutor, was Kato, the zealousNichirenite. Like Brandt, the famous Iroquois Indian, who, in the MohawkValley is execrated as a bloodthirsty brute, and on the Canadian side ishonored with a marble statue and considered not only as the translatorof the prayer-book but also as a saint; even also as Claverhouse, who, in Scotland is looked upon as a murderous demon, but in England as aconscientious and loyal patriot; so Kato, the _vir ter execrandus_ ofthe Jesuits, is worshipped in his shrine at the Nichiren temple atIkégami, near T[=o]ki[=o], [13] and is praised by native historians aslearned, brave and true. 

The Christians of Kiushiu, in a few cases, actually took up arms againsttheir new rulers and oppressors, though it was a new thing under theJapanese sun for peasantry to oppose not only civil servants of the law, but veterans in armor. Iyéyas[)u], now having time to give his attentionwholly to matters of government and to examine the new forces that hadentered Japanese life, followed Hidéyoshi in the suspicion that, underthe cover of the western religion, there lurked political designs. Hethought he saw confirmation of his theories, because the foreignersstill secretly or openly paid court to Hidéyori, and at the same timefreely disbursed gifts and gold as well as comfort to the persecuted. Resolving to crush the spirit of independence in the converts and tointimidate the foreign emissaries, Iyéyas[)u] with steel and blood putdown every outbreak, and at last, in 1606, issued his edict[14]prohibiting Christianity. 

The Quarrels of the Christians. 

About the same time, Protestant influences began to work against thepapal emissaries. The new forces from the triumphant Dutch republic, which having successfully defied Spain for a whole generation hadreached Japan even before the Great Truce, were opposed to the Spaniardsand to the influence of both Jesuits and Franciscans. Hollanders atLisbon, obtaining from the Spanish archives charts and geographicalinformation, had boldly sailed out into the Eastern seas, and carriedthe orange white and blue flag to the ends of the earth, even to Nippon. Between Prince Maurice, son of William the Silent, and the envoys ofIyéyas[)u], there was made a league of commerce as well as of peace andfriendship. Will Adams, [15] the English pilot of the Dutch ships, by hisinformation given to Iyéyas[)u], also helped much to destroy the Jesuitsinfluence and to hurt their cause, while both the Dutch and English wereever busy in disseminating both correct information and polemicexaggeration, forging letters and delivering up to death by fire the_padres_ when captured at sea. 

In general, however, it may be said that while Christian converts andthe priests were roughly handled in the South, yet there wasconsiderable missionary activity and success in the North. Converts weremade and Christian congregations were gathered in regions remote fromKi[=o]to and Yedo, which latter place, like St. Petersburg in the West, was being made into a large city. Even outlying islands, such as Sado, had their churches and congregations. 

The Anti-Christian Policy of the Tokugawas. 

The quarrels between the Franciscans and Jesuits, [16] however, wereprobably more harmful to Christianity than were the whispers of theProtestant Englishmen or Hollanders. In 1610, the wrath of thegovernment was especially aroused against the _bateren_, as the peoplecalled the _padres_, by their open and persistent violation of Japaneselaw. In 1611, from Sado, to which island thousands of Christian exileshad been sent to work the mines, Iyéyas[)u] believed he had obtaineddocumentary proof in the Japanese language, of what he had longsuspected--the existence of a plot on the part of the native convertsand the foreign emissaries to reduce Japan to the position of a subjectstate. [17] Putting forth strenuous measures to root out utterly what hebelieved to be a pestilential breeder of sedition and war, the YedoSh[=o]gun advanced step by step to that great proclamation of January27, 1614, [18] in which the foreign priests were branded as tripleenemies--of the country, of the Kami, and of the Buddhas. Thisproclamation wound up with the charge that the Christian band had cometo Japan to change the government of the country, and to usurppossession of it. Whether or not he really had sufficient written proofof conspiracy against the nation's sovereignty, it is certain that inthis state paper, Iyéyas[)u] shrewdly touched the springs of Japanesepatriotism. Not desiring, however, to shed blood or provoke war, hetried transportation. Three hundred persons, namely, twenty-twoFranciscans, Dominicans and Augustines, one hundred and seventeenforeign Jesuits, and nearly two hundred native priests and catechists, were arrested, sent to Nagasaki, and thence shipped like bundles ofcombustibles to Macao. 

Yet, as many of the foreign and native Christian teachers hid themselvesin the country and as others who had been banished returned secretly andcontinued the work of propaganda, the crisis had not yet come. Some ofthe Jesuit priests, even, were still hoping that Hidéyori would mount topower; but in 1615, Iyéyas[)u], finding a pretext for war, [19] calledout a powerful army and laid siege to the great castle of Osaka, themost imposing fortress in the country. In the brief war which ensued, itis said by the Jesuit fathers, that one hundred thousand men perished. On June 9, 1615, the castle was captured and the citadel burned. Afterthousands of Hidéyori's followers had committed _hara-kiri_, and his ownbody had been burned into ashes, the Christian cause was irretrievablyruined. 

Hidétada, the successor of Iyéyas[)u] in Yedo, who ruled from 1605 to1622, seeing that his father's peaceful methods had failed inextirpating the alien politico-religious doctrine, now pronouncedsentence of death on every foreigner, priest, or catechist found in thecountry. The story of the persecutions and horrible sufferings thatensued is told in the voluminous literature which may be gathered fromevery country in Europe;[20] though from the Japanese side "The Catholicmartyrology of Japan is still an untouched field for a [native]historian. "[21] All the church edifices which the last storm had leftstanding were demolished, and temples and pagodas were erected upontheir ruins. In 1617, foreign commerce was restricted to Hirado andNagasaki. In 1621, Japanese were forbidden ever to leave the country. In1624, all ships having a capacity of over twenty-five hundred bushelswere burned, and no craft, except those of the size of ordinary junks, were allowed to be built. 

The Books of the Inferno Opened. 

For years, at intervals and in places, the books of the Inferno wereopened, and the tortures devised by the native pagans and Buddhistsequalled in their horror those which Dante imagines, until finally, in1636, even Japanese human nature, accustomed for ages to subordinationand submission, could stand it no longer. Then a man named Nirado Shiroraised the banner of the Virgin and called on all Christians and othersto follow him. Probably as many as thirty thousand men, women andchildren, but without a single foreigner, lay or clerical, among them, gathered from parts of Kiushiu. After burning Shint[=o] and Buddhisttemples, they fortified an old abandoned castle at Shimabara, resolvingto die rather than submit. Against an army of veterans, led by skilledcommanders, the fortress held out during four months. At last, after abloody assault, it was taken, and men, women and children wereslaughtered. [22] Thousands suffered death at the point of the spear andsword; many were thrown into the sea; and others were cast into boilinghot springs, emblems of the eight Buddhist Hells. 

All efforts were now put forth to uproot not only Christianity but alsoeverything of foreign planting. The Portuguese were banished and thedeath penalty declared against all who should return, The ai no ko, orhalf-breed children, were collected and shipped by hundreds to Macao. All persons adopting or harboring Eurasians were to be banished, andtheir relatives punished. The Christian cause now became like the doomedcity of Babylon or like the site of Nineveh, which, buried in the sandand covered with the desolation and silence of centuries, became lost tothe memory of the world, so that even the very record of scripture wasthe jest of the infidel, until the spade of Layard brought them again toresurrection. So, Japanese Christianity, having vanished in blood, wassupposed to have no existence, thus furnishing Mr. Lecky with argumentsto prove the extirpative power of persecution. [23]

Yet in 1859, on the opening of the country by treaty, the Roman Catholicfathers at Nagasaki found to their surprise that they were re-openingthe old mines, and that their work was in historic continuity with thatof their predecessors. The blood of the martyrs had been the seed of thechurch. Amid much ignorance and darkness, there were thousands of peoplewho, through the Virgin, worshipped God; who talked of Jesus, and of theHoly Spirit; and who refused to worship at the pagan shrines[24]. 

Summary of Roman Christianity in Japan. 

Let us now strive impartially to appraise the Christianity of this era, and inquire what it found, what it attempted to do, what it did notstrive to attain, what was the character of its propagators, what wasthe mark it made upon the country and upon the mind of the people, andwhether it left any permanent influence. 

The gospel net which had gathered all sorts of fish in Europe brought avaried quality of spoil to Japan. Among the Portuguese missionaries, beginning with Xavier, there are many noble and beautiful characters, who exemplified in their motives, acts, lives and sufferings some of thenoblest traits of both natural and redeemed humanity. In their praise, both the pagan and the Christian, as well as critics biased by theirprepossessions in favor either of the Reformed or the Roman phase of thefaith, can unite. 

The character of the native converts is, in many instances, to becommended, and shows the direct truth of Christianity in fields of lifeand endeavor, in ethics and in conceptions, far superior to those whichthe Japanese religious systems have produced. In the teaching that thereshould be but one standard of morality for man and woman, and that themale as well as the female should be pure; in the condemnation ofpolygamy and licentiousness; in the branding of suicide as both wickedand cowardly; in the condemnation of slavery; and in the training of menand women to lofty ideals of character, the Christian teachers farexcelled their Buddhist or Confucian rivals. 

The benefits which Japan received through the coming of the Christianmissionaries, as distinct and separate from those brought by commerceand the merchants, are not to be ignored. While many things of value andinfluence for material improvement, and many beneficent details andelements of civilization were undoubtedly imported by traders, yet itwas the priests and itinerant missionaries who diffused the knowledge ofthe importance of these things and taught their use throughout thecountry. Although in the reaction of hatred and bitterness, and in theminute, universal and long-continued suppression by the government, mostof this advantage was destroyed, yet some things remained to influencethought and speech, and to leave a mark not only on the language, butalso on the procedure of daily life. One can trace notable modificationsof Japanese life from this period, lasting through the centuries andeven until the present time. 

Christianity, in the sixteenth century, came to Japan only in its papalor Roman Catholic form. While in it was infused much of the power andspirit of Loyola and Xavier, yet the impartial critic must confess thatthis form was military, oppressive and political. [25] Nevertheless, though it was impure and saturated with the false principles, the vicesand the embodied superstitions of corrupt southern Europe, yet, such asit was, Portuguese Christianity confronted the worst condition ofaffairs, morally, intellectually and materially, which Japan has knownin historic times. Defective as the critic must pronounce the system ofreligion imported from Europe, it was immeasurably superior to anythingthat the Japanese had hitherto known. 

It must be said, also, that Portuguese Christianity in Japan tried to dosomething more than the mere obtaining of adherents or the nominalconversion of the people. [26] It attempted to purify and exalt theirlife, to make society better, to improve the relations between rulersand ruled; but it did not attempt to do what it ought to have done. Itignored great duties and problems, while it imitated too fully, not onlythe example of the kings of this world in Europe but also of the rulersin Japan. In the presence of soldier-like Buddhist priests, who had madewar their calling, it would have been better if the Christianmissionaries had avoided their bad example, and followed only in thefootsteps of the Prince of Peace; but they did not. On the contrary, they brought with them the spirit of the Inquisition then in full blastin Spain and Portugal, and the machinery with which they had beenfamiliar for the reclamation of native and Dutch "heretics. " Xavier, while at Goa, had even invoked the secular arm to set up the Inquisitionin India, and doubtless he and his followers would have put up thisinfernal enginery in Japan if they could have done so. They had stampedand crushed out "heresy" in their own country, by a system of hellishtortures which in its horrible details is almost indescribable. Therusty relics now in the museums of Europe, but once used in churchdiscipline, can be fully appreciated only by a physician or ananatomist. In Japan, with the spirit of Alva and Philip II. , thesebelievers in the righteousness of the Inquisition attacked violently thecharacter of native bonzes, and incited their converts to insult thegods, destroy the Buddhist images, and burn or desecrate the oldshrines. They persuaded the daimi[=o]s, when these lords had becomeChristians, to compel their subjects to embrace their religion on painof exile or banishment. Whole districts were ordered to becomeChristian. The bonzes were exiled or killed, and fire and sword as wellas preaching, were employed as means of conversion. In ready imitationof the Buddhists, fictitious miracles were frequently got up to utilizethe credulity of the superstitious in furthering the faith--all of whichis related not by hostile critics, but by admiring historians and bysympathizing eye-witnesses. [27]

The most prominent feature of the Roman Catholicism of Japan, was itspolitical animus and complexion. In writings of this era, Japanesehistorians treat of the Christian missionary movement less as somethingreligious, and more as that which influenced government and polities, rather than society on its moral side. So also, the impartial historianmust consider that, on the whole, despite the individual instances ofholy lives and unselfish purposes, the work of the Portuguese andSpanish friars and "fathers" was, in the main, an attempt to bring Japanmore or less directly within the power of the Pope or of those rulerscalled Most Catholic Majesties, Christian Kings, etc. , even as they hadalready brought Mexico, South America, and large portions of India underthe same control. The words of Jesus before the Roman procurator had notbeen apprehended:--"My kingdom is not of this world. "

CHAPTER XII - TWO CENTURIES OF SILENCE

 "The frog in the well knows not the great ocean" --Sanskrit and Japanese Proverb. 

 "When the blind lead the blind, both fall into the ditch. " --Japanese Proverb. 

 "The little island of Déshima, well and prophetically signifying Fore-Island, was Japan's window, through which she looked at the whole Occident . .. We are under obligation to Holland for the arts of engineering, mining, pharmacy, astronomy, and medicine . .. 'Rangaku' (i. E. , Dutch learning) passed almost as a synonym for medicine, " [1615-1868]. --Inazo Nitobé. 

 "The great peace, of which we are so proud, was more like the stillness of stagnant pools than the calm surface of a clear lake. "--Mitsukuri. 

 "The ancestral policy of self-contentment must be done away with. If it was adopted by your forefathers, because it was wise in their time, why not adopt a new policy if it in sure to prove wise in your time. "--Sakuma Shozan, wrote in 1841, assassinated 1864. 

 "And slowly floating onward go Those Black Ships, wave-tossed to and fro. " --Japanese Ballad of the Black Ship, 1845. 

 "The next day was Sunday (July 10th), and, as usual, divine service was held on board the ships, and, in accordance with proper reverence for the day, no communication was held with the Japanese authorities. " --Perry's Narrative. 

 "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him, all creatures here below, Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. " --Sung on U. S. S. S. Mississippi, in Yedo Bay, July 10, 1853. 

 "I refuse to see anyone on Sunday, I am resolved to set an example of a proper observance of the Sabbath . .. I will try to make it what I believe it was intended to be--a day of rest. "--Townsend Harris's Diary, Sunday, August 31, 1856. 

 "I have called thee by thy name. I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the LORD, and there is none else; besides me there is no God. "--Isaiah. 

 "I saw underneath the altar the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. "--John. 

 "That they should seek God, If haply they might feel after him, though he is not far from each one of us. "--Paul. 

 "Other sheep have I which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and they shall become one flock, one shepherd"--Jesus. 

CHAPTER XII - TWO CENTURIES OF SILENCE

The Japanese Shut In. 

Sincerely regretting that we cannot pass more favorable judgments uponthe Christianity of the seventeenth century in Japan, let us look intothe two centuries of silence, and see what was the story between thepaling of the Christian record in 1637, and the glowing of thepalimpsest in 1859, when the new era begins. 

The policy of the Japanese rulers, after the supposed utter extirpationof Christianity, was the double one of exclusion and inclusion. Adeliberate attempt, long persisted in and for centuries apparentlysuccessful, was made to insulate Japan from the shock of change. Thepurpose was to draw a whole nation and people away from the currents andmovements of humanity, and to stereotype national thought and custom. This was carried out in two ways: first, by exclusion, and then byinclusion. All foreign influences were shut off, or reduced to aminimum. The whole western world, especially Christendom, was put underban. 

Even the apparent exception made in favor of the Dutch was with themotive of making isolation more complete, and of securing the perfectsafety which that isolation was expected to bring. For, having built, not indeed with brick and mortar, but by means of edict and law, bothopen and secret, a great wall of exclusion more powerful than that ofChina's, it was necessary that there should be a port-hole, for bothsally and exit, and a slit for vigilant scrutiny of any attempt to forceseclusion or violate the frontier. Hence, the Hollanders were allowed tohave a small place of residence in front of a large city and at the headof a land-locked harbor. There, the foreigners being isolated and understrict guard, the government could have, as it were, a nerve whichtouched the distant nations, and could also, as with a telescope, sweepthe horizon for signs of danger. 

So, in 1640, the Hollanders were ordered to evacuate Hirado, and occupythe little "outer island" called Déshima, in front of the city ofNagasaki, and connected therewith by a bridge. Any ships entering thishill-girdled harbor, it was believed, could be easily managed by themilitary resources possessed by the government. Vessels were allowedyearly to bring the news from abroad and exchange the products of Japanfor those of Europe. The English, who had in 1617 opened a trade andconducted a factory for some years, [1] were unable to compete with theDutch, and about 1624, after having lost in the venture forty thousandpounds sterling, withdrew entirely from the Japanese trade. The Dutchwere thus left without a rival from Christendom. 

Japan ceased her former trade and communications with the PhilippineIslands, Annam, Siam, the Spice Islands and India, [2] and begun torestrict trade and communication with Korea and China. The Koreans, whowere considered as vassals, or semi-vassals, came to Japan to presenttheir congratulations on the accession of each new Sh[=o]gun; and somesmall trade was done at Fusan under the superintendence of the daimi[=o]of Tsushima. Even this relation with Korea was rather one ofwatchfulness. It sprang from the pride of a victor rather than from anydesire to maintain relations with the rest of the world. As for China, the communication with her was astonishingly little, only a few junkscrossing yearly between Nankin and Nagasaki; so that, with the exceptionof one slit in their tower of observation, the Japanese became wellisolated from the human family. 

This system of exclusion was accompanied by an equally vigorous policyof inclusiveness. It was deliberately determined to keep the people fromgoing abroad, either in their bodies or minds. All seaworthy ships weredestroyed. Under pain of imprisonment and death, all natives wereforbidden to go to a foreign country, except in the rare cases of urgentgovernment service. By settled precedents it was soon made to beunderstood that those who were blown out to sea or carried away instress of weather, need not come back; if they did, they must returnonly on Chinese and Korean vessels, and even then would be grudginglyallowed to land. It was given out, both at home and to the world, thatno shipwrecked sailors or waifs would be welcomed when brought onforeign vessels. 

This inclusive policy directed against physical exportation, was stillmore stringently carried out when applied to imports affecting the mindsof the Japanese. The "government deliberately attempted to establish asociety impervious to foreign ideas from without, and fostered within byall sorts of artificial legislation. This isolation affected everydepartment of private and public life. Methods of education were cast ina definite mould; even matters of dress and household architecture werestrictly regulated by the State, and industries were restricted orforced into specified channels, thus retarding economicdevelopments. "[3]

Starving of the Mind. 

In the science of keeping life within stunted limits and artificialboundaries, the Japanese genius excels. It has been well said that "theJapanese mind is great in little things and little in great things. " Tocut the tap-root of a pine-shoot, and, by regulating the allowance ofearth and water, to raise a pine-tree which when fifty years old shallbe no higher than a silver dollar, has been the proud ambition of manyan artist in botany. In like manner, the Tokugawa Sh[=o]guns (1604-1868)determined to so limit the supply of mental food, that the mind of Japanshould be of those correctly dwarfed proportions of puniness, so admiredby lovers of artificiality and unconscious caricature. Philosophy wasselected as a chief tool among the engines of oppression, and as themain influence in stunting the intellect. All thought must be orthodoxaccording to the standards of Confucianism, as expounded by Chu Hi. Anything like originality in poetry, learning or philosophy must behooted down. Art must follow Chinese, Buddhist and Japanese traditions. Any violation of this order would mean ostracism. All learning must bein the Chinese and Japanese languages--the former mis-pronounced and insound bearing as much resemblance to Pekingise speech as "PennsylvaniaDutch" does to the language of Berlin. Everything like thinking andstudy must be with a view of sustaining and maintaining the establishedorder of things. The tree of education, instead of being a lofty orwide-spreading cryptomeria, must be the measured nursling of the teacup. If that trio of emblems, so admired by the natives, the bamboo, pine andplum, could produce glossy leaves, ever-green needles and fragrantblooms within a space of four cubic inches, so the law, the literatureand the art of Japan must display their normal limit of fresh fragrance, of youthful vigor and of venerable age, enduring for aye, within thevessel of Japanese inclusion so carefully limited by the Yedoauthorities. 

Such a policy, reminds one of the Amherst agricultural experiment inwhich bands of iron were strapped around a much-afflicted squash, inorder to test vital potency. It recalls the pretty little story ofPicciola, in which a tender plant must grow between the interstices ofthe bricks in a prison yard. Besides the potent bonds of the onlyorthodox Confucian philosophy which was allowed and the legallyrecognized religions, there was gradually formed a marvellous system oflegislation, that turned the whole nation into a secret society in whichspies and hypocrites flourished like fungus on a dead log. Besides theunwritten code of private law, [4] that is, the local and general customsfounded on immemorial usage, there was that peculiar legal system framedby Iyéyas[)u], bequeathed as a legacy and for over two hundred yearspractically the supreme law of the land. 

What this law was, it was exceedingly difficult, if not utterlyimpossible, for the aliens dwelling in the country at Nagasaki ever tofind out. Keenly intellectual, as many of the physicians, superintendents and elect members of the Dutch trading company were, they seem never to have been able to get hold of what has been called"The Testament of Iyéyas[)u]. "[5] This consisted of one hundred laws orregulations, based on a home-spun sort of Confucianism, intended to beorthodoxy "unbroken for ages eternal. "

To a man of western mode of thinking, the most astonishing thing is thatthis law was esoteric. [6] The people knew of it only by its irresistibleforce, and by the constant pressure or the rare easing of its iron hand. Those who executed the law were drilled in its routine from childhood, and this routine became second nature. Only a few copies of the originalinstrument were known, and these were kept with a secrecy which to thepeople became a sacred mystery guarded by a long avenue of awe. 

The Dutchmen at Déshima. 

The Dutchmen who lived at Déshima for two centuries and a half, and theforeigners who first landed at the treaty ports in 1859, on inquiringabout the methods of the Japanese Government, the laws and theiradministration, found that everything was veiled behind a vagueembodiment of something which was called "the Law. " What that law was, by whom enacted, and under what sanctions enforced, no one could tell;though all seemed to stand in awe of it as something of superhumanefficiency. Its mysteriousness was only equalled by the abjectsubmission which it received. 

Foreign diplomatists, on trying to deal with the seat and source ofauthority, instead of seeing the real head of power, played, as it were, a game of chess against a mysterious hand stretched out from behind acurtain. Morally, the whole tendency of such a dual system of exclusionand of inclusion was to make a nation of liars, foster confirmed habitsof deceit, and create a code of politeness vitiated by insincerity. 

With such repression of the natural powers of humanity, it was but inaccordance with the nature of things that licentiousness should runriot, that on the fringes of society there should be the outcast and thepariah, and that the social waste of humanity by prostitution, bymurder, by criminal execution under a code that prescribed the deathpenalty for hundreds of offences, should be enormous. It is natural alsothat in such a state of society population[7] should be kept down withinnecessary limits, not only by famine, by the restraints of feudalism, bylegalized murder in the form of vendetta, by a system of prostitutionthat made and still makes Japan infamous, by child murder, by lack ofencouragement given to feeble or malformed children to live, and byvarious devices known to those who were ingenious in keeping up soartificial a state of society. 

That there were many who tried to break through this wall, from both theinside and the outside, and to force the frontiers of exclusion andinclusion, is not to be wondered at. Externally, there were bold spiritsfrom Christendom who burned to know the secrets of the mysterious land. Some even yearned to wear the ruby crown. The wonderful story of pastChristian triumphs deeply stirred the heart of more than one fieryspirit, and so we find various attempts made by the clerical brethren ofsouthern Europe to enter the country. Bound by their promises, the Dutchcaptains could not introduce these emissaries of a banned religionwithin the borders; yet there are several notable instances of RomanCatholic "religious"[8] getting themselves left by shipmasters on theshores of Japan. The lion's den of reality was Yedo. Like the lion's denof fable, the footprints all led one way, and where these led the bonesof the victims soon lay. 

Besides these men with religious motives, the ships of the West camewith offers of trade and threats of invasion. These were English, French, Russian and American, and the story of the frequent episodes hasbeen told by Hildreth, Aston, [9] Nitobé, and others. There is also aconsiderable body of native literature which gives the inside view ofthese efforts to force the seclusion of the hermit nation, and coax orcompel the Japanese to be more sociable and more human. All were in vainuntil the peaceful armada, under the flag of thirty-one stars, led byMatthew Calbraith Perry, [10] broke the long seclusion of this Thorn-roseof the Pacific, and the unarmed diplomacy of Townsend Harris, [11]brought Japan into the brotherhood of commercial and Christian nations. 

Within the isolating walls and the barred gates the story of the seekersafter God is a thrilling one. The intellect of choice spirits, beatinglike caged eagles the bars of their prisons, yearned for more light andlife. "Though an eagle be starving, " says the Japanese proverb, "it willnot eat grain;" and so, while the mass of the people and even theerudite, were content with ground food--even the chopped straw and husksof materialistic Confucianism and decayed Buddhism--there were noblesouls who soared upward to exercise their God-given powers, and to seeknourishment fitted for that human spirit which goeth upward and notdownward, and which, ever in restless discontent, seeks the Infinite. 

Protests of Inquiring Spirits. 

There is no stronger proof of the true humanity and the innategod-likeness of the Japanese, of their worthiness to hold and theirinherent power to win a high place among the nations of the earth, thanthis longing of a few elect ones for the best that earth could give andHeaven bestow. We find men in travail of spirit, groping after God ifhaply they might find Him, following the ways of the Spirit along linesdifferent, and in pathways remote, from those laid down by Confucius andhis materialistic commentators, or by Buddha and his parodists orcaricaturists. The story of the philosophers, who mutinied against theiron clamps and governmentally nourished system of the Séido Collegeexpounders, is yet to be fully told. [12] It behooves some Japanesescholar to tell it. 

How earnest truth-seeking Japanese protested and rebelled against theeconomic fallacies, against the political despotism, against theabominable usurpations, against the false strategies and against theinherent immoralities of the Tokugawa system, has of late years been setforth with tantalizing suggestiveness, but only in fragments, by thenative historians. Heartrending is the narrative of these men whostudied, who taught, who examined, who sifted the mountains of chaff inthe native literature and writings, who made long journeys on foot allover the country, who furtively travelled in Korea and China, whoboarded Dutch and Russian vessels, who secretly read forbidden books, who tried to improve their country and their people. These men saw thattheir country was falling behind not only the nations of the West, but, as it seemed to them, even the nations of the East. They felt thatradical changes were necessary in order to reform the awful poverty, disease, licentiousness, national weakness, decay of bodily powers, andthe creeping paralysis of the Samurai intellect and spirit. How theywere ostracized, persecuted, put under ban, hounded by the spies, throwninto prison; how they died of starvation or of disease; how they werebeheaded, crucified, or compelled to commit _hara-kiri_; how their bookswere purged by the censors, or put under ban or destroyed, [13] and theirmaps, writings and plates burned, has not yet been told. It is a storythat, when fully narrated, will make a volume of extraordinary interest. It is a story which both Christian and human interests challenge somenative author to tell. During all this time, but especially during thefirst half of the nineteenth century, there was one steady goal to whichthe aspiring student ever kept his faith, and to which his feet tended. There was one place of pilgrimage, toward which the sons of the morningmoved, and which, despite the spy and the informer and the vigilance ofgovernors, fed their spirits, and whence they carried the sacred fire, or bore the seed whose harvest we now see. That goal of the pilgrim bandwas Nagasaki, and the place where the light burned and the sacred flameswere kindled was Déshima. The men who helped to make true patriots, daring thinkers, inquirers after truth, bringers in of a better time, yes, and even Christians and preachers of the good news of God, werethese Dutchmen of Déshima. 

A Handful of Salt in a Stagnant Mass. 

The Nagasaki Hollanders were not immaculate saints, neither were theysooty devils. They did not profess to be Christian missionaries. On theother hand, they were men not devoid of conscience nor of sympathy withaspiring and struggling men in a hermit nation, eager for light andtruth. The Dutchman during the time of hermit Japan, as we see him inthe literature of men who were hostile in faith and covetous rivals intrade, is a repulsive figure. He seems to be a brutal wretch, seekingonly gain, and willing to sell conscience, humanity and his religion, for pelf. In reality, he was an ordinary European, probably no better, certainly no worse, than his age or the average man of his country or ofhis continent. Further, among this average dozen of exiles in theinterest of commerce, science or culture, there were frequentlyhonorable men far above the average European, and shining examples ofChristianity and humanity. Even in his submission to the laws of thecountry, the Dutchman did no more, no less, but exactly as thedaimi[=o]s, [14] who like himself were subject to the humiliationsimposed by the rulers in Yedo. 

It was the Dutch, who, for two hundred years supplied the culture ofEurope to Japan, introduced Western science, furnished almost the onlyintellectual stimulant, and were the sole teachers of medicine andscience. [15] They trained up hundreds of Japanese to be physicians whopractised rational medicine and surgery. They filled with needed couragethe hearts of men, who, secretly practising dissection of the bodies ofcriminals, demonstrated the falsity of Chinese ideas of anatomy. It wasDutch science which exploded and drove out of Japan that Chinese systemof medicine, by means of which so many millions have, during the longages, been slowly tortured to death. 

The Déshima Dutchman was a kindly adviser, helper, guide and friend, theone means of communication with the world, a handful of salt in thestagnant mass. Long before the United States, or Commodore Perry, theHollanders advised the Yodo government in favor of internationalintercourse. The Dutch language, nearest in structure and vocabulary tothe English, even richer in the descriptive energy of its terms, andsaturated withal with Christian truth, was studied by eager young men. These speakers of an impersonal language which in psychologicaldevelopment was scarcely above the grade of childhood, were exercised ina tongue that stands second to none in Europe for purity, vigor, personality and philosophical power. The Japanese students of Dutch helda golden key which opened the treasures of modern thought and of theworld's literature. The minds of thinking Japanese were thus madeplastic for the reception of the ideas of Christianity. Best of all, though forbidden by their contracts to import Bibles into Japan, theDutchmen, by means of works of reference, pointed more than oneinquiring spirit to the information by which the historic Christ becameknown. The books which they imported, the information which they gave, the stimulus which they imparted, were as seeds planted withinmasonry-covered earth, that were to upheave and overthrow the fabric ofexclusion and inclusion reared by the Tokugawa Sh[=o]guns. 

Time and space fail us to tell how eager spirits not only groped afterGod, but sought the living Christ--though often this meant to themimprisonment, suicide enforced by the law, or decapitation. Yet over allJapan, long before the broad pennant of Perry was mirrored on the watersof Yedo Bay, there were here and there masses of leavened opinion, spotsof kindled light, and fields upon which the tender green sprouts of newideas could be detected. To-day, as inquiry among the oldest of theChristian leaders and scores of volumes of modern biography shows, themost earnest and faithful among the preachers, teachers and soldiers inthe Christian army, were led into their new world of ideas through Dutchculture. The fact is revealed in repeated instances, that, throughfather, grandfather, uncle, or other relative--some pilgrim to the Dutchat Nagasaki--came their first knowledge, their initial promptings, theenvironment or atmosphere, which made them all sensitive and ready toreceive the Christian truth when it came in its full form from theliving missionary and the vital word of God. Some one has well said thatthe languages of modern Europe are nothing more than Christianityexpressed with differing pronunciation and vocabulary. To him who willreceive it, the mastery of any one of the languages of Christendom, is, in a large sense, a revelation of God in Christ Jesus. 

Seekers after God. 

Pathetic, even to the compulsion of tears, is the story of these seekersafter God. We, who to-day are surrounded by every motive and inducementto Christian living and by every means and appliance for the practice ofthe Christian life, may well consider for a moment the struggle ofearnest souls to find out God. Think of this one who finds a Latin Biblecast up on the shore from some broken ship, and bearing it secretly inhis bosom to the Hollander, gains light as to the meaning of itsmessage. Think of the nobleman, Watanabé Oboru, [16] who, by means of theJapanese interpreter of Dutch, Takano Choyéi, is thrilled with the storyof Jesus of Nazareth who helped and healed and spake as no other manspake, teaching with an authority above that of the masters Confucius orBuddha. Think of the daimi[=o] of Mito, [17] who, proud in lineage, learned and scholarly, and surrounded by a host of educated men, is yetunsatisfied with what the wise of his own country could give him, andgathers around him the relics unearthed from the old persecutions. Froma picture of the Virgin, a fragment of a litany, or it may be a part ofa breviary, he tries to make out what Christianity is. 

Think of Yokoi Héishiro, [18] learned in Confucius and his commentators, who seeks better light, sends to China for a Chinese translation of theNew Testament, and in his lectures on the Confucian ethics, to thedelight and yet to the surprise of his hearers who hear grander truththan they are able to find in text or commentary, really preachesChrist, and prophesies that the time will come when the walls ofisolation being levelled, the brightest intellects of Japan will welcomethis same Jesus and His doctrine. Think of him again, when unable topurify the Augean stables of Yedo's moral corruption, because the timewas at hand for other cleansing agencies, he retires to his home, content awhile with his books and flowers. Again, see him summoned tothe capital, to sit at Ki[=o]to--like aged Franklin among the youngstatesmen of the Constitution in Philadelphia--with the Mikado'syouthful advisers in the new government of 1868. Think of him pleadingfor the elevation of the pariah Eta, accursed and outcast throughBuddhism, to humanity and citizenship. Then hear him urge eloquently theright of personal belief, and argue for toleration under the law, ofopinions, which the Japanese then stigmatized as "evil" and devilish, but which we, and many of them now, call sound and Christian. Finally, behold him at night in the public streets, assaulted by assassins, andgiven quick death by their bullet and blades. See his gray head lyingsevered from his body and in its own gore, the wretched murderersthinking they have stayed the advancing tide of Christianity; but athome there dwells a little son destined in God's providence to become anearnest Christian and one of the brilliant leaders of the nativeChristianity of Japan in our day. 

The Buddhist Inquisitors. 

During the nation's period of Thorn-rose-like seclusion, the threereligions recognized by the law were Buddhism, Shint[=o] andConfucianism. Christianity was the outlawed sect. All over the country, on the high-roads, at the bridges, and in the villages, towns andcities, the fundamental laws of the country were written on woodentablets called kosats[)u]. These, framed and roofed for protection fromthe weather, but easily before the eyes of every man, woman and child, and written in a style and language understood of all, denounced theChristian religion as an accursed "sect, " and offered gold to the spyand informer;[19] while once a year every Samurai was required to swearon the true faith of a gentleman that he had nothing to do withChristianity. From the seventeenth century, the country having beendivided into parishes, the inquisition was under the charge of theBuddhist priests who penetrated into the house and family and guardedthe graveyards, so that neither earth nor fire should embrace thecarcass of a Christian, nor his dust or ashes defile the ancestralgraveyards. Twice--in 1686 and in 1711--were the rewards increased andthe Buddhist bloodhounds of Japan's Inquisition set on fresh trails. Onone occasion, at Osaka, in 1839, [20] a rebellion broke out which wasbelieved, though without evidence, to have been instigated in some wayby men with Christian ideas, and was certainly led by Oshio, the bitteropponent of Buddhism, of Tokugawa, and of the prevalent Confucianism. Possibly, the uprising was aided by refugees from Korea. Thoseimplicated were, after speedy trial, crucified or beheaded. In thesouthern part of the country the ceremony of Ebumi or trampling on thecross, [21] was long performed. Thousands of people were made to passthrough a wicket, beneath which and on the ground lay a copper plateengraved with the image of the Christ and the cross. In this way it washoped to utterly eradicate the very memory of Christianity, which, tothe common people, had become the synonym for sorcery. 

But besides the seeking after God by earnest souls and the protest ofphilosophers, there was, amid the prevailing immorality and theagnosticism and scepticism bred by decayed Buddhism and thematerialistic philosophy based on Confucius, some earnest struggles forthe purification of morals and the spiritual improvement of the people. 

The Shingaku Movement. 

One of the most remarkable of the movements to this end was that of theShingaku or New Learning. A class of practical moralists, to offset theprevailing tendency of the age to much speculation and because Buddhismdid so little for the people, tried to make the doctrines of Confucius aliving force among the great mass of people. This movement, thoughConfucian in its chief tone and color, was eclectic and intended tocombine all that was best in the Chinese system with what could beutilized from Shint[=o] and Buddhism. With the preaching was combined agood deal of active benevolence. Especially in the time of famine, wascare for humanity shown. The effect upon the people was noticeable, followers multiplied rapidly, and it is said that even the government inmany instances made them, the Shingaku preachers, the distributors ofrice and alms for the needy. Some of the preachers became famous andcounted among their followers many men of influence. The literary sideof the movement[22] has been brought to the attention of English readersthrough Mr. Mitford's translation of three sermons from the volumeentitled Shingaku D[=o]wa. Other discourses have been from time to timerendered into English, those by Shibata, entitled The Sermons of theDove-like Venerable Master, being especially famous. 

This movement, interesting as it was, came to an end when the countrybegan to be convulsed by the approaching entrance of foreigners, throughthe Perry treaty; but it serves to show, what we believe to be thetruth, that the moral rottenness as well as the physical decay of theJapanese people reached their acme just previous to the apparition ofthe American fleet in 1853. 

The story of nineteenth century Reformed Christianity in Japan does notbegin with Perry, or with Harris, or with the arrival of Christianmissionaries in 1859; for it has a subterranean and interior history, aswe have hinted; while that of the Roman form and order is a story ofunbroken continuity, though the life of the tunnel is now that of thesunny road. The parable of the leaven is first illustrated and then thatof the mustard-seed. Before Christianity was phenomenal, it was potent. Let us now look from the interior to the outside. 

On Perry's flag-ship, the Mississippi, the Bible lay open, a sermon waspreached, and the hymn "Before Jehovah's Awful Throne" was sung, wakingthe echoes of the Japan hills. The Christian day of rest was honored onthis American squadron. In the treaty signed in 1854, though it wasmade, indeed, with use of the name of God and terms of Christianchronology, there was nothing upon which to base, either by right orprivilege, the residence of missionaries in the country. TownsendHarris, the American Consul-General, who hoisted his flag and began hishermit life at Shimoda, in September, 1855, had as his only companion aDutch secretary, Mr. Heusken, who was later, in Yedo, to be assassinatedby ronins. 

Without ship or soldier, overcoming craft and guile, and winning his wayby simple honesty and perseverance, Mr. Harris obtained audience[23] of"the Tycoon" in Yedo, and later from the Sh[=o]gun's daring minister Ii, the signature to a treaty which guaranteed to Americans the rights ofresidence, trade and commerce. Thus Americans were enabled to land ascitizens, and pursue their avocation as religious teachers. As thegovernment of the United States of America knows nothing of the religionof American citizens abroad, it protects all missionaries who arelaw-abiding citizens, without regard to creed. [24]

Japan Once More Missionary Soil. 

The first missionaries were on the ground as soon as the ports wereopen. Though surrounded by spies and always in danger of assassinationand incendiarism, they began their work of mastering the language. To dothis without trained teachers or apparatus of dictionary and grammar, was then an appalling task. The medical missionary began healing theswarms of human sufferers, syphilitic, consumptive, and those scourgedby small-pox, cholera and hereditary and acute diseases of all sorts. The patience, kindness and persistency of these Christian men literallyturned the edge of the sword, disarmed the assassin, made the spies'occupation useless, shamed away the suspicious, and conquered the nearlyinvincible prejudices of the government. Despite the awful under-tow inthe immorality of the sailor, the adventurer and the gain-greedyforeigner, the tide of Christianity began steadily to rise. Notwithstanding the outbursts of the flames of persecution, the tortureand imprisonment of Christian captives and exiles, and the slow worryingto death of the missionary's native teachers, inquirers came andconverts were made. In 1868, after revolution and restoration, the oldorder changed, and duarchy and feudalism passed away. Quick to seize theopportunity, Dr. J. C. Hepburn, healer of bodies and souls of men, presented a Bible to the Emperor, and the gift was accepted. 

No sooner had the new government been established in safety, and thename of Yedo, the city of the Baydoor, been changed into that ofT[=o]ki[=o], the Eastern Capital, than an embassy[25] of seventy personsstarted on its course round the world. At its head were three cabinetministers of the new government and the court noble, Iwakura, ofimmemorial lineage, in whose veins ran the blood of the men called gods. Across the Pacific to the United States they went, having their initialaudience of the President of the Republic that knows no state church, and whose Christianity had compelled both the return of the shipwreckedJapanese and the freedom of the slave. 

This embassy had been suggested and its course planned by a Christianmissionary, who found that of the seventy persons, one-half had been hispupils. [26]

The Imperial Embassy Round the World. 

The purpose of these envoys was, first of all, to ask of the nations ofChristendom equal rights, to get removed the odious extra-territorialityclause in the treaties, to have the right to govern aliens on theirsoil, and to regulate their own tariff. Secondarily, its memberswent to study the secrets of power and the resources of civilization inthe West, to initiate the liberal education of their women by leaving inAmerican schools a little company of maidens, to enlarge the system ofeducation for their own country, and to send abroad with approval othersof their young men who, for a decade past had, in spite of every ban andobstacle, been furtively leaving the country for study beyond the seas. 

In the lands of Christendom, the eyes of ambassadors, ministers, secretaries and students were opened. They saw themselves as others sawthem. They compared their own land and nation, mediaeval in spirit andbackward in resources, and their people untrained as children, with themodern power, the restless ambition, the stern purpose, the intense lifeof the western nations, with their mighty fleets and armaments, theirinventions and machinery, their economic and social theories and forces, their provision for the poor, the sick, and the aged, the peerlessfamily life in the Christian home. They found, further yet, freechurches divorced from politics and independent of the state; that theleading force of the world was Christianity, that persecution wasbarbarous, and that toleration was the law of the future, and largelythe condition of the present. It took but a few whispers over thetelegraphic wire, and the anti-Christian edicts disappeared from publicview like snowflakes melting on the river. The right arm of persecutionwas broken. 

The story of the Book of Acts of the modern apostles in Japan is told, first in the teaching of inquirers, preaching to handfuls, the gatheringof tiny companies, the translation of the Gospel, and then prayer andwaiting for the descent of the Holy Spirit. A study of the Book of theActs of the Apostles, followed in order to find out how the ChristianChurch began. On the 10th day of March, in the year of our Lord and ofthe era of Meiji (Enlightened Peace) the fifth, 1872, at Yokohama, inthe little stone chapel built on part of Commodore Perry's treatyground, was formed the first Reformed or Protestant Christian Church inJapan. 

At this point our task is ended. We cannot even glance at the nativeChristian churches of the Roman, Reformed, or Greek order, or attempt toappraise the work of the foreign missionaries. He has read these pagesin vain, however, who does not see how well, under Providence, theJapanese have been trained for higher forms of faith. 

The armies of Japan are upon Chinese soil, while we pen our closinglines. The last chains of purely local and ethnic dogma are beingsnapped asunder. May the sons of Dai Nippon, as they win new horizons oftruth, see more clearly and welcome more loyally that Prince of Peacewhose kingdom is not of this world. 

May the age of political conquest end, and the era of theself-reformation of the Asian nations, through the gospel of JesusChrist, be ushered in. 

NOTES, AUTHORITIES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS

The few abbreviations used in these pages stand for well-known works:T. A. S. J. , for Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan; Kojiki, forSupplement to Volume X. , T. A. S. J. , Introduction, Translation, Notes, Map, etc. , by Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain; T. J. , for ThingsJapanese (2d ed. ), by Professor B. H. Chamberlain; S. And H. , for Satowand Hawes's Hand-book for Japan, now continued in new editions (4th, 1894), by Professor B. H. Chamberlain; C. R. M. , for Mayers's ChineseReader's Manual; M. E. , The Mikado's Empire (7th ed. ); B. N. , for Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio's A Short History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, T[=o]ki[=o], 1887. 

CHAPTER I

PRIMITIVE FAITH: RELIGION BEFORE BOOKS

[Footnote 1: The late Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, LL. D. , whoapplied the principles of electro-magnetism to telegraphy, was the sonof the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D. D. , the celebrated theologian, geographer, and gazetteer. In memory of his father, Professor Morse founded thislectureship in Union Theological Seminary, New York, on "The Relation ofthe Bible to the Sciences, " May 20, 1865, by the gift of ten thousanddollars. ]

[Footnote 2: An American Missionary in Japan, p. 209, by Rev. M. L. Gordon, M. D. , Boston, 1892. ]

[Footnote 3: Lucretia Coftin Mott. ]

[Footnote 4: "I remember once making a calculation in Hong Kong, andmaking out my baptisms to have amounted to about six hundred. .. . Ibelieve with you that the study of comparative religion is important forall missionaries. Still more important, it seems to me, is it thatmissionaries should make themselves thoroughly proficient in thelanguages and literature of the people to whom they are sent. "--Dr. Legge's Letter to the Author, November 27, 1893. ]

[Footnote 5: The Religions of China, p. 240, by James Legge, New York, 1881. ]

[Footnote 6: The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, p. 22, Boston editionsof 1859 and 1879. ]

[Footnote 7: One of the many names of Japan is that of the Country Ruledby a Slender Sword, in allusion to the clumsy weapons employed by theChinese and Koreans. See, for the shortening and lightening of themodern Japanese sword (_katana_) as compared with the long and heavy(_ken_) of the "Divine" (_kami_) or uncivilized age, "The Sword ofJapan; Its History and Traditions, " T. A. S. J. , Vol. II. , p. 58. ]

[Footnote 8: The course of lectures on The Religions of Chinese Asia(which included most of the matter in this book), given by the author inBangor Theological Seminary, Bangor, Me. , in April, 1894, was upon theBond foundation, founded by alumni and named after the chief donor, Rev. Ellas Bond, D. D. , of Kohala, long an active missionary in Hawaii. ]

[Footnote 9: This is the contention of Professor Kumi, late of theImperial University of Japan; see chapter on Shint[=o]. ]

[Footnote 10: In illustration, comical or pitiful, the common people inSatsuma believe that the spirit of the great Saigo Takamori, leader ofthe rebellion of 1877, "has taken up its abode in the planet Mars, "while the spirits of his followers entered into a new race of frogs thatattack man and fight until killed--Mounsey's The Satsuma Rebellion, p. 217. So, also, the _Heiké-gani_, or crabs at Shimonoséki, represent thetransmigration of the souls of the Heiké clan, nearly exterminated in1184 A. D. , while the "H[=o]j[=o] bugs" are the avatars of the execratedrulers of Kamakura (1219-1333 A. D. ). --Japan in History, Folk-lore, andArt, Boston, 1892, pp. 115, 133. ]

[Footnote 11: The Future of Religion in Japan. A paper read at theParliament of Religions by Nobuta Kishimoto. ]

[Footnote 12: The Ainos, though they deify all the chief objects ofnature, such as the sun, the sea, fire, wild beasts, etc. , often talk ofa Creator, _Kotan kara kamui_, literally the God who made the World. Atthe fact of creation they stop short. .. . One gathers that the creativeact was performed not directly, but through intermediaries, who wereapparently animals. "--Chamberlain's Aino Studies, p. 12. See also on theAino term "Kamui, " by Professor B. H. Chamberlain and Rev. J. Batchelor, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. ]

[Footnote 13: See Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, by Isabella Bird (Bishop), Vol. II. ; The Ainu of Japan, by Rev. John Batchelor; B. Douglas Howard'sLife With Trans-Siberian Savages; Ripley Hitchcock's Report, SmithsonianInstitute, Washington. Professor B. H. Chamberlain's invaluable "AinoStudies, " T[=o]ki[=o], 1887, makes scholarly comparison of the Japaneseand Aino language, mythology, and geographical nomenclature. ]

[Footnote 14: M. E. , The Mythical Zoölogy of Japan, pp. 477-488. C. R. M. , _passim_. ]

[Footnote 15: See the valuable article entitled Demoniacal Possession, T. J. , p. 106, and the author's Japanese Fox Myths, _Lippincott'sMagazine_, 1873. ]

[Footnote 16: See the Aino animal stories and evidences of beast worshipin Chamberlain's Aino Studies. For this element in Japanese life, seethe Kojiki, and the author's Japanese Fairy World. ]

[Footnote 17: The proprietor of a paper-mill in Massachusetts, who hadbought a cargo of rags, consisting mostly of farmers' cast off clothes, brought to the author a bundle of scraps of paper which he had found inthis cheap blue-dyed cotton wearing apparel. Besides money accounts andpersonal matters, there were numerous temple amulets and priests'certificates. See also B. H. Chamberlain's Notes on Some Minor JapaneseReligious Practices, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1893. ]

[Footnote 18: M. E. , p. 440. ]

[Footnote 19: See the Lecture on Buddhism in its DoctrinalDevelopment. --The Nichiren Sect. ]

[Footnote 20: The phallus was formerly a common emblem in all parts ofJapan, Hondo, Kiushiu, Shikoku, and the other islands. Bayard Taylornoticed it in the Riu Kiu (Loo Choo) Islands; Perry's Expedition toJapan, p. 196; Bayard Taylor's Expedition in Lew Chew; M. E. , p. 33, note; Rein's Japan, p. 432; Diary of Richard Cocks, Vol. I. , p. 283. Thenative guide-books and gazetteers do not allude to the subject. 

Although the author of this volume has collected considerable data frompersonal observations and the testimony of personal friends concerningthe vanishing nature-worship of the Japanese, he has, in the text, scarcely more than glanced at the subject. In a work of this sort, intended both for the general reader as well as for the scientificstudent of religion, it has been thought best to be content with a fewsimple references to what was once widely prevalent in the Japanesearchipelago. 

Probably the most thorough study of Japanese phallicism yet made by anyforeign scholar is that of Edmund Buckley, A. M. , Ph. D. , of the ChicagoUniversity, Lecturer on Shint[=o], the Ethnic Faith of Japan, and on theScience of Religion. Dr. Buckley spent six years in central andsouthwestern Japan, most of the time as instructor in the DoshishaUniversity, Ki[=o]to. He will publish the results of his personalobservations and studios in a monograph on phallicism, which will be onsale at Chicago University, in which the Buckley collection illustratingShint[=o]-worship has been deposited. ]

[Footnote 21: Mr. Takahashi Gor[=o], in his Shint[=o] Shin-ron, or NewDiscussion of Shint[=o], accepts the derivation of the word _kami_ from_kabé_, mould, mildew, which, on its appearance, excites wonder. ForHirata's discussion, see T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, p. 48. In astriking paper on the Early Gods of Japan, in a recent number of thePhilosophical Magazine, published in T[=o]ki[=o], a Japanese writer, Mr. Kenjir[=o] Hiradé, states also that the term kami does not necessarilydenote a spiritual being, but is only a relative term meaning above orhigh, but this respect toward something high or above has created manyimaginary deities as well as those having a human history. See alsoT. A. S. J. , Vol. XXII. , Part I. , p. 55, note. ]

[Footnote 22: "There remains something of the Shint[=o] heart aftertwelve hundred years of foreign creeds and dress. The worship of themarvellous continues. .. . Exaggerated force is most impressive. .. . So theancient gods, heroes, and wonders are worshipped still. The simplecountryfolk clap their hands, bow their heads, mumble their prayers, andoffer the fraction of a cent to the first European-built house theysee. "--Philosophy in Japan, Past and Present, by Dr. George Wm. Knox. ]

[Footnote 23: M. E. , p. 474. Honda the Samurai, pp. 256-267. ]

[Footnote 24: Kojiki, pp. 127, 136, 213, 217. ]

[Footnote 25: See S. And H. , pp. 39, 76. 

"The appearance of anything unusual at a particular spot is hold to be asure sign of the presence of divinity. Near the spot where I live inKo-ishi-kawa, T[=o]ki[=o], is a small Miya, built at the foot of a veryold tree, that stands isolated on the edge of a rice-field. The spotlooks somewhat insignificant, but upon inquiring why a shrine has beenplaced there, I was told that a white snake had been found at the footof the old tree. " . .. 

"As it is, the religion of the Japanese consists in the belief that theproductive ethereal spirit, being expanded through the whole universe, every part is in some degree impregnated with it; and therefore, everypart is in some measure the seat of the Deity. "--Legendre's ProgressiveJapan, p. 258. ]

[Footnote 26: De Verflauwing der Grenzen, by Dr. Abraham Kuyper, Amsterdam, 1892; translated by Rev. T. Hendrik de Vries, in theMethodist Review, New York, July-Sept. , 1893. ]

CHAPTER II

SHINT[=O]; MYTHS AND RITUAL

[Footnote 1: The scholar who has made profound researches in alldepartments of Japanese learning, but especially in the literature ofShint[=o], is Mr. Ernest Satow, now the British Minister at Tangier. Hereceived the degree of B. A. From the London University. After severalyears' study and experience in China, Mr. Satow came to Japan in 1861 asstudent-interpreter to the British Legation, receiving his first drillunder Rev. S. R. Brown, D. D. , author of A Grammar of Colloquial Japanese. To ceaseless industry, this scholar, to whom the world is so muchindebted for knowledge of Japan, has added philosophic insight. Besidesunearthing documents whose existence was unsuspected, he has cleared theway for investigators and comparative students by practically removingthe barriers reared by archaic speech and writing. His papers in theT. A. S. J. , on The Shint[=o] Shrines at Isé, the Revival of PureShint[=o], and Ancient Japanese Rituals, together with his Hand-book forJapan, form the best collection of materials for the study of theoriginal and later forms of Shint[=o]. ]

[Footnote 2: The scholar who above all others has, with rare acumenunited to laborious and prolonged toil, illuminated the subject ofJapan's chronology and early history is Mr. W. G. Aston of the BritishCivil Service. He studied at the Queen's University, Ireland, receivingthe degree of M. A. He was appointed student-interpreter in Japan, August6, 1864. He is the author of a Grammar of the Written Japanese Language, and has been a student of the comparative history and speech and writingof China, Korea, and Japan, during the past thirty years. See hisvaluable papers in the T. A. S. J. , and the learned societies in GreatBritain. In his paper on Early Japanese History, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , pp. 39-75, he recapitulates the result of his researches, in which heis, in the main, supported by critical native scholars, and by the lateWilliam Bramsen, in his Japanese Chronological Tables, T[=o]ki[=o], 1880. He considers A. D. 461 as the first trustworthy date in theJapanese annals. We quote from his paper, Early Japanese History, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , p. 73. 

1. The earliest date of the accepted Japanese Chronology, the accuracyof which is confirmed by external evidence, is A. D. 461. 

2. Japanese History, properly so called, can hardly be said to existprevious to A. D. 500. (A cursory examination leads me to think that theannals of the sixth century must also be received with caution. )

3. Korean History and Chronology are more trustworthy than those ofJapan during the period previous to that date. 

4. While there was an Empress of Japan in the third century A. D. , thestatement that she conquered Korea is highly improbable. 

5. Chinese learning was introduced into Japan from Korea 120 years laterthan the date given in Japanese History. 

6. The main fact of Japan having a predominant influence in some partsof Korea during the fifth century is confirmed by the Korean and Chinesechronicles, which, however, show that the Japanese accounts are veryinaccurate in matters of detail. ]

[Footnote 3: Basil Hall Chamberlain, who has done the world of learningsuch signal service by his works on the Japanese language, andespecially by his translation, with critical introduction andcommentary, of the Kojiki, is an English gentleman, born at Southsea, Hampshire, England, on the 18th day of October, 1830. His mother was adaughter of the well-known traveller and author, Captain Basil Hall, R. N. , and his father an Admiral in the British Navy. He was educated forOxford, but instead of entering, for reasons of health, he spent anumber of years in western Mid southern Europe, acquiring a knowledge ofvarious languages and literatures. His coming to Japan (in May, 1873)was rather the result of an accident--a long sea voyage and a trial ofthe Japanese climate having been recommended. The country and the fieldof study suited the invalid well. After teaching for a time in the NavalCollege the Japanese honored themselves and this scholar by making him, in April, 1886, Professor of Philology at the Imperial University. Hisworks, The Classical Poetry of the Japanese, his various grammars andhand-books for the acquisition of the language, his Hand-book for Japan, his Aino Studies, Things Japanese, papers in the T. A. S. J. And histranslation of the Kojiki are all of a high order of value. They aremarked by candor, fairness, insight, and a mastery of difficult themesthat makes his readers his constant debtors. ]

[Footnote 4: "If the term 'Altaic' be held to include Korean andJapanese, then Japanese assumes prime importance as being by far theoldest living representative of that great linguistic group, itsliterature antedating by many centuries the most ancient productions ofthe Manchus, Mongols, Turks, Hungarians, or Finns. "--Chamberlain, Simplified Grammar, Introd. , p. Vi. ]

[Footnote 5: Corea, the Hermit Nation, pp. 13-14; Mr. Pom K. Soh's paperon Education in Korea; Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1890-91. ]

[Footnote 6: T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , p. 74; Bramsen's Chronological Tables, Introd. , p. 34; T. J. , p. 32. ]

[Footnote 7: The Middle Kingdom, Vol. I. , p. 531. ]

[Footnote 8: "The frog in the well knows not the great ocean. " Thisproverb, so freely quoted throughout Chinese Asia, and in recent yearsso much applied to themselves by the Japanese, is of Hindu origin and isfound in the Sanskrit. ]

[Footnote 9: This is shown with literary skill and power in a modernpopular work, the title of which, Dai Nippon Kai-biyaku Yurai-iki, which, very freely indeed, may be translated Instances of DivineInterposition in Behalf of Great Japan. A copy of this work waspresented to the writer by the late daimi[=o] of Echizen, and was readwith interest as containing the common people's ideas about theircountry and history. It was published in Yedo in 1856, while Japan wasstill excited over the visits of the American and European fleets. Onthe basis of the information furnished in this work General Le Gendrewrote his influential book, Progressive Japan, in which a number ofquotations from the _Kai-biyaku_ may be read. ]

[Footnote 10: In the Kojiki, pp. 101-104, we have the poetical accountof the abdication of the lord of Idzumo in favor of the Yamatoconqueror, on condition that the latter should build a temple and havehim honored among the gods. One of the rituals contains thecongratulatory address of the chieftains of Idzumo, on their surrenderto "the first Mikado, Jimmu Tenn[=o]. " See also T. J. , p. 206. ]

[Footnote 11: "The praying for Harvest, or Toshigoi no Matsuri, wascelebrated on the 4th day of the 2d month of each year, at the capitalin the Jin-Gi-Kuan or office for the Worship of the Shint[=o] gods, andin the provinces by the chiefs of the local administrations. At theJin-Gi-Kuan there were assembled the ministers of state, thefunctionaries of that office, the priests and priestesses of 573temples, containing 737 shrines, which were kept up at the expense ofthe Mikado's treasury, while the governors of the provincessuperintended in the districts under their administration theperformance of rites in honor of 2, 395 other shrines. It would not beeasy to state the exact number of deities to whom these 3, 132 shrineswere dedicated. A glance over the list in the 9th and 10th books of theYengishiki shows at once that there were many gods who were worshippedin more than half-a-dozen different localities at the same time; butexact calculation is impossible, because in many cases only the names ofthe temples are given, and we are left quite in the dark as to theindividuality of the gods to whom they were sacred. Besides these 3, 132shrines, which are distinguished as Shikidai, that is contained in thecatalogue of the Yengishiki, there were a large number of enumeratedshrines in temples scattered all over the country, in every village orhamlet, of which it was impossible to take any account, just as at thepresent day there are temples of Hachiman, Kompira, Tenjin sama, San-nosama and Sengen sama, as they are popularly called, wherever twenty orthirty houses are collected together. The shrines are classed as greatand small, the respective numbers being 492 and 2, 640, the distinctionbeing twofold, firstly in the proportionately larger quantity ofofferings made at the great shrines, and secondly that the offerings inthe one case were arranged upon tables or altars, while in the otherthey were placed on mats spread upon the earth. In the Yengishiki theamounts and nature of the offerings are stated with great minuteness, but it will be sufficient if the kinds of articles offered are alonementioned here. It will be seen, by comparison with the text of thenorito, that they had varied somewhat since the date when the ritual wascomposed. The offerings to a greater shrine consisted of coarse wovensilk (_ashiginu_), thin silk of five different colors, a kind of stuffcalled _shidori_ or _shidzu_, which is supposed by some to have been astriped silk, cloth of broussonetia bark or hemp, and a small quantityof the raw materials of which the cloth was made, models of swords, apair of tables or altars (called _yo-kura-oki_ and _ya-kura-oki_), ashield or mantlet, a spear-head, a bow, a quiver, a pair of stag'shorns, a hoe, a few measures of saké or rice-beer, some haliotis andbonito, two measures of _kituli_ (supposed to be salt roe), variouskinds of edible seaweed, a measure of salt, a saké jar, and a few feetof matting for packing. To each of the temples of Watarai in Isé waspresented in addition a horse; to the temple of the Harvest god Mitoshino kami, a white horse, cock, and pig, and a horse to each of nineteenothers. 

"During the fortnight which preceded the celebration of the service, twosmiths and their journeymen, and two carpenters, together with eightinbe [or hereditary priests] were employed in preparing the apparatusand getting ready the offerings. It was usual to employ for the Prayingfor Harvest members of this tribe who held office in the Jin-Gi-Kuan, but if the number could not he made up in that office, it was suppliedfrom other departments of state. To the tribe of quiver-makers wasintrusted the special duty of weaving the quivers of wistaria tendrils. The service began at twenty minutes to seven in the morning, by ourreckoning of time. After the governor of the province of Yamashiro hadascertained that everything was in readiness, the officials of theJin-Gi-Kuan arranged the offerings on the tables and below them, according to the rank of the shrines for which they were intended. Thelarge court of the Jin-Gi-Kuan where the service was held, called theSai-in, measured 230 feet by 370. At one end were the offices and on thewest side were the shrines of the eight Protective Deities in a row, surrounded by a fence, to the interior of which three sacred archways(torii) gave access. In the centre of the court a temporary shed waserected for the occasion, in which the tables or altars were placed. Thefinal preparations being now complete, the ministers of state, thevirgin priestesses and priests of the temples to which offerings weresent by the Mikado, entered in succession, and took the places severallyassigned to them. The horses which formed a part of the offerings werenext brought in from the Mikado's stable, and all the congregation drewnear, while the reader recited or read the norito. This reader was amember of the priestly family or tribe of Nakatomi, who traced theirdescent back to Ameno-koyané, one of the principal advisers attached tothe sun-goddess's grandchild when he first descended on earth. It is aremarkable evidence of the persistence of certain ideas, that up to theyear 1868 the nominal prime-minister of the Mikado, after he came ofage, and the regent during his minority, if he had succeeded young tothe throne, always belonged to this tribe, which changed its name fromNakatomi to Fujiwara in the seventh century, and was subsequently splitup into the Five Setsuké or governing families. At the end of eachsection the priests all responded 'O!' which was no doubt the equivalentof 'Yes' in use in those days. As soon as he had finished, the Nakatomiretired, and the offerings were distributed to the priests forconveyance and presentation to the gods to whose service they wereattached. But a special messenger was despatched with the offeringsdestined to the temples at Watarai. This formality having beencompleted, the President of the Jin-Gi-Kuan gave the signal for breakingup the assembly. " Ancient Japanese Rituals, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VII, pp. 104-107. ]

[Footnote 12: S. And H. , p. 461. ]

[Footnote 13: Consult Chamberlain's literal translations of the name inthe Kojiki, and p. Lxv. Of his Introduction. ]

[Footnote 14: The parallel between the Hebrew and Japanese accounts oflight and darkness, day and night, before the sun, has been noticed byseveral writers. See the comments of Hirata, a modern Shint[=o]expounder. --T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, p. 72. ]

[Footnote 15: Westminster Review, July, 1878, p. 19. ]

CHAPTER III

"THE KOJIKI" AND ITS TEACHINGS

[Footnote 1: Kojiki, pp. 9-18; T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, p. 20. ]

[Footnote 2: M. E. , p. 43; McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia, Art. Shint[=o]; in T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, is to be found Mr. Satow'sdigest of the commentaries of the modern Shint[=o] revivalists; in Mr. Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki, the text with abundant notes. See also Mr. Twan-Lin's Account of Japan up to A. D. 1200, by E. H. Parker. T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXII. , Part I. ]

[Footnote 3: "The various abstractions which figure at the commencementof the 'Records' (Kojiki) and of the 'Chronicles' (Nihongi) wereprobably later growths, and perhaps indeed were inventions of individualpriests. "--Kojiki, Introd. , p. Lxv. See also T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXII. , PartI, p. 56. "Thus, not only is this part of the Kojiki pure twaddle, butit is not even consistent twaddle. "]

[Footnote 4: Kojiki, Section IX. ]

[Footnote 5: Dr. Joseph Edkins, D. D. , author of Chinese Buddhism, whobelieves that the primeval religious history of men is recoverable, saysin Early Spread of Religious Ideas, Especially in the Far East, p. 29, "In Japan Amatéras[)u], . .. In fact, as I suppose, Mithras written inJapanese, though the Japanese themselves are not aware of thisetymology. " Compare Kojiki, Introduction, pp. Lxv. -lxvii. ]

[Footnote 6: Kojiki, p. Xlii. ]

[Footnote 7: T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, p. 67. ]

[Footnote 8: E. Satow, Revival of Pure Shint[=o], pp. 67-68. ]

[Footnote 9: This curious agreement between the Japanese and otherethnic traditions in locating "Paradise, " the origin of the human familyand of civilization, at the North Pole, has not escaped the attention ofDr. W. F. Warren, President of Boston University, who makes extendedreference to it in his interesting and suggestive book, Paradise Found:The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole; A Study of thePrehistoric World, Boston, 1885. ]

[Footnote 10: The pure Japanese numerals equal in number the fingers;with the borrowed Chinese terms vast amounts can be expressed. ]

[Footnote 11: This custom was later revived, T. A. S. J. , pp. 28, 31. Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, Vol. II. , p. 57; M. E. , pp. 156, 238. ]

[Footnote 12: See in Japanese Fairy World, "How the Sun-Goddess wasenticed out of her Cave. " For the narrative see Kojiki, pp. 54-59;T. A. S. J. , Vol. II. , 128-133. ]

[Footnote 13: See Choméi and Wordsworth, A Literary Parallel, by J. M. Dixon, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , pp. 193-205; Anthologie Japonaise, by Leon deRosny; Chamberlain's Classical Poetry of the Japanese; Suyémats[)u]'sGenji Monogatari, London, 1882. ]

[Footnote 14: Oftentimes in studying the ancient rituals, those whoimagine that the word Kami should be in all cases translated gods, willbe surprised to see what puerility, bathos, or grandiloquence, comes outof an attempt to express a very simple, it may be humiliating, experience. ]

[Footnote 15: Mythology and Religious Worship of the Japanese, Westminster Review, July, 1878; Ancient Japanese Rituals, T. A. S. J. , Vols. VII. , IX. ; Esoteric Shint[=o], by Percival Lowell, T. A. S. J, Vol. XXI. ]

[Footnote 16: Compare Sections IX. And XXIII. Of the Kojiki. ]

[Footnote 17: This indeed seems to be the substance of the modernofficial expositions of Shint[=o] and the recent Rescripts of theEmperor, as well as of much popular literature, including themanifestoes or confessions found on the persons of men who have"consecrated" themselves as "the instruments of Heaven for punishing thewicked, " i. E. , assassinating obnoxious statesmen. See The AncientReligion, M. E. , pp. 96-100; The Japan Mail, _passim_. ]

[Footnote 18: Revival of Pure Shint[=o], pp. 25-38. ]

[Footnote 19: Japanese Homes, by E. S. Morse, pp. 228-233, note, p. 832. ]

[Footnote 20: Chamberlain's Aino Studies, p. 12. ]

[Footnote 21: Geological Survey of Japan, by Benj. S. Lyman, 1878-9. ]

[Footnote 22: The Shell Mounds of Omori; and The Tokio Times, Jan. 18, 1879, by Edward S. Morse; Japanese Fairy World, pp. I78, 191, 196. ]

[Footnote 23: Kojiki, pp. 60-63. ]

[Footnote 24: S. And H. , pp. 58, 337, etc. ]

[Footnote 25: This study in comparative religion by a Japanese, whichcost the learned author his professorship in the Téi-Koku Dai Gaku orImperial University (lit. Theocratic Country Great Learning Place), hashad a tendency to chill the ardor of native investigators. His paper wasfirst published in the Historical Magazine of the University, but thewide publicity and popular excitement followed only after republication, with comments by Mr. Taguchi, in the Kéizai Zasshi (Economical Journal). The Shint[=o]ists denounced Professor Kumi for "making our ancientreligion a branch of Christianity, " and demanded and secured his"retirement" by the Government. See Japan Mail, April 2, 1892, p. 440. ]

[Footnote 26: T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI. , p. 282. ]

[Footnote 27: Kojiki, p. Xxviii. ]

[Footnote 28: For the use of salt in modern "Esoteric" Shint[=o], bothin purification and for employment as of salamandrine, see T. A. S. J. , pp. 125, 128. ]

[Footnote 29: In the official census of 1893, nine Shint[=o] sects arenamed, each of which has its own Kwancho or Presiding Head, recognizedby the government. The sectarian peculiarities of Shint[=o] have beenmade the subject of study by very few foreigners. Mr. Satow names thefollowing:

The Yui-itsu sect was founded by Toshida Kané-tomo. His signatureappears as the end of a ten-volume edition, issued A. D. 1503, of theliturgies extracted from the Yengishiki or Book of Ceremonial Law, firstpublished in the era of Yengi (or En-gi), A. D. 901-922. He is supposedto be the one who added the _kana_, or common vernacular script letters, to the Chinese text and thus made the norito accessible to the people. The little pocket prayer-books, folded in an accordeon-like manner, arevery cheap and popular. The sect is regarded as heretical by strictShint[=o]ists, as the system Yuwiitsu consists "mainly of a Buddhistsuperstructure on a Shint[=o] foundation. " Yoshida applied the tenets ofthe Shingon or True Word sect of Buddhists to the understanding andpractice of the ancient god-way. 

The Suiga sect teaches a system which is a combination of Yuwiitsu andof the modern philosophical form of Confucianism as elaborated by ChuHi, and known in Japan as the Téi-shu philosophy. The founder wasYamazaki Ansai, who was born in 1618 and died in 1682. By combining theforms of the Yoshida sect, which is based on the Buddhism of the Shingonsect, with the materialistic philosophy of Chu Hi, he adapted the oldgod-way to what he deemed modern needs. 

In the Déguchi sect, the ancient belief is explained by the Chinese Bookof Changes (or Divination). Déguchi Nobuyoshi, the founder, wasgod-warden or _kannushi_ of the Géiku or Outer Palace Temple at Isé. Hepromulgated his views about the year 1660, basing them upon the bookcalled Éki by the Japanese and Yi-king by the Chinese. This Yi-king, which Professor Terrien de Laeouporie declares is only a very ancientbook of pronunciation of comparative Accadian and Chinese Syllabaries, has been the cause of incredible waste of labor, time, and brains inChina--enough to have diked the Yellow River or drained the swamps ofthe Empire. It is the chief basis of Chinese superstition, and thegreatest literary barrier to the advance of civilization. It has alsomade much mischief in Japan. Déguchi explained the myths of the age ofthe gods by divination or éki, based on the Chinese books. As late as1893 there was published in T[=o]ki[=o] a work in Japanese, with goodtranslation info English, on Scientific Morality, or the practicalguidance of life by means of divination--The Takashima Ékidan (orMonograph on the Éki of Mr. Takashima), by S. Sugiura. 

The Jikko sect, according to its representative at the World'sParliament of Religions at Chicago, is "the practical. " It lays stressless upon speculation and ritual, and more upon the realization of thebest teachings of Shint[=o]. It was founded by Haségawa Kakugi[=o], whowas born at Nagasaki in 1541. Living in a cave in Fuji-yama, "hereceived inspiration through the miraculous power of the mountain. " Itbelieves in one absolute Deity, often mentioned in the Kojiki, which, self-originated, took the embodiment of two deities, one with the malenature and the other female, though these two deities are nothing butforms of the one substance and unite again in the absolute deity. Thesegave birth to the Japanese Archipelago, the sun and moon, the mountainsand streams, the divine ancestors, etc. According to the teachings ofthis sect, the peerless mountain, Fuji, ought to be reverenced as thesacred abode of the divine lord, and as "the brains of the whole globe. "The believer must make Fuji the example and emblem of his thought andaction. He must be plain and simple, as the form of the mountain, makinghis body and mind pure and serene, as Fuji itself. The present worldwith all its practical works must be respected more than the futureworld. We must pray for the long life of the country, lead a life oftemperance and diligence, cooperating with one another in doing good. 

 * * * * *

_Statistics of Shint[=o]ism. _

From the official Résumé Statistique de l'Empire du Japon, 1894. In 1801there were nine administrative heads of sects; 75, 877 preachers, priests, and shrine-keepers, with 1, 158 male and 228 female students. There were 163 national temples of superior rank and 136, 652 shrines ortemples in cities and prefectures; a total of 193, 153, served by 14, 700persons of the grade of priests. Most of the expenses, apart fromendowments and local contributions, are included in the first item ofthe annual Treasury Budget, "Civil List, Appanage and Shint[=o]Temples. "]

CHAPTER IV

THE CHINESE ETHICAL SYSTEM IN JAPAN

[Footnote 1: "He was fond of saying that Princeton had never originateda new idea; but this meant no more than that Princeton was the advocateof historical Calvinism in opposition to the modified and provincialCalvinism of a later day. "--Francis L. Patton, in Schaff-HerzogEncyclopædia, Article on Charles Hodge. ]

[Footnote 2: We use Dr. James Legge's spelling, by whom these classicshave been translated into English. See Sacred Books of the East, editedby Max Müller. ]

[Footnote 3: The Canon or Four Classics has a somewhat varied literaryhistory of transmission, collection, and redaction, as well as ofexposition, and of criticism, both "lower" and "higher. " As arrangedunder the Han Dynasty (B. C. 206-A. D. 23) it consisted of--I. TheCommentary of Tso Kinming (a disciple who expounded Confucius's book, The Annals of State of Lu); II. The Commentary of Kuh-liang upon thesame work of Confucius; III. The Old Text of the Book of History; IV. The Odes, collected by Mao Chang, to whom is ascribed the test of theOdes as handed down to the present day. The generally acceptedarrangement is that made by the mediaeval schoolmen of the Sung Dynasty(A. D. 960-1341), Cheng Teh Sio and Chu Hi, in the twelfth century: I. The Great Learning; II. The Doctrine of the Mean; III. Conversations ofConfucius; IV. The Sayings of Mencius. --C. R. M. , pp. 306-309. ]

[Footnote 4: See criticisms of Confucius as an author, in Legge'sReligions of China, pp. 144, 145. ]

[Footnote 5: Religions of China, by James Legge, p. 140. ]

[Footnote 6: See Article China, by the author, Cyclopaedia of PoliticalScience, Chicago, 1881. ]

[Footnote 7: This subject is critically discussed by Messrs. Satow, Chamberlain, and others in their writings on Shint[=o] and Japanesehistory. On Japanese chronology, see Japanese Chronological Tables, byWilliam Bramsen, T[=o]ki[=o], 1880, and Dr. David Murray's Japan (p. 95), in the series Story of the Nations, New York. ]

[Footnote 8: The absurd claim made by some Shint[=o]ists that theJapanese possessed an original native alphabet called the Shingi(god-letters) before the entrance of the Chinese or Buddhist learning inJapan, is refuted by Aston, Japanese Grammar, p. 1; T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Appendix, p. 77. Mr. Satow shows "their unmistakable identity with theCorean alphabet. "]

[Footnote 9: For the life, work, and tombs of the Chinese scholars whofled to Japan on the fall of the Ming Dynasty, see M. E. , p. 298; andProfessor E. W. Clement's paper on The Tokugawa Princes of Mito, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVIII. , and his letters in The Japan Mail. ]

[Footnote 10: "We have consecrated ourselves as the instruments ofHeaven for punishing the wicked man, "--from the document submitted tothe Yedo authorities, by the assassins of Ii Kamon no Kami, in Yedo, March 23, 1861, and signed by seventeen men of the band. For numerousother instances, see the voluminous literature of the Forty-sevenR[=o]nins, and the Meiji political literature (1868-1893), political andhistorical documents, assassins' confessions, etc. , contained in thatthesarus of valuable documents, The Japan Mail; Kinsé Shiriaku, or BriefHistory of Japan, 1853-1869, Yokohama, 1873, and Nihon Guaishi, translated by Mr. Ernest Satow; Adams's History of Japan; T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , p. 145; Life and Letters of Yokoi Héishiro; Life of Sir HarryParkes, London, 1893, etc. , for proof of this assertion. ]

[Footnote 11: For proof of this, as to vocabulary, see Professor B. H. Chamberlain's Grammars and other philological works; Mr. J. H. Gubbins'sDictionary of Chinese-Japanese Words, with Introduction, three vols. , T[=o]ki[=o] 1892; and for change in structure, Rev. C. Munzinger, on ThePsychology of the Japanese Language in the Transactions of the GormanAsiatic Society of Japan. See also Mental Characteristics of theJapanese, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIX. , pp. 17-37. ]

[Footnote 12: See The Ghost of Sakura, in Mitfoid's Tales of Old Japan, Vol. II, p. 17. ]

[Footnote 13: M. E. , 277-280. See an able analysis of Japanese feudalsociety, by M. F. Dickins, Life of Sir Harry Parkes, pp. 8-13; M. E. , pp. 277-283. ]

[Footnote 14: This subject is discussed in Professor Chamberlain'sworks; Mr. Percival Lowell's The Soul of the Far East; Dr. M. L. Gordon'sAn American Missionary in Japan; Dr. J. H. De Forest's The Influence ofPantheism, in The Japan Evangelist, 1894. ]

[Footnote 15: T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. , p. 96. ]

[Footnote 16: The Forty Seven-R[=o]nins, Tales of Old Japan, Vol. I. ;Chiushiugura, by F. V. Dickens; The Loyal R[=o]nins, by Edward Greey;Chiushiugura, translated by Enouyé. ]

[Footnote 17: See Dr. J. H. De Forest's article in the Andover Review, May, June, 1893, p. 309. For details and instances, see the Japanesehistories, novels, and dramas; M. E. ; Rein's Japan; S. And H. ; T. A. S. J. , etc. Life of Sir Harry Parkes, p. 11 _et passim_. ]

[Footnote 18: M. E. Pp. 180-192, 419. For the origin and meaning ofhara-kiri, see T. J. , pp. 199-201; Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, Vol. I. , Appendix; Adams's History of Japan, story of Shimadz[)u]. ]

[Footnote 19: M. E. , p. 133. ]

[Footnote 20: For light upon the status of the Japanese family, see F. O. Adams's History of Japan, Vol. II. , p. 384; Kinsé Shiriaku, p. 137;Naomi Tamura, The Japanese Bride, New York, 1893; E. H. House, YonéSanto, A Child of Japan, Chicago, 1888; Japanese Girls and Women, byMiss A. M. Bacon, Boston, 1891; T. J. , Article Woman, and in Index, Adoption, Children, etc. ; M. E. , 1st ed. , p. 585; Marriage in Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIII. , p. 114; and papers in the German Asiatic Societyof Japan. ]

[Footnote 21: See Mr. F. W. Eastlake's papers in the Popular ScienceMonthly. ]

[Footnote 22: See Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II, pp. 181-182. "It isto be feared, however, that this reform [of the Yoshiwara system], likemany others in Japan, never got beyond paper, for Mr. Norman in hisrecent book, The Real Japan [Chap. XII. ], describes a scarcely modifiedsystem in full vigor. " See also Japanese Girls and Women, pp. 289-292. ]

[Footnote 23: See Pung Kwang Yu's paper, read at the Parliament ofReligions in Chicago, and The Chinese as Painted by Themselves, byColonel Tcheng-Ki-Tong, New York and London, 1885. Dr. W. A. P. Martin'sscholarly book, The Chinese, New York, 1881, in the chapter Remarks onthe Ethical Philosophy of the Chinese, gives in English and Chinese aChart of Chinese Ethics in which the whole scheme of philosophy, ethics, and self-culture is set forth. ]

[Footnote 24: See an exceedingly clear, able, and accurate article onThe Ethics of Confucius as Seen in Japan, by the veteran scholar, Rev. J. H. De Forest, The Andover Review, May, June, 1893. He is the authorityfor the statements concerning non-attendance (in Old Japan) of thehusband at the wife's, and older brother at younger brother's funeral. ]

[Footnote 25: A Japanese translation of Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures, in a T[=o]ki[=o] morning newspaper "met with instant and universalapproval, " showing that Douglas Jerrold's world-famous character has hercounterpart in Japan, where, as a Japanese proverb declares, "the tonguethree inches long can kill a man six feet high. " Sir Edwin Arnold andMr. E. H. House, in various writings, have idealized the admirable traitsof the Japanese woman. See also Mr. Lafcadio Hearn's Glimpses ofUnfamiliar Japan, Boston, 1894; and papers (The Eternal Feminine, etc. ), in the Atlantic Monthly. ]

[Footnote 26: Summary of the Japanese Penal Codes, T. A. S. J. , Vol. V. , Part II. ; The Penal Code of Japan, and The Code of Criminal Procedure ofJapan, Yokohama. ]

[Footnote 27: See T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIII. , p. 114; the Chapter on Marriageand Divorce, in Japanese Girls and Women, pp. 57-84. The followingfigures are from the Résumé Statistique de L'Empire du Japon, publishedannually by the Imperial Government:

 MARRIAGES. DIVORCES. Number. Per 1, 000 Number. Per 1, 000 Persons. Persons. 

1887. .. . 334, 149 8. 55 110, 859 2. 841888. .. . 330, 246 8. 34 109, 175 2. 761889. .. . 340, 445 8. 50 107, 458 2. 681890. .. . 325, 141 8. 04 197, 088 2. 701891. .. . 352, 051 8. 00 112, 411 2. 761892. .. . 348, 489 8. 48 113, 498 2. 76]

[Footnote 28: This was strikingly brought out in the hundreds of Englishcompositions (written by students of the Imperial University, 1872-74, describing the home or individual life of students), examined and readby the author. ]

[Footnote 29: Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto--HéautonTomoroumenos, Act--, Scene 1, line 25, where Chremes inquires about hisneighbor's affairs. For the golden rule of Jesus and the silver rule ofConfucius, see Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese. ]

[Footnote 30: "What you do not want done to yourselves, do not do toothers. " Legge, The Religions of China, p. 137; Doolittle's Social Lifeof the Chinese; The Testament of Iyéyas[)u];, Cap. LXXI. , translated byJ. C. Lowder, Yokohama, 1874. ]

[Footnote 31: Die politische Bedeutung der amerikanischer Expeditionnach Japan, 1852, by Tetsutaro Yoshida, Heidelberg, 1893; The UnitedStates and Japan (p. 39), by Inazo Nitobé, Baltimore, 1891; MatthewCalbraith Perry, Chap. XXVIII. ; T. J. , Article Perry; Life and Letters ofS. Wells Williams, New York, 1889. ]

[Footnote 32: See Life of Matthew Calbraith Perry, pp. 363, 364. ]

[Footnote 33: Lee's Jerusalem Illustrated, p. 88. ]

CHAPTER V

CONFUCIANISM IN ITS PHILOSOPHICAL FORM

[Footnote 1: See On the Early History of Printing in Japan, by E. M. Satow, T. A. S. J. , Vol. X. , pp. 1-83, 252-259; The Jesuit Mission Press inJapan, by E. M. Satow (privately printed, 1888), and Review of thismonograph by Professor B. H. Chamberlain, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. , pp. 91-100. ]

[Footnote 2: The Tokugawa Princes of Mito, by Ernest W. Clement, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVIII. , pp. 1-24, and Letters in The Japan Mail, 1889. ]

[Footnote 3: Effect of Buddhism on the Philosophy of the Sung Dynasty, p. 318, Chinese Buddhism, by Rev. J. Edkins, Boston, 1880. ]

[Footnote 4: C. R. M. , p. 200; The Middle Kingdom, by S. Wells Williams, Vol. II. , p. 174. ]

[Footnote 5: C. R. M. , p. 34. He was the boy-hero, who smashed with astone the precious water-vase in order to save from drowning a playmatewho had tumbled in, so often represented in Chinese popular art. ]

[Footnote 6: C. R. M. , pp. 25-26; The Middle Kingdom, Vol. I. , pp. 113, 540, 652-654, 677. ]

[Footnote 7: This decade in Chinese history was astonishingly like thatof the United States from 1884 to 1894, in which the economical theoriesadvocated in certain journals, in the books Progress and Poverty, Looking Backward, and by the Populists, have been so widely read anddiscussed, and the attempts made to put them into practice. The Chinesetheorist of the eleventh century, Wang Ngan-shih was "a poet and authorof rare genius. "--C. R. M. , p. 244. ]

[Footnote 8: John xxi. 25. ]

[Footnote 9: This is the opinion of no less capable judges than Dr. George Wm. Knox and Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain. ]

[Footnote 10: The United States and Japan, pp. 25-27; Life of TakanoChoyéi by Kato Sakayé, T[=o]ki[=o], 1888. ]

[Footnote 11: Note on Japanese Schools of Philosophy, by T. Haga, andpapers by Dr. G. W. Knox, Dr. T. Inoué, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX, Part I. ]

[Footnote 12: A religion, surely, with men like Yokoi Héishiro. ]

[Footnote 13: See pp. 110-113. ]

[Footnote 14: _Kinno_--loyalty to the Emperor; T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , p. 147. ]

[Footnote 15: "Originally recognizing the existence of a Supremepersonal Deity, it [Confucianism] has degenerated into a pantheisticmedley, and renders worship to an impersonal _anima mundi_ under theleading forms of visible nature. "--Dr. W. A. P. Martin's The Chinese, p. 108. ]

[Footnote 16: Ki, Ri, and Ten, Dr. George Wm. Knox, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , pp. 155-177. ]

[Footnote 17: T. J. , p. 94. ]

[Footnote 18: T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , p. 156. ]

[Footnote 19: Matthew Calbraith Perry, p. 373; Japanese Life of YoshidaShoin, by Tokutomi, T[=o]ki[=o], 1894; Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II. , p. 83. ]

[Footnote 20: "The Chinese accept Confucius in every detail, both astaught by Confucius and by his disciples. .. . The Japanese recognize bothreligions [Buddhism and Confucianism] equally, but Confucianism in Japanhas a direct bearing upon everything relating to human affairs, especially the extreme loyalty of the people to the emperor, while theKoreans consider it more useful in social matters than in any otherdepartment of life, and hardly consider its precepts in their businessand mercantile relations. "

"Although Confucianism is counted a religion, it is really a system ofsociology. .. . Confucius was a moralist and statesman, and his disciplesare moralists and economists. "--Education in Korea, by Mr. Pom K. Soh, of the Korean Embassy to the United States; Report of U. S. Commissionerof Education, 1890-91, Vol. I. , pp. 345-346. ]

[Footnote 21: In Bakin, who is the great teacher of the Japanese bymeans, of fiction, this is the idea always inculcated. ]

CHAPTER VI

THE BUDDHISM OF NORTHERN ASIA

[Footnote 1: See his Introduction to the Saddharma Pundarika, SacredBooks of the East, and his Buddhismus. ]

[Footnote 2: Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by Buddhism;Non-Christian Religious Systems--Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 3: The sketch of Indian thought here following is digestedfrom material obtained from various works on Buddhism and from theHistories of India. See the excellent monograph of Romesh Chunder Dutt, in Epochs of Indian History, London and New York, 1893; and Outlines ofThe Mahayana, as Taught by Buddha ("for circulation among the members ofthe Parliament of Religions, " and distributed in Chicago), Toki[=o], 1893. ]

[Footnote 4: Dyaus-Pitar, afterward _zeus patêr_. See CenturyDictionary, Jupiter. ]

[Footnote 5: Yoga is the root form of our word yoke, which at oncesuggests the union of two in one. See Yoga, in The Century Dictionary. ]

[Footnote 6: Dutt's History of India. ]

[Footnote 7: The differences between the simple primitive narrative ofGautama's experiences in attaining Buddhahood, and the richlyembroidered story current in later ages, may be seen by reading, first, Atkinson's Prince Sidartha, the Japanese Buddha, and then Arnold's Lightof Asia. See also S. And H. , Introduction, pp. 70-84, etc. Atkinson'sbook is refreshing reading after the expurgation and sublimation of thesame theme in Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia. ]

[Footnote 8: Romesh Chunder Dutt's Ancient India, p. 100. ]

[Footnote 9: Origin and Growth of Religion by T. Rhys Davids, p. 28. ]

[Footnote 10: Job i. 6, Hebrew. ]

[Footnote 11: Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 29. ]

[Footnote 12: "Buddhism so far from tracing 'all things' to 'matter' astheir original, denies the reality of matter, but it nowhere denies thereality of existence. "--The Phoenix, Vol. I. , p. 156. ]

[Footnote 13: See A Year among the Persians, by Edward G. Browne, London, 1893. ]

[Footnote 14: Dutt's History of India, pp. 153-156. See also Mozoomdar'sThe Spirit of God, p. 305. "Buddhism, though for a long time itsupplanted the parent system, was the fulfilment of the prophecy ofuniversal peace, which Hinduism had made; and when, in its turn, it wasoutgrown by the instincts of the Aryans, it had to leave India indeedforever, but it contributed quite as much to Indian religion as it hadever borrowed. "]

[Footnote 15: Korean Repository, Vol. I. , pp. 101, 131, 153; Siebold'sNippon, Archiv; Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1890-91, Vol. I. , p. 346; Dallet's Histoire de l'Église de Corée, Vol. 1. , Introd. , p. Cxlv. ; Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 331. ]

[Footnote 16: See Brian H. Hodgson's The Literature and History of theBuddhists, in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, which isepitomized in The Phoenix, Vol. I. ; Beal's Buddhism in China, Chap. II. ;T. Rhys Davids's Buddhism, etc. To Brian Houghton Hodgson, (of whosedeath at the ripe age of ninety-three years we read in Luzac's OrientalList) more than to any one writer, are we indebted for our knowledge ofNorthern or Mahayana Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 17: See the very accurate, clear, and full definitions andexplanations in The Century Dictionary. ]

[Footnote 18: This subject is fully discussed by Professor T. RhysDavids in his compact Manual of Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 19: See Century Dictionary. ]

[Footnote 20: Jap. Mon-ju. One of the most famous images of thisBodhisattva is at Zenkô-ji, Nagano. See Kern's Saddharma Pundarika, p. 8, and the many referents to Manjusri in the Index. That Manjusri wasthe legendary civilizer of Nepaul seems probable from the followingextract from Brian Hodgson: "The Swayambhu Purana relates in substanceas follows: That formerly the valley of Nepaul was of circular form, andfull of very deep water, and that the mountains confining it wereclothed with the densest forests, giving shelter to numberless birds andbeasts. Countless waterfowl rejoiced in the waters. .. . 

". .. Vipasyi, having thrice circumambulated the lake, seated himself inthe N. W. (Váyubona) side of it, and, having repeated several mantrasover the root of a lotos, he threw it into the water, exclaiming, 'Whattime this root shall produce a flower, then, from out of the flower, Swayambhu, the Lord of Agnishtha Bhuvana, shall be revealed in the formof flame; and then shall the lake become a cultivated and populouscountry. ' Having repeated these words, Vipasyi departed. Long after thedate of this prophecy, it was fulfilled according to the letter. .. . 

". .. When the lake was dessicated (by the sword of Manjusri says themyth--probably earthquake) Karkotaka had a fine tank built for him todwell in; and there he is still worshipped, also in the cave-templeappendant to the great Buddhist shrine of Swayambhu Nath. .. . 

". .. The Bodhisatwa above alluded to is Manju Sri, whose native place isvery far off, towards the north, and is called Pancha Sirsha Parvata(which is situated in Maha China Des). After the coming of ViswabhuBuddha to Naga Vasa, Manju Sri, meditating upon what was passing in theworld, discovered by means of his divine science thatSwayambhu-jyotirupa, that is, the self-existent, in the form of flame, was revealed out of a lotos in the lake of Naga Vasa. Again, hereflected within himself: 'Let me behold that sacred spot, and my namewill long be celebrated in the world;' and on the instant, collectingtogether his disciples, comprising a multitude of the peasantry of theland, and a Raja named Dharmakar, he assumed the form of Viswakarma, andwith his two Devis (wives) and the persons above-mentioned, set out uponthe long journey from Sirsha Parvata to Naga Vasa. There having arrived, and having made puja to the self-existent, he began to circumambulatethe lake, beseeching all the while the aid of Swayambhu in prayer. Inthe second circuit, when he had reached the central barrier mountain tothe south, he became satisfied that that was the best place whereat todraw off the waters of the lake. Immediately he struck the mountain withhis scimitar, when the sundered rock gave passage to the waters, and thebottom of the lake became dry. He then descended from the mountain, andbegan to walk about the valley in all directions. "--The Phoenix, Vol. II. , pp. 147-148. ]

[Footnote 21: Jap. Kwannon, god or goddess of mercy, in his or hermanifold forms, Thousand-handed, Eleven-faced, Horse-headed, Holy, etc. ]

[Footnote 22: Or, The Lotus of the Good Law, a mystical name for thecosmos. "The good law is made plain by flowers of rhetoric. " See Bernoufand Kern's translations, and Edkin's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 43, 214. Translations of this work, so influential in Japanese Buddhism, exist inFrench, German, and English. See Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI. , byProfessor H. Kern, of Leyden University. In the Introduction, p. Xxxix. , the translator discusses age, authorship, editions, etc. Bunyiu Nanjio'sShort History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, pp. 132-134. Bealin his Catena of Buddhist Scriptures, pp. 389-396, has translatedChapter XXIV. ]

[Footnote 23: At the great Zenk[=o]ji, a temple of the Tendai sect, atNagano, Japan, dedicated to three Buddhist divinities, one of whom isKwannon (Avalokitesvara, the rafters of the vast main hall are said tonumber 69, 384, in reference to the number of Chinese characterscontained in the translation of the Saddharma Pundarika. ]

[Footnote 24: "The third (collection of the Tripitaka) was . .. Made byManjusri and Maitreya. This is the collection of the Mahayana books. Though it is as clear or bright as the sun at midday yet the men of theHinayana are not ashamed of their inability to know them and speak evilof them instead, just as the Confucianists call Buddhism a law ofbarbarians, without reading the Buddhist books at all. "--B. N. , p. 51. ]

[Footnote 25: See the writings of Brian Hodgson, J. Edkins, E. J. Eitel, S. Beal, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc. ]

[Footnote 26: See Chapter VIII. In T. Rhys Davids's Buddhism, a book ofgreat scholarship and marvellous condensation. ]

[Footnote 27: Davids's Buddhism, p. 206. Other illustrations of thegrowth of the dogmas of this school of Buddhism we select from BrianHodgson's writings. 

1. The line of division between God and man, and between gods and man, was removed by Buddhism. 

"Genuine Buddhism never seems to contemplate any measures of acceptancewith the deity; but, overleaping the barrier between finite and infinitemind, urges its followers to aspire by their own efforts to that divineperfectibility of which it teaches that man is capable, and by attainingwhich man becomes God--and thus is explained both the quiescence of theimaginary celestial, and the plenary omnipotence of the real ManushiBuddhas--thus, too, we must account for the fact that genuine Buddhismhas no priesthood; the saint despises the priest; the saint scorns theaid of mediators, whether on earth or in heaven; 'conquer (exclaims theadept or Buddha to the novice or BodhiSattwa)--conquer the importunitiesof the body, urge your mind to the meditation of abstraction, and youshall, in time, discover the great secret (Sunyata) of nature: knowthis, and you become, on the instant, whatever priests have feigned ofGodhead--you become identified with Prajna, the sum of all the power andall the wisdom which sustain and govern the world, and which, as theyare manifested out of matter, must belong solely to matter; not indeedin the gross and palpable state of pravritti, but in the archetypal andpure state of nirvritti. Put off, therefore, the vile, pravrittikanecessities of the body, and the no less vile affections of the mind(Tapas); urge your thought into pure abstraction (Dhyana), and then, asassuredly you can, so assuredly you shall, attain to the wisdom of aBuddha (Bodhijnana), and become associated with the eternal unity andrest of nirvritti. '"--The Phoenix, Vol. I. , p. 194. 

2. A specimen of "esoteric" and "exoteric" Buddhism;--the BuddhaTatkagata. 

"And as the wisdom of man is, in its origin, but an effluence of theSupreme wisdom (_Prajná_) of nature, so is it perfected by a refluenceto its source, but without loss of individuality; whence Prajna isfeigned in the exoteric system to be both the mother and the wife of allthe Buddhas, '_janani sarva Buddkánám_, ' and '_Jina-sundary_;' for theefflux is typified by a birth, and the reflux by a marriage. 

"The Buddha is the adept in the wisdom of Buddhism (_Bodhijnána_) whosefirst duty, so long as he remains on earth, is to communicate his wisdomto those who are willing to receive it. These willing learners are the'Bodhisattwas, ' so called from their hearts being inclined to the wisdomof Buddhism, and 'Sanghas, ' from their companionship with one another, and with their Buddha or teacher, in the _Viháras_ or coenobiticalestablishments. "

"And such is the esoteric interpretation of the third (and inferior)member of the Prajniki Triad. The Bodhisattwa or Sangha continues to besuch until he has surmounted the very last grade of that vast andlaborious ascent by which he is instructed that he can 'scale theheavens, ' and pluck immortal wisdom from its resplendent source: whichachievement performed, he becomes a Buddha, that is, an OmniscientBeing, and a _Tathágata_--a title implying the accomplishment of thatgradual increase in wisdom by which man becomes immortal or ceases to besubject to transmigration. "--The Phoenix, Vol. I. , pp. 194, 195. 

3. Is God all, or is all God?

"What that grand secret, that ultimate truth, that single reality, is, whether all is God, or God is all, seems to be the sole _proposition_ ofthe oriental philosophic religionists, who have all alike sought todiscover it by taking the high _priori_ road. That God is all, appearsto be the prevalent dogmatic determination of the Brahmanists; that allis God, the preferential but sceptical solution of the _Buddhists_; and, in a large view, I believe it would be difficult to indicate any furtheressential difference between their theoretic systems, both, as Iconceive, the unquestionable growth of the Indian soil, and both foundedupon transcendental speculation, conducted in the very same style andmanner. "--The Phoenix, Vol. II. , p. 45. 

4. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. 

"In a philosophical light, the precedence of Buddha or of Dharmaindicates the theistic or atheistic school. With the former, Buddha isintellectual essence, the efficient cause of all, and underived. Dharmais material essence, the plastic cause, and underived, a co-equalbiunity with Buddha; or else the plastic cause, as before, but dependentand derived from Buddha. Sangha is derived from, and compounded of, Buddha, and Dharma, is their collective energy in the state of action;the immediate operative cause of creation, its type or its agent. Withthe latter or atheistic schools, Dharma is _Diva natura_, matter as thesole entity, invested with intrinsic activity and intelligence, theefficient and material cause of all. 

"Buddha is derivative from Dharma, is the active and intelligent forceof nature, first put off from it and then operating upon it. Sangha isthe _result_ of that operation; is embryotic creation, the type and sumof all specific forms, which are spontaneously evolved from the union ofBuddha with Dharma. "--The Phoenix, Vol. II. , p. 12. 

5. The mantra or sacred sentence best known in the Buddhadom and abroad. 

"_Amitábha_ is the fourth _Dhyani_ or celestial _Budda: Padma-pani_ his_Æon_ and executive minister. _Padma-pani_ is the _praesens Divus_ andcreator of the _existing_ system of worlds. Hence his identificationwith the third member of the _Triad_. He is figured as a graceful youth, erect, and bearing in either hand a _lotos_ and a jewel. The lastcircumstance explains the meaning of the celebrated _ShadaksháriMantra_, or six-lettered invocation of him, viz. , _Om! Manipadme hom!_of which so many corrupt versions and more corrupt interpretations haveappeared from Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other sources. The_mantra_ in question is one of three, addressed to the several membersof the _Triad_. 1. _Om sarva vidye hom_. 2. _Om Prajnáye hom_. 3. _Ommani-padme hom_. 1. The mystic triform Deity is in the all-wise(Buddha). 2. The mystic triform Deity is in Prajna (Dharma). 3. Themystic triform Deity is in him of the jewel and lotos (Sangha). But thepraesens Divus, whether he be Augustus or _Padma-pani_, is everythingwith the many. Hence the notoriety of this _mantra_, whilst the othersare hardly ever heard of, and have thus remained unknown to ourtravellers. "--The Phoenix, Vol. II. , p. 64. ]

[Footnote 28: "Nine centuries after Buddha, Maitreya (Miroku or Ji-shi)came down from the Tushita heaven to the lecture-hall in the kingdom ofAyodhya (A-ya-sha) in Central India, at the request of the BodhisattvaAsamga (Mu-jaku) and discoursed five Sastras, 1, Yoga-karya-bhumi-sastra(Yu-ga-shi-ji-ron), etc. .. . After that, the two great Sastra teachers, Asanga and Vasubandhu (Se-shin), who were brothers, composed manySastras (Ron) and cleared up the meaning of the Mahayana" (or GreaterVehicle, canon of Northern Buddhism). --B. N. , p. 32. ]

[Footnote 29: Buddhism, T. Rhys Davids, pp. 206-211. ]

[Footnote 30: Prayer-wheels in Japan are used by the Tendai and Shingonsects, but without written prayers attached, and rather as anillustration of the doctrine of cause and effect (ingwa); the prayersbeing usually offered to Jizo the merciful. --S. And H. , p. 29; T. J. , p. 360. ]

[Footnote 31: For this see Edkins's Chinese Buddhism; Eitel's ThreeLectures, and Hand-book; Rev. S. Beal's Buddhism, and A Catena ofBuddhist Scriptures from the Chinese; The Romantic Legend of SakyaBuddha, from the Chinese; Texts from the Buddhist canon commonly knownas the Dhammapeda; Notes on Buddhist Words and Phrases, theChrysanthemum, Vol. I. ; The Phoenix, Vols. I-III. 

See, also, a spirited sketch of Ancient Japan, by Frederick VictorDickins, in the Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II. , pp. 4-14. ]

[Footnote 32: S. And H. , pp. 289, 293; Chamberlain's Hand-book forJapan, p. 220; Summer's Notes on Osaka, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VIL, p. 382;Buddhism, and Traditions Concerning its Introduction into Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIV. , p. 78. ]

[Footnote 33: S. And H. , p. 344. ]

[Footnote 34: T. J. , p. 73. ]

[Footnote 35: Vairokana is the first or chief of the fivepersonifications of Wisdom, and in Japan the idol is especiallynoticeable in the temples of the Tendai sect. --"The Action of Vairokana, or the great doctrine of the highest vehicle of the secret union, " etc. , B. N. , p. 75. ]

[Footnote 36: S. And H. , p. 390; B. N. , p. 29. ]

[Footnote 37: "Hinduism stands for philosophic spirituality and emotion, Buddhism for ethics and humanity, Christianity for fulness of God'sincarnation in man, while Mohammedanism is the champion ofuncompromising monotheism. "--F. P. C. Mozoomdar's The Spirit of God, Boston, 1894, p. 305. ]

CHAPTER VII

RIY[=O]BU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

[Footnote 1: Is not something similar frankly attempted in Rev. Dr. Joseph Edkins's The Early Spread of Religious Ideas in the Far East(London, 1893)?]

[Footnote 2: M. E. , p. 252; Honda the Samurai, pp. 193-194. ]

[Footnote 3: See The Lily Among Thorns, A Study of the Biblical DramaEntitled the Song of Songs (Boston 1890), in which this subject isglanced at. ]

[Footnote 4: See The Religion of Nepaul, Buddhist Philosophy, and thewritings of Brian Hodgson in The Phoenix, Vols. I. , II. , III. ]

[Footnote 5: See Century Dictionary, Yoga; Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 169-174; T. Rhys Davids's Buddhism, pp. 206-211; Index of B. N. , under Vagrasattwa; S. And H. , pp. 85-87. ]

[Footnote 6: T. J. , p. 226; Kojiki, Introduction. ]

[Footnote 7: See in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, avery valuable paper by Mr. L. A. Waddell, on The Northern BuddhistMythology, epitomized in the Japan Mail, May 5, 1894. ]

[Footnote 8: See Catalogue of Chinese and Japanese Paintings in theBritish Museum, and The Pictorial Arts of Japan, by William Anderson, M. D. ]

[Footnote 9: Anderson's Catalogue, p. 24. ]

[Footnote 10: S. And H. , p. 415; Chamberlain's Hand-book for Japan;T. J. ; M. E. , p. 162, etc. ]

[Footnote 11: The names of Buddhist priests and monks are usuallydifferent from those of the laity, being taken from events in the lifeof Gautama, or his original disciples, passages in the sacred classics, etc. Among some personal acquaintances in the Japanese priesthood weresuch names as Lift-the-Kettle, Take-Hold-of-the-Dipper, Drivelling-Drunkard, etc. In the raciness, oddity, literalness, realism, and close connection of their names with the scriptures of their system, the Buddhists quite equal the British Puritans. ]

[Footnote 12: Kern's Saddharma-Pundarika, pp. 311, 314; Davids'sBuddhism p. 208; The Phoenix, Vol. I. , p. 169; S. And H. , p. 502; DuBose's Dragon, Demon, and Image, p. 407; Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 134;Hough's Corean Collections, Washington, 1893, p. 480, plate xxviii. ]

[Footnote 13: Japan in History, Folk-lore and Art, pp. 86, 80-88; AJapanese Grammar, by J. J. Hoffman, p. 10; T. J. , pp. 465-470. ]

[Footnote 14: This is the essence of Buddhism, and was for centuriesrepeated and learned by heart throughout the empire:

 "Love and enjoyment disappear, What in our world endureth here? E'en should this day it oblivion be rolled, 'Twas only a vision that leaves me cold. "]

[Footnote 15: This legend suggests the mediaeval Jewish story, thatEzra, the scribe, could write with five pens at once; Hearn's Glimpsesof Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 29-33. ]

[Footnote 16: Brave Little Holland, and What She Taught Us, p. 124. ]

[Footnote 17: T. J. , pp. 75, 342; Chamberlain's Hand-book for Japan, p. 41; M. E. , p. 162. ]

[Footnote 18: T. A. S. J. , Vol. II. , p. 101; S. And H. , p. 176. ]

[Footnote 19: It was for lifting with his walking-stick the curtainhanging before the shrine of this Kami that Arinori Mori, formerlyH. I. J. M. Minister at Washington and London, was assassinated by aShint[=o] fanatic, February 11, 1889; T. J. , p. 229; see PercivalLowell's paper in the Atlantic Monthly. ]

[Footnote 20: See Mr. P. Lowell's Esoteric Shint[=o], T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI, pp. 165-167, and his "Occult Japan. "]

[Footnote 21: S. And H. , Japan, p. 83. ]

[Footnote 22: See the Author's Introduction to the Arabian Nights'Entertainments, Boston, 1891. ]

[Footnote 23: B. N. , Index and pp. 78-103; Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, p. 169. ]

[Footnote 24: Satow's or Chamberlain's Guide-books furnish hundreds ofother instances, and describe temples in which the renamed kami areworshipped. ]

[Footnote 25: S. And H. , p. 70. ]

[Footnote 26: M. E. , pp. 187, 188; S. And H. , pp. 11, 12. ]

[Footnote 27: San Kai Ri (Mountain, Sea, and Land). This work, recommended to me by a learned Buddhist priest in Fukui, I hadtranslated and read to me by a Buddhist of the Shin Shu sect. In likemanner, even Christian writers in Japan have occasionally endeavored torationalize the legends of Shint[=o], see Kojiki, p. Liii. , where Mr. T. Goro's Shint[=o] Shin-ron is referred to. I have to thank my friend Mr. C. Watanabé, of Cornell University, for reading to me Mr. Takahashi'sinteresting but unconvincing monographs on Shint[=o] and Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 28: T. J. , p. 402; Some Chinese Ghosts, by Lafcadio Hearn, p. 129. ]

[Footnote 29: S. And H. , Japan, p. 397; Classical Poetry of theJapanese, p. 201, note. ]

[Footnote 30: The Japanese word Ry[=o] means both, and is applied to theeyes, ears, feet, things correspondent or in pairs, etc. ; _bu_ is a termfor a set, kind, group, etc. ]

[Footnote 31: Rein, p. 432; T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI. , pp. 241-270; T. J. , p. 339. ]

[Footnote 32: The Chrysanthemum, Vol. I. , p. 401. ]

[Footnote 33: Even the Takétori Monogatari (The Bamboo Cutter'sDaughter), the oldest and the best of the Japanese classic romances is(at least in the text and form now extant) a warp of native ideas with awoof of Buddhist notions. ]

[Footnote 34: Mr. Percival Lowell argues, in Esoteric Shint[=o], T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI. , that besides the habit of pilgrimages, fire-walking, and god-possession, other practices supposed to beBuddhistic are of Shint[=o] origin. ]

[Footnote 35: The native literature illustrating Riy[=o]buism is notextensive. Mr. Ernest Satow in the American Cyclopædia (Japan:Literature) mentions several volumes. The Tenchi Réiki Noko, in eighteenbooks contains a mixture of Buddhism and Shint[=o], and is ascribed bysome to Sh[=o]toku and by others to K[=o]b[=o], but now literary criticsascribe these, as well as the books Jimbetsuki and Tenshoki, to bemodern forgeries by Buddhist priests. The Kogoshiui, written in A. D. 807, professes to preserve fragments of ancient tradition not recordedin the earlier books, but the main object is that which lies at thebasis of a vast mass of Japanese literature, namely, to prove theauthor's own descent from the gods. The Yuiitsu Shint[=o] Miyoho Yoshiu, in two volumes, is designed to prove that Shint[=o] and Buddhism areidentical in their essence. Indeed, almost all the treatises onShint[=o] before the seventeenth century maintained this view. Certainbooks like the Shint[=o] Shu, for centuries popular, and well receivedeven by scholars, are now condemned on account of their confusion of thetwo religions. One of the most interesting works which we have found isthe San Kai Ri, to which reference has been made. ]

[Footnote 36: T. J. , p. 224. ]

[Footnote 37: "Human life is but fifty years, " Japanese Proverb; M. E. , p. 107. ]

[Footnote 38: Chamberlain's Classical Poetry of the Japanese, p. 130. ]

[Footnote 39: S. And H. , p. 416. ]

[Footnote 40: Things Chinese, by J. Dyer Ball, p. 70; see also Edkinsand Eitel. ]

[Footnote 41: The Japan Weekly Mail of April 28, 1893, translating andcondensing an article from the Bukky[=o], a Buddhist newspaper, givesthe results of a Japanese Buddhist student's tour through China--"Taoismprevails everywhere. .. . Buddhism has decayed and is almost dead. "]

[Footnote 42: Vaisramana is a Deva who guarded, praised, fed withheavenly food, and answered the questions of the Chinese D[=o]-sen(608-907 A. D. ) who founded the Risshu or Vinaya sect. --B. N. , p. 25. ]

[Footnote 43: Anderson, Catalogue, pp. 29-45. ]

[Footnote 44: Some of those are pictured in Aimé Humbert's JaponIllustré, and from the same pictures reproduced by electro-plates which, from Paris, have transmigrated for a whole generation through thecheaper books on Japan, in every European language. ]

CHAPTER VIII

NORTHERN BUDDHISM IS ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

[Footnote 1: On the Buddhist canon, see the writings of Beal, SpenceHardy, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc. ]

[Footnote 2: Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 43, 108, 214; ClassicalPoetry of the Japanese, p. 173. ]

[Footnote 3: See T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIX. , Part I. , pp. 17-37; The Soul ofthe Far East; and the writings of Chamberlain, Aston, Dickins, Munzinger, etc. ]

[Footnote 4: Much of the information as to history and doctrinecontained in this chapter has been condensed from Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio's AShort History of the Twelve Japanese Buddhist Sects, translated out ofthe Japanese into English. This author, besides visiting the old seatsof the faith in China, studied Sanskrit at Oxford with Professor MaxMüller, and catalogued in English the Tripitaka or Buddhist canon ofChina and Japan, sent to England by the ambassador Iwakura. The ninereverend gentlemen who wrote the chapters and introduction of the ShortHistory are Messrs. K[=o]-ch[=o] Ogurusu, and Shu-Zan Emura of the Shinsect; Rev. Messrs. Sh[=o]-hen Uéda, and Dai-ryo Takashi, of the Shin-gonSect; Rev. Messrs. Gy[=o]-kai Fukuda, Keu-k[=o] Tsuji, Renj[=o]Akamatsu, and Zé-jun Kobayashi of the J[=o]-d[=o], Zen, Shin, andNichiren sects, respectively. Though execrably printed, and the Englishonly tolerable, the work is invaluable to the student of JapaneseBuddhism. It has a historical introduction and a Sanskrit-Chinese Index, 1 vol. , pp. 172, T[=o]ki[=o], 1887. Substantially the same work, translated into French, is Le Bouddhisme Japonais, by Ryauon Fujishima, Paris, 1889. Satow and Hawes's Hand-book for Japan has brief butvaluable notes in the Introduction, and, like Chamberlain's continuationof the same work, is a storehouse of illustrative matter. Edkine's andEitel's works on Chinese Buddhism have been very helpful. ]

[Footnote 5: M. Abel Remusat published a translation of a ChinesePilgrim's travels in 1836; M. Stanislais Julien completed his volume onHiouen Thsang in 1858; and in 1884 Rev. Samuel Beal issued his Travelsof Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India (400A. D. And 518 A. D. ). The latter work contains a map. ]

[Footnote 6: B. N. , p. 3. ]

[Footnote 7: B. N. , p. 11. ]

[Footnote 8: Three hundred and twenty million years. See CenturyDictionary. ]

[Footnote 9: See the paper of Rev. Sh[=o]-hen Uéda of the Shingon sect, in B. N. , pp. 20-31; and R. Fujishima's Le Bouddhisme Japonais, pp. Xvi. , xvii. , from which most of the information here given has been derived. ]

[Footnote 10: M. E. , p. 383; S. And H. , pp. 23, 30. The image of Binzuruis found in many Japanese temples to-day, a famous one being at Asakusa, in T[=o]ki[=o]. He is the supposed healer of all diseases. The imagebecomes entirely rubbed smooth by devotees, to the extinguishment of allfeatures, lines, and outlines. ]

[Footnote 11: Davids's Buddhism, pp. 180, 200; S. And H. , pp. (87) 389, 416. ]

[Footnote 12: B. N. , pp. 32-43. ]

[Footnote 13: B. N. , pp. 44-56. ]

[Footnote 14: Japanese Fairy World, p. 282; Anderson's Catalogue, pp. L03-7. ]

[Footnote 15: B. N. , p. 62. ]

[Footnote 16: Pfoundes, Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 102. ]

[Footnote 17: B. N. , p. 58. See also The Monist for January, 1894, p. 168. ]

[Footnote 18: "Tien Tai, a spot abounding in Buddhist antiquities, theearliest, and except Puto the largest and richest seat of that religionin eastern China. As a monastic establishment it dates from the fourthcentury. "--Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 137-142. ]

[Footnote 19: S. And H. , p. 87. See the paper read at the Parliament ofReligions by the Zen bonze Ashitsu of Hiyéisan, the poem of RightReverend Shaku Soyen, and the paper on The Fundamental Teachings ofBuddhism, in The Monist for January, 1894; Japan As We Saw It, p. 297. ]

[Footnote 20: See Century Dictionary, _mantra_. ]

[Footnote 21: See Chapter XX. Ideas and Symbols in Japan: in History, Folk-lore, and Art. Buddhist tombs (go-rin) consist of a cube (earth), sphere (water), pyramid (fire), crescent (wind), and flame-shaped stone(ether), forming the go-rin or five-blossom tomb, typifying the fiveelements. ]

[Footnote 22: B. N. , p. 78. ]

[Footnote 23: To put this dogma into intelligible English is, as Mr. Satow says, more difficult than to comprehend the whole doctrine, hardas that may be. "Dai Nichi Ni-yorai (Vairokana) is explained to be thecollectivity of all sentient beings, acting through the mediums ofKwan-non, Ji-z[=o], Mon-ju, Shaka, and other influences which arepopularly believed to be self-existent deities. " In the diagram calledthe eight-leaf enclosure, by which the mysteries of Shingon areexplained, Maha-Vairokana is in the centre, and on the eight petals aresuch names as Amitabha, Manjusri, Maitreya, and Avalokitesvara; in aword, all are purely speculative beings, phantoms of the brain, themushrooms of decayed Brahmanism, and the mould of primitive Buddhismdisintegrated by scholasticism. ]

[Footnote 24: S. And H. , p. 31. ]

[Footnote 25: B. N. , p. 115. ]

[Footnote 26: Here let me add that in my studies of oriental and ancientreligion, I have never found one real Trinity, though triads, ortri-murti, are common. None of these when carefully analyzed yield theChristian idea of the Trinity. ]

CHAPTER IX

THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

[Footnote 1: Tathagata is one of the titles of the Buddha, meaning "thuscome, " i. E. , He comes bringing human nature as it truly is, with perfectknowledge and high intelligence, and thus manifests himself. Amitabha isthe Sanskrit of Amida, or the deification of boundless light. ]

[Footnote 2: B. N. , p. 104. ]

[Footnote 3: Literally, I yield to, or I adore the Boundless or theImmeasurable Buddha. ]

[Footnote 4: A Chinese or Japanese volume is much smaller than theaverage printed volume in Europe. ]

[Footnote 5: Legacy of Iyéyas[)u], Section xxviii. Doctrinally, thisfamous document, written probably long after Iyéyas[)u]'s death andcanonization as a _gongen_, is a mixture or _Riy[=o]bu_ of Confucianismand Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 6: At first glance a forcible illustration, since the Japaneseproverb declares that "A sea-voyage is an inch of hell. " And yet theoriginal saying of Ry[=u]-ju, now proverbial in Buddhadom, referred tothe ease of sailing over the water, compared with the difficulty ofsurmounting the obstacles of land travel in countries not yet famous forgood roads. See B. N. , p. 111. ]

[Footnote 7: Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 108; Descriptive Notes on the Rosariesas used by the different Sects of Buddhists in Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. IX. , pp. 173-182. ]

[Footnote 8: B. N. , p. 122. ]

[Footnote 9: S. And H. , p. 361. ]

[Footnote 10: S. And H. , pp. 90-92; Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. II. , pp. 242-253. ]

[Footnote 11: These three sutras are those most in favor with theJ[=o]-d[=o] sect also, they are described, B. N. , 104-106, and theirtenets are referred to on pp. 260, 261. ]

[Footnote 12: For modern statements of Shin tenets and practices, seeE. J. Reed's Japan, Vol. I. , pp. 84-86; The Chrysanthemum, April, 1881, pp. 109-115; Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. II. , 242-246; B. N. , 122-131. Edkins's Religion in China, p. 153. The Chrysanthemum, April, 1881, p. 115. ]

[Footnote 13: S. And H. , p. 361; B. N. , pp. 105, 106. Toward the end ofthe Amitayus-dhyana sutra, Buddha says: "Let not one's voice cease, butten times complete the thought, and repeat Namo'mit[=a]bh[=a]yaBuddh[=a]ya (Namu Amida Butsu) or adoration to Amitb[=a]ha Buddha. "]

[Footnote 14: M. E. , pp. 164-166. ]

[Footnote 15: Schaff's Encyclopaedia, Article, Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 16: On the Tenets of the Shin Shiu, or "True Sect" ofBuddhists, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIV. , p. 1. ]

[Footnote 17: The Gobunsho, or Ofumi, of Renny[=o] Sh[=o]nin, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. , pp. 101-143. ]

[Footnote 18: At the gorgeous services in honor of the founder of thegreat Higashi Hongwanji Western Temple of the Original Vow at Asakusa, T[=o]ki[=o], November 21 to 28, annually, the women attend wearing ahead-dress called "horn-hider, " which seems to have been named inallusion to a Buddhist text which says: "A woman's exterior is that of asaint, but her heart is that of a demon. "--Chamberlain's Hand-book forJapan, p. 82; T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. , pp. 106, 141; Sacred Books of theEast, Vol. XXI. , pp. 251-254. ]

[Footnote 19: Review of Buddhist Texts from Japan, The Nation, No. 875, April 6, 1882. "The _Mah[=a]y[=a]na_ or Great Vehicle (we might fairlyrender it 'highfalutin') school. .. . Filled as these countries (Tibet, China, Japan) are with Buddhist monasteries, and priests, and nominaladherents, and abounding in voluminous translations of the SanskritBuddhistic literature, little understood and wellnigh unintelligible(for neither country has had the independence and mental force toproduce a literature of its own, or to add anything but a chapter ofdecay to the history of this religion). .. . "]

[Footnote 20: M. E. , pp. 164, 165; B. N. , pp. 132-147; Mitford's Tales ofOld Japan, Vol. II. , pp. 125-134. ]

CHAPTER X

JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

[Footnote 1: T. J. , p. 71. Further illustrations of this statement may befound in his Classical Poetry of the Japanese, especially in theSelection and Appendices of this book; also in T. R. H. McClatchie'sJapanese Plays (Versified), London, 1890. ]

[Footnote 2: See Introduction to the Kojiki, pp. Xxxii. -xxxiv. , and inBakin's novel illustrating popular Buddhist beliefs, translated byEdward Greey, A Captive of Love, Boston, 1886. ]

[Footnote 3: See jade in Century Dictionary; "Magatama, so far as I amaware, do not ever appear to have been found in shell heaps" (of theaboriginal Ainos), Milne's Notes on Stone Implements, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VIII. , p. 71. ]

[Footnote 4: Concerning this legendary, and possibly mythical, episode, which has so powerfully influenced Japanese imagination and politics, see T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , Part I. , pp. 39-75; M. E. , pp. 75-85. ]

[Footnote 5: See Corea, the Hermit Nation, pp. 1, 2; Persian Elements inJapanese Legends, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , Part I, pp. 1-10; Journal of theRoyal Asiatic Society, January, 1894. Rein's book, The Industries ofJapan, points out, as far as known, the material debt to India. SomeJapanese words like _beni-gari_ (Bengal) or rouge show at once theirorigin. The mosaic of stories in the Taéktori Monogatari, an allegory inexquisite literary form, illustrating the Buddhist dogma of Ingwa, orlaw of cause and effect, and written early in the ninth century, is madeup of Chinese-Indian elements. See F. V. Dickins's translation and notesin Journal of the Royal Oriental Society, Vol. XIX. , N. S. India was thefar off land of gems, wonders, infallible drugs, roots, etc. ; JapaneseFairy World, p. 137. ]

[Footnote 6: M. E. , Chap. VIII. ; Klaproth's Annales des Empereurs duJapon (a translation of Nippon 0 Dai Ichi Ran); Rein's Japan, p. 224. ]

[Footnote 7: See Klaproth's Annales, _passim_. S. And H. P. 85. Bridgesare often symbolical of events, classic passages in the shastras andsutras, or are antetypes of Paradisaical structures. The ordinary native_hashi_ is not remarkable as a triumph of the carpenter's art, thoughsome of the Japanese books mention and describe in detail somestructures that are believed to be astonishing. ]

[Footnote 8: Often amusingly illustrated, M. E. , p. 390. A translationinto Japanese of Goethe's Reynard the Fox is among the popular works ofthe day. "Strange to say, however, the Japanese lose much of theexquisite humor of this satire in their sympathy with the woes of themaltreated wolf. "--The Japan Mail. This sympathy with animals growsdirectly out of the doctrine of metempsychosis. The relationship betweenman and ape is founded upon the pantheistic identity of being. "Wemention sin, " says a missionary now in Japan, "and he [the averageauditor] thinks of eating flesh, or the killing of insects. " Many of thesutras read like tracts and diatribes of vegetarians. ]

[Footnote 9: See The Art of Landscape Gardening in Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIV. ; Theory of Japanese Flower Arrangements, by J. Conder, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. ; T. J. , p. 168; M. E. , p. 437; T. J. , p. 163. ]

[Footnote 10: _The_ book, by excellence, on the Japanese house, isJapanese Homes and Their Surroundings, by E. S. Morse. See alsoConstructive Art in Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. II. , p. 57, III. , p. 20;Feudal Mansions of Yedo, Vol. VII. , p. 157. ]

[Footnote 11: See Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, pp. 385, 410, and _passim_. ]

[Footnote 12: For pathetic pictures of Japanese daily life, see OurNeighborhood, by the late Dr. T. A. Purcell, Yokohama, 1874; A JapaneseBoy, by Himself (S. Shigémi), New Haven, 1889; Lafcadio Hearn's Glimpsesof Unfamiliar Japan, Boston, 1894. ]

[Footnote 13: Klaproth's Annales, and S. And H. _passim_. ]

[Footnote 14: See Pfoundes's Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 130, for a list ofgrades from Ho-[=o] or cloistered emperor, Miya or sons of emperors, chief priests of sects, etc. , down to priests in charge of inferiortemples. This Budget of Notes, pp. 99-144, contains much valuableinformation, and was one of the first publications in English which shedlight upon the peculiarities of Japanese Buddhism. ]

[Footnote 15: Isaiah xl. 19, 20, and xli. 6, 7, read to the dweller inJapan like the notes of a reporter taken yesterday. ]

[Footnote 16: T. J. , p. 339; Notes on Some Minor Japanese ReligiousPractices, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, May, 1893;Lowell's Esoteric Shint[=o], T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI. ; Satow's The Shint[=o]Temples of Isé, T. A. S. J. , Vol. II. , p. 113. ]

[Footnote 17: M. E. , p. 45; American Cyclopaedia, Japan, Literature--History, Travels, Diaries, etc. ]

[Footnote 18: That is, no dialects like those which separate the peopleof China. The ordinary folks of Satsuma and Suruga, for example, however, would find it difficult to understand each other if only thelocal speech were used. Men from the extremes of the Empire use theT[=o]ki[=o] standard language in communicating with each other. ]

[Footnote 19: For some names of Buddhist temples in Shimoda see Perry'sNarrative, pp. 470-474, described by Dr. S. Wells Williams; S. And H. _passim_. ]

[Footnote 20: The Abbé Huc in his Travels in Tartary was one of thefirst to note this fact. I have not noticed in my reading that theJesuit missionaries in Japan in the seventeenth century call attentionto the matter. See also the writings of Arthur Lillie, voluminous butunconvincing, Buddha and Early Buddhism, and Buddhism and Christianity, London, 1893. ]

[Footnote 21: M. E. , p. 252. ]

[Footnote 22: T. J. , p. 70. ]

[Footnote 23: See The Higher Buddhism in the Light of the Nicene Creed, T[=o]ki[=o], 1894, by Rev. A. Lloyd. ]

[Footnote 24: "I preach with ever the same voice, taking enlightenmentas my text. For this is equal for all; no partiality is in it, neitherhatred nor affection. .. . I am inexorable, bear no love or hatred towardsanyone, and proclaim the law to all creatures without distinction, tothe one as well as to the other. "--Saddharma Pundarika. ]

[Footnote 25: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. II. , p. 247. ]

[Footnote 26: For the symbolism of the lotus see M. E. , p. 437; UnbeatenTracks in Japan, Vol. I. , p. 299; M. E. Index; and Saddharma Pundarika, Kern's translation, p. 76, note:

"Here the Buddha is represented as a wise and benevolent father; he isthe heavenly father, Brahma. As such ho was represented as sitting on a'lotus-seat. ' How common this representation was in India, at least inthe sixth century of our era, appears from Varâhamihira'sBrihat-Sainhita, Ch. 58, 44, where the following rule is laid down forthe Buddha idols: 'Buddha shall be (represented) sitting on alotus-seat, like the father of the world. '"]

[Footnote 27: See The Northern Buddhist Mythology in _Journal of theRoyal Asiatic Society_, January, 1894. ]

[Footnote 28: See The Pictorial Arts of Japan, and Descriptive andHistorical Catalogue, William Anderson, pp. 13-94. ]

[Footnote 29: See fylfot in Century Dictionary. ]

[Footnote 30: The word _vagra_, diamond, is a constituent in scores ofnames of sutras, especially those whose contents are metaphysical intheir nature. The Vajrasan, Diamond Throne or Thunderbolt seat, was thename applied to the most sacred part of the great temple reared by Asokaon the site of the bodhi tree, under which Gautama receivedenlightenment. "The adamantine truths of Buddha struck like athunderbolt upon the superstitious of his age. " "The word vagra has thetwo senses of hardness and utility. In the former sense it is understoodto be compared to the secret truth which is always in existence and notto be broken. In the latter sense it implies the power of theenlightened, that destroys the obstacles of passions. "--B. N. , p. 88. "Asheld in the arms of Kwannon and other images in the temples, " the vagraor "diamond club" (is that) with which the foes of the Buddhist Churchare to be crushed. --S. And H. , p. 444. Each of the gateway gods Ni-[=o](two Kings, Indra and Brahma) "bears in his hand the tokko (Sanskrit_vagra_), an ornament originally designed to represent a diamond club, and now used by priests and exorcists, as a religious sceptresymbolizing the irresistible power of prayer, meditation, andincantation. "--Chamberlain's Hand-book for Japan, p. 31. ]

[Footnote 31: Jiz[=o] is the compassionate helper of all in trouble, especially of travellers, of mothers, and of children. His Sanskrit nameis Kshiugarbha. His idol is one of the most common in Japan. It isusually neck-laced with baby's bibs, often by the score, while thepedestal is heaped with small stones placed there by sorrowingmothers. --S. And H. , p. 29, 394; Chamberlain's Handbook of Japan, 29, 101. Hearn's Japan, p. 34, and _passim_. ]

[Footnote 32: Sanskrit _arhat_ or _arhan_, meaning worthy or deserving, i. E. , holy man, the highest rank of Buddhist saintship. See CenturyDictionary. ]

[Footnote 33: M. E. , p. 201. The long inscription on the bell inWellesley College, which summons the student-maidens to their hourlytasks has been translated by the author and Dr. K. Kurahara and is asfollows:

1. A prose preface or historical statement. 

2. Two stanzas of Chinese poetry, in four-syllable lines, of four verseseach, with an apostrophe in two four-syllable lines. 

3. The chronology. 

4. The names of the composer and calligraphist, and of thebronze-founder. 

The characters in vertical lines are read from top to bottom, the orderof the columns being from right to left. There are in all 117characters. 

The first tablet reads:

Lotus-Lily Temple (of) Law-Grove Mountain; Bell-inscription (and)Preface. 

"Although there had been of old a bell hung in the Temple of theLotus-Lily, yet being of small dimensions its note was quicklyexhausted, and no volume of melody followed (after having been struck). Whereupon, for the purpose of improving upon this state of affairs, wemade a subscription, and collected coin to obtain a new bell. Allbelievers in the doctrine, gods as well as devils, contributed freely. Thus the enterprise was soon consummated, and this inscription prepared, to wit:

"'The most exalted Buddha having pitiful compassion upon the people, would, by means of this bell, instead of words, awaken them from earthlyillusions, and reveal the darkness of this world. 

"'Many of the living hearkening to its voice, and making confession, arefreed from the bondage of their sins, and forever released from theirdisquieting desires. 

"'How great is (Buddha's) merit! Who can utter it? Without measure, boundless!'

"Eleventh year of the Era of the Foundation of Literature (and of themale element) Wood (and of the zodiac sign) Dog; Autumn, seventh month, fifteenth day (A. D. August 30, 1814). 

"Composition and penmanship by Kaméda Koyé-sen. Cast by the artistSugiwara Kuninobu. "

(The poem in unrhymed metre. )

 Buddha in compassion tender With this bell, instead of words, Wakens souls from life's illusions, Lightens this world's darkness drear. 

 Many souls its sweet tones heeding, From their chains of sin are freed; All the mind's unrest is soothed, Sinful yearnings are repressed. 

 Oh how potent is his merit, Without bounds in all the worlds!]

[Footnote 34: Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 129. ]

[Footnote 35: M. E. , pp. 287-290, 513-514; Perry's Narrative, pp. 471, 472; Our Neighborhood, pp. 119-124. The following epitaphs are gatheredfrom various sources:

"This stone marks the remains of the believer who never grows old. "

"The believing woman Yu-ning, Happy was the day of her departure. "

"Multitudes fill the graves. "

"Only by this vehicle--the coffin--can we enter Hades. "

"As the floating grass is blown by the gentle breeze, or the glancingripples of autumn disappear when the sun goes down, or as a ship returnsto her old shore--so is life. It is a vapor, a morning-tide. "

"Buddha himself wishes to hear the name of the deceased that he mayenter life. "

"He who has left humanity is now perfected by Buddha's name, as thewithered moss by the dew. "

"Life is like a candle in the wind. "

"The wise make our halls illustrious, and their monuments endure forages. "

"What permanency is there to the glory of the world? It goes from thesight like hoar-frost in the sun. "

"If men wish to enter the joys of heavenly light, Let them smell the fragrance of the law of Buddha. "

"Whoever wishes to have his merit reach even to the abode of demons, lethim, with us, and all living, become perfect in the doctrine. "]

[Footnote 36: Rev. C. B. Hawarth in the _New York Independent_, January18, 1894. ]

[Footnote 37: In 781 the Buddhist monk Kéi-shun dedicated a chapel toJizo, on whom he conferred the epithet of Sho-gun or general, to suitthe warlike tastes of the Japanese people. --S. And H. , p. 384. So alsoHachiman became the god of war because adopted as the patron deity ofthe Genji warriors. --S. And H. , p. 70. ]

[Footnote 38: Corea, the Hermit Nation, p. 90. ]

[Footnote 39: Dixon's Japan, p. 41; S. And H. , Japan, _passim_; Rein'sJapan; Story of the Nations, Japan, by David Murray, p. 201, note;Dening's life of Toyotomi Hidéyoshi; M. E. , Chapters XV. , XVI. , XX. , XXIII. , XXIV. ; Gazetteer of Echizen; Shiga's History of Nations, T[=o]ki[=o], 1888, pp. 115, 118; T. A. S. J. , Vol. VIII. , pp. 94, 134, 143. ]

[Footnote 40: T. A. S. J. , Vol. VIII. , Hidéyoshi and the Satsuma Clan inthe Sixteenth Century, by J. H. Gubbins; The Times of Taik[=o], by R. Brinkley, in _The Japan Times_. ]

[Footnote 41: The Copy of the Buddhist Tripitaka, or NorthernCollection, made by order of the Emperor, Wan-Li, in the sixteenthcentury, when the Chinese capital (King) was changed from the South(Nan) to the North (Pe), was reproduced in Japan in 1679 and again in1681-83, and in over two thousand volumes, making a pile a hundred feethigh, was presented by the Japanese Government, through the Junior PrimeMinister, Mr. Tomomi Iwakura, to the Library of the India Office. SeeSamuel Beal's The Buddhist Tripitaka, as it is known in China and Japan, A Catalogue and Compendious Report, London, 1876. The library has beenrearranged by Mr. Bunyin Nanjio, who has published the result of hislabors, with Sanskrit equivalents of the titles and with notes of thehighest value. ]

[Footnote 42: "Neither country (China or Japan) has had the independenceand mental force to produce a literature of its own, and to add anythingbut a chapter of decay to the history of this religion. "--ProfessorWilliam D. Whitney, in review of Anecdota Oxoniensia, Buddhist Textsfrom Japan, in _The Nation_, No. 875. ]

[Footnote 43: Education in Japan, A series of papers by the writer, printed in _The Japan Mail_ of 1873-74, and reprinted in the educationaljournals of the United Status. A digest of these papers is given in theappendix of F. O. Adams's History of Japan; Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II. , pp. 305, 306. ]

[Footnote 44: Japan: in Literature, Folk-Lore, and Art, p. 77. ]

[Footnote 45: Japanese Education at the Philadelphia Exposition, NewYork, 1876. ]

[Footnote 46: See Japanese Literature, by E. M. Satow, in The AmericanCyclopædia. ]

[Footnote 47: The word bonze (Japanese _bon-so_ or _bozu_, Chinese_fan-sung_) means an ordinary member of the congregation, just as theJapanese term _bon-yo_ or _bon-zuko_ means common people or the ordinaryfolks. The word came into European use from the Portuguese missionaries, who heard the Japanese thus pronounce the Chinese term _fan_, which, as_bon_, is applied to anything in the mass not out of the common. ]

[Footnote 48: See On the Early History of Printing in Japan, by E. M. Satow, T. A. S. J. , Vol. X. , Part L, p. 48; Part II. , p. 252. ]

[Footnote 49: Japanese mediaeval monastery life has been ably picturedin English fiction by a scholar of imagination and literary power, withal a military critic and a veteran in Japanese lore. "The Times ofTaik[=o], " in the defunct Japanese Times (1878), deserves reprint as abook, being founded on Japanese historical and descriptive works. In Mr. Edward's Greey's A Captive of Love, Boston, 1880, the idea of ingwa (theeffects in this life of the actions in a former state of existence), isillustrated. See also S. And H. , p. 29; T. J. , p. 360. ]

[Footnote 50: It is curious that while the anti-Christian polemics ofthe Japanese Buddhists have used the words of Jesus, "I came to send notpeace but a sword, " Matt, x. 34, and "If any man . .. Hate not his fatherand mother, " etc. , Luke xiv. 26, as a branding iron with which to stampthe religion of Jesus as gross immorality and dangerous to the state, they justify Gautama in his "renunciation" of marital and paternalduties. ]

[Footnote 51: See Public Charity in Japan, Japan Mail, 1893; and TheAnnual (Appleton's) Cyclopaedia for 1893. ]

[Footnote 52: I have some good reasons for making this suggestion. YokoiHéishiro had dwelt for some time in Fukui, a few rods away from thehouse in which I lived, and the ideas he promulgated among the Echizenclansmen in his lectures on Confucianism, were not only Christian inspirit but, by their own statement, these ideas could not be found inthe texts of the Chinese sage or of his commentators. Although thevolume (edited by his son, Rev. J. F. Yokoi) of his Life and Lettersshows him to have been an intense and at times almost bigotedConfucianist, he, in one of his later letters, prophesied that whenChristianity should be taught by the missionaries, it would win thehearts of the young men of Japan. See also Satow's Kinsé Shiriaku, p. 183; Adams's History of Japan; and in fiction, see Honda The Samurai, p. 242, and succeeding chapters. ]

[Footnote 53: In the colorless and unsentimental language of governmentpublications, the Japanese edict of emancipation, issued to the localauthorities in October, 1871, ran as follows: "The designations of etaand hinin are abolished. Those who bore them are to be added to thegeneral registers of the population and their social position andmethods of gaining a livelihood are to be identical with the rest of thepeople. As they have been entitled to immunity from the land tax andother burdens of immemorial custom, you will inquire how this may bereformed and report to the Board of Finance. " (Signed) Council ofState. ]

[Footnote 54: In English fiction, see The Eta Maiden and the Hatamoto, in Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, Vol. I. , pp. 210-245. Discussions as tothe origin of the Eta are to be found in Adams's History of Japan, Vol. I, p. 77; M. E. , index; T. J. , p. 147; S. And H. , p. 36; Honda theSamurai, pp. 246, 247; Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, Vol. I. , pp. 210-245. The literature concerning the Ainos is already voluminous. SeeChamberlain's Aino Studies, with bibliography; and Rev. John Batchelor'sAinu Grammar, published by The Imperial University of T[=o]ki[=o];T. A. S. J. , Vols. X. , XL, XVI. , XVIII. , XX. ; The Ainu of Japan, New York, 1892, by J. Batchelor (who has also translated the Book of CommonPrayer, and portions of the Bible into the Ainu tongue); M. E. , Chap. II. ; T. A. S. J. , Vol. X. , and following volumes; Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, Vol. II. ; Life with Trans-Siberian Savages, London, 1895. ]

[Footnote 55: "Then the venerable S[=a]riputra said to that daughter ofSagara, the N[=a]ga-king: 'Thou hast conceived the idea ofenlightenment, young lady of good family, without sliding back, and artgifted with immense wisdom, but supreme, perfect enlightenment is noteasily won. It may happen, sister, that a woman displays an unflaggingenergy, performs good works for many thousands of Aeons, and fulfils thesix perfect virtues (P[=a]ramit[=a]s), but as yet there is no example ofher having reached Buddhaship, and that because a woman cannot occupythe five ranks, viz. , 1, the rank of Brahma; 2, the rank of Indra; 3, the rank of a chief guardian of the four quarters; 4, the rank ofKakravartin; 5, the rank of a Bodhisattva incapable of sliding back, "Saddharma Pundarika, Kern's Translation, p. 252. ]

[Footnote 56: Chi[=u]-j[=o]-himé was the first Japanese nun, and theonly woman who is commemorated by an idol. "She extracted the fibres ofthe lotus root, and wove them with silk to make tapestry for altars. "Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 128. Her romantic and marvellous story is given inS. And H. , p. 397. "The practice of giving ranks to women was commencedby Jito Tenn[=o] (an empress, 690-705). " Many women shaved their headsand became nuns "on becoming widows, as well as on being forsaken by, orafter leaving their husbands. Others were orphans. " One of the mostfamous nuns (on account of her rank) was the Nii no Ama, widow ofKiyomori and grandmother of the Emperor Antoku, who were both drownednear Shimono-séki, in the great naval battle of 1185 A. D. Adams'sHistory of Japan, Vol. I. , p. 37; M. E. , p. 137. ]

[Footnote 57: M. E. , p. 213; Japanese Women, World's ColumbianExhibition, Chicago, 1893, Chap. III. ]

[Footnote 58: There is no passage in the original Greek texts, or in theRevised Version of the New Testament which ascribes wings to the_aggelos_, or angel. In Rev. Xii. 14, a woman is "given two wings of agreat eagle. "]

[Footnote 59: Japanese Women in Politics, Chap. I. , Japanese Women, Chicago, 1893; Japanese Girls and Women, Chapters VI. And VII. ]

[Footnote 60: Bakin's novels are dominated by this idea, while alsopreaching in fiction strict Confucianism. See A Captive of Love, byEdward Greey. ]

[Footnote 61: "Fate is one of the great words of the East. _Japan'slanguage is loaded and overloaded with it. _ Parents are forever sayingbefore their children, 'There's no help for it. ' I once remarked to aschool-teacher, 'Of course you love to teach children. ' His quick replywas, 'Of course I don't. I do it merely because there is no help forit. ' Moralists here deplore the prosperity of the houses of ill-fame andthen add with a sigh, 'There's no help for it. ' All society reverberateswith this phrase with reference to questions that need the applicationof moral power, will power. "--J. H. De Forest. 

"I do not say there is no will power in the East, for there is. Nor do Isay there is no weak yielding to fate in lands that have the doctrine ofthe Creator, for there is. But, putting the East and West side by side, one need not hesitate to affirm that the reason the will power of theEast is weak cannot be fully explained by any mere doctrine ofenvironment, but must also have some vital connection with the fact thatthe idea of a personal almighty Creator has for long ages been wanting. And one reason why western nations have an aggressive character thatventures bold things and tends to defy difficulties cannot be whollylaid to environment but must have something to do with the fact thatleads millions daily reverently to say 'I believe in the AlmightyFather, Maker of Heaven and Earth. '"--J. H. De Forest. ]

STATISTICS OF BUDDHISM IN JAPAN. 

(From The official "Résumé Statistique de l'Empire du Japon, "T[=o]ki[=o], 1894. )

In 1891 there were 71, 859 temples within city or town limits, and 35, 959in the rural districts, or 117, 718 in all, under the charges of 51, 791principal priests and 720 principal priestesses, or 52, 511 in all. 

The number of temples, classified by sects, were as follows: Tendai, with 3 sub-sects, 4, 808; Shingon, with 2 sub-sects, 12, 821, of which 45belonged to the Hoss[=o] shu; J[=o]-do, with 2 sub-sects, 8, 323, ofwhich 21 were of the Ké-gon shu; Zen, with 3 sub-sects, 20, 882, of which6, 146 were of the Rin-Zai shu; 14, 072 of the S[=o]-d[=o] shu, and 604 ofthe O-bakushu; Shin, with 10 sub-sects, 19, 146; Nichiren, with 7sub-sects, 5, 066; Ji shu, 515; Yu-dz[=u]; Nembutsu, 358; total, 38 sectsand 71, 859 temples. 

The official reports required by the government from the various sects, show that there are 38 administrative heads of sects; 52, 638priest-preachers and 44, 123 ordinary priests or monks; and 8, 668 maleand 328 female, or a total of 8, 996, students for the grade of monk ornun. In comparison with 1886, the number of priest-preachers was 39, 261, ordinary priests 38, 189: male students, 21, 966; female students, 642. 

CHAPTER XI

ROMAN CHRISTIANITY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

[Footnote 1: See for a fine example of this, Mr. C. Meriwether's Life ofDaté Masamuné, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXI. , pp. 3-106. See also The Christianityof Early Japan, by Koji Inaba, in The Japan Evangelist, Yokohama, 1893-94; Mr. E. Satow's papers in T. A. S. J. ]

[Footnote 2: See M. E. , p. 280; Rein's Japan, p. 312; Shigétaka Shiga'sHistory of Nations, p. 139, quoting from M. E. (p. 258). ]

[Footnote 3: M. E. , 195. ]

[Footnote 4: The Japan Mail of April and May, 1894, contains atranslation from the Japanese, with but little new matter, however, of awork entitled Paul Anjiro. ]

[Footnote 5: The "Firando" of the old books. See Cock's Diary. It isdifficult at first to recognize the Japanese originals of some of thenames which figure in the writings of Charlevoix, Léon Pagés, and theEuropean missionaries, owing to their use of local pronunciation, andtheir spelling, which seems peculiar. One of the brilliantidentifications of Mr. Ernest Satow, now H. B. M. Minister at Tangier, isthat of Kuroda in the "Kondera"' of the Jesuits. ]

[Footnote 6: See Mr. E. M. Matow's Vicissitudes of the Church atYamaguchi. T. A. S. J. , Vol. VII. , pp. 131-156. ]

[Footnote 7: Nobunaga was Nai Dai Jin, Inner (Junior) Prime Minister, one in the triple premiership, peculiar to Korea and Old Japan, but wasnever Sh[=o]gun, as some foreign writers have supposed. ]

[Footnote 8: See The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan, by E. Satow, 1591-1610 (privately printed, London, 1888). Review of the same by B. H. Chamberlain, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVII. , p. 91. ]

[Footnote 9: Histoire de l'Église, Vol. I, p. 490; Rein, p. 277. Takayama is spoken of in the Jesuit Records as Jûsto Ucondono. A curiousbook entitled Justo Ucondono, Prince of Japan, in which the writer, whois "less attentive to points of style than to matters of faith, " laborsto show that "the Bible alone" is "found wanting, " and only the"Teaching Church" is worthy of trust, was published in Baltimore, in1854. ]

[Footnote 10: How Hidéyoshi made use of the Shin sect of Buddhists tobetray the Satsuma clansmen is graphically told in Mr. J. H. Gubbin'spaper, Hidéyoshi and the Satsuma Clan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VIII, pp. 124-128, 143. ]

[Footnote 11: Corea the Hermit Nation, Chaps. XII. -XXI. , pp. 121-123;Mr. W. G. Aston's Hidéyoshi's Invasion of Korea, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VI. , p. 227; IX, pp. 87, 213; XI. , p. 117; Rev. G. H. Jones's The JapaneseInvasion, The Korean Repository, Seoul, 1892. ]

[Footnote 12: Brave Little Holland and What She Taught Us, Boston, 1893, p. 247. ]

[Footnote 13: See picture and description of this temple--"fairlytypical of Japanese Buddhist architecture, " Chamberlain's Handbook forJapan, p. 26; G. A. Cobbold's, Religion in Japan, London, 1894, p. 72. ]

[Footnote 14: T. A. S. J. , see Vol. VI. , pp. 46, 51, for the text of theedicts. ]

[Footnote 15: M. E. , p. 262, Chamberlain's Handbook for Japan, p. 59. ]

[Footnote 16: The Origin of Spanish and Portuguese Rivalry in Japan, byE. M. Satow, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVIII. , p. 133. ]

[Footnote 17: See Chapter VIII. , W. G. Dixon's Gleanings from Japan. ]

[Footnote 18: T. A. S. J. , Vol. VI. , pp. 48-50. ]

[Footnote 19: In the inscription upon the great bell, at the templecontaining the image of Dai Buts[)u] or Great Buddha, reared by Hidéyoriand his mother, one sentence contained the phrase _Kokka anko, ka_ and_Lo_ being Chinese for _Iyé_ and _yas[(u]_, which the Yedo rulerprofessed to believe mockery. In another sentence, "On the East itwelcomes the bright moon, and on the West bids farewell to the settingsun, " Iyéyas[)u] discovered treason. He considered himself the risingsun, and Hidéyori the setting moon. --Chamberlain's Hand-book for Japan, p. 300. ]

[Footnote 20: I have found the Astor Library in New York especially richin works of this sort. ]

[Footnote 21: Nitobé's United States and Japan, p. 13, note. ]

[Footnote 22: This insurrection has received literary treatment at thehands of the Japanese in Shimabara, translated in The Far East for 1872;Woolley's Historical Notes on Nagasaki, T. A. S. J. , Vol. IX. , p. 125;Koeckebakker and the Arima Rebellion, by Dr. A. J. C. Geerts, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XI. , 51; Inscriptions on Shimabara and Amakusa, by Henry Stout, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VII, p. 185. ]

[Footnote 23: "Persecution extirpated Christianity from Japan. "--Historyof Rationalism, Vol. II, p. 15. ]

[Footnote 24: T. A. S. J. , Vol. VI. , Part I. , p. 62; M. E. Pp. 531, 573. ]

[Footnote 25: Political, despite the attempt of many earnest members ofthe order to check this tendency to intermeddle in politics; see Dr. Murray's Japan, p. 245, note, 246. ]

[Footnote 26: See abundant illustration in Léon Pagés' Histoire de laReligion Chrétienne en Japon, a book which the author read while inJapan amid the scenes described. ]

[Footnote 27: _The Japan Evangelist_, Vol. I. , No. 2, p. 96. ]

CHAPTER XII

TWO CENTURIES OF SILENCE

[Footnote 1: See Diary of Richard Cocks, and Introduction by R. M. Thompson, Hakluyt Publications, 1883. ]

[Footnote 2: For the extent of Japanese influence abroad, see M. E. , p. 246; Rein, Nitobe, and Hildreth; Modern Japanese Adventurers, T. A. S. J. , Vol. VII. , p. 191; The Intercourse between Japan and Siam in theSeventeenth Century, by E. M. Satow, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XIII. , p. 139; Voyageof the Dutch Ship Grol, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XI. , p. 180. ]

[Footnote 3: The United States and Japan, p. 16. ]

[Footnote 4: See Professor J. H. Wigmore's elaborate work, Materials forthe Study of Private Law in Old Japan, T. A. S. J. , T[=o]ki[=o], 1892. ]

[Footnote 5: See the Legacy of Iyéyas[)u], by John Frederic Lowder, Yokohama, 1874, with criticisms and discussions by E. M. Satow and othersin the _Japan Mail_; Dixon's Japan, Chapter VII. ; Professor W. E. Grigsby, in T. A. S. J. , Vol. III. , Part II. , p. 131, gives anotherversion, with analysis, notes, and comments; Rein's Japan, pp. 314, 315. ]

[Footnote 6: Old Japan in the days of its inclusiveness was a secretsociety on a vast scale, with every variety and degree of selfishness, mystery, secrecy, close-corporationism, and tomfoolery. See articleEsotericism in T. J. , p. 143. ]

[Footnote 7: Since the abolition of feudalism, with the increase of themeans of transportation, the larger freedom, and, at many points, improved morality, the population of Japan shows an unprecedented rateof increase. The census taken in 1744 gave, as the total number of soulsin the empire, 26, 080, 000 (E. J. Reed's Japan, Vol. I. , p. 236); that of1872, 33, 110, 825; that of 1892, 41, 089, 910, showing a greater increaseduring the past twenty years than in the one hundred and thirty-eightyears previous. See Résumé Statistique de l'Empire du Japon, T[=o]ki[=o], 1894; Professor Garrett Droppers' paper on The Populationof Japan during the Tokugawa Period, read June 27th, 1894; T. A. S. J. , Vol. XXII. ]

[Footnote 8: For the notable instance of Pere Sidotti, see M. E, p. 63;Séi Y[=o] Ki Buu, by S. R. Brown, D. D. , a translation of Arai Hakuséki'snarrative, Yedo, 1710, T. N. C. A. S. ; Capture and Captivity of PereSidotti, T. A. S. J. , Vol. IX. , p. 156; Christian Valley, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVI. , p. 207. ]

[Footnote 9: T. A. S. J. , Vol. I. , p. 78, Vol. VII. , p. 323. ]

[Footnote 10: See Matthew Calbraith Perry, Boston, 1887. ]

[Footnote 11: See the author's Townsend Harris, First American Ministerto Japan, _The Atlantic Monthly_, August, 1891. ]

[Footnote 12: See Honda the Samurai, Boston, 1890; Nitobe's UnitedStates and Japan; The Japan Mail _passim_; Dr. G. F. Verbeck's History ofProtestant Missions in Japan, Yokohama, 1883; Dr. George Wm. Knox'spapers on Japanese Philosophy, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , p. L58, etc. RecentJapanese literature, of which the writer has a small shelf-full, biographies, biographical dictionaries, the histories of New Japan, Lifeof Yoshida Shoin, and recent issues of The Nation's Friend (Kokumin noTomo), are very rich on this fascinating subject. ]

[Footnote 13: A typical instance was that of Rin Shihei, born 1737, author of _Sun Koku Tsu Ran to Setsu_, translated into French byKlaproth, Paris, 1832. Rin learned much from the Dutch and Prussians, and wrote books which had a great sale. He was cast into prison, whencehe never emerged. The (wooden) plates of his publications wereconfiscated and destroyed. In 1876, the Mikado visited his grave inSendai, and ordered a monument erected to the honor of this far-seeingpatriot. ]

[Footnote 14: Rein, pp. 336, 337]

[Footnote 15: Rein, p. 339; The Early Study of Dutch in Japan, by K. Mitsukuri, T. A. S. J. , Vol. V. , p. 209; History of the Progress ofMedicine in Japan, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XII. , p. 245; Vijf Jaren in Japan, J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort, 2d Ed. , Leyden, 1808. ]

[Footnote 16: Honda the Samurai, pp. 249-251; Nitobé, 25-27. ]

[Footnote 17: The Tokugawa Princes of Mito, by Professor E. W. Clement, T. A. S. J. , Vol. XVIII, p. 14; Nitobé's United States and Japan, p. 25, note. ]

[Footnote 18: M. E. (6 Ed. ), p. 608; Adams's History of Japan, Vol. II. , p. 171. ]

[Footnote 19: See the text of the anti-Christian edicts, M. E. , p. 369. ]

[Footnote 20: T. A. S. J. , Vol. XX. , p. 17. ]

[Footnote 21: T. A. S. J. , Vol. IX. , p. 134. ]

[Footnote 22: Tales of Old Japan, Vol. II. , p. 125; A Japanese BuddhistPreacher, by Professor M. K. Shimomura, in the New York Independent;other sermons have been printed in The Japan Mail; Kino Dowa, twosermons and vocabulary, has been edited by Rev. C. S. Eby, Yokohama. ]

[Footnote 23: On Sunday, November 29, 1857, Mr. Harris, resting atKawasaki, over Sunday, on his way to Yedo and audience of the Sh[=o]gun, having Mr. Heusken as his audience and fellow-worshipper, read servicefrom the Book of Common Prayer. ]

[Footnote 24: See a paper written by the author and read at the World'sColumbian Exhibition Congress of Missions, Chicago, September, 1893, onThe Citizen Rights of Missionaries. ]

[Footnote 25: This embassy was planned and first proposed to the Juniorpremier, Tomomi Iwakura, and the route arranged by the Rev. Guido F. Verbeck, then President of the Imperial University. One half of themembers of the embassy had been Dr. Verbeck's pupils at Nagasaki. ]

[Footnote 26: A somewhat voluminous native Japanese literature is theresult of the various embassies and individual pilgrimages abroad, since1860. Immeasurably superior to all other publications, in the practicalinfluence over his fellow-countrymen, is the Séiyo Jijo (The Conditionof Western Countries) by Fukuzawa, author, educator, editor, decliner ofnumerously proffered political offices, and "the intellectual father ofone-half of the young men who now fill the middle and lower posts in thegovernment of Japan. " For the foreign side, see The Japanese in America, by Charles Lanman, New York, 1872, and in The Life of Sir Harry Parkes, London, 1894, and for an amusing piece of literary ventriloquism, Japanese Letters, Eastern Impressions of Western Men and Manners, Londonand New York, 1891. 

See History of Protestant Missions in Japan, by G. F. Verbeck, Yokohama, 1893. ]

INDEX

Abbess, 318. Abbots, 312. Abdication, 214. Aborigines, 9, 38, 43, 77-79, 177. Adams, Will, 334, 340. Adi-Buddha, 174. Adoption, 122, 126. Adultery, 149. Aidzu, 119. Ainos, 2, 9, 16, 73, 177, 317, 379. Akamatsu, Rev. Renjo, 425. Akéchi, 332. Alphabets, 199, 200. Altaic, 39, 389. Amalgam of religions, 11, 13. Amatéras[)u], see Sun-goddess. American relations, 11, 12, 157. Amidaism, 276, 303. Anabaptists, 162. Analects, 128. Ancestral worship, 106. Anderson, Dr. Win, 435. Angels, 304. Animism, 15-17. Anjiro, 329. Apostolical succession, 262. Arabian Nights, 192, 201. Architecture, 82, 84, 210, 298-300. Art, 68, 1l4, 195-197, 297, 298, 303-305, 314, 356. Aryan Conquest of India, 44, 156, 157, 177, 207. Asanga, 175, 205. Assassination, 367. Asoka, 165. Aston, Mr. Wm. G. , 360, 386, 387. Atheism, 163, 164. Atkinson, Rev, J. L. , 410. Avalokitesvara, 170, 171, 179. Avatars, 201, 208, 221, 247, 269, 295. 

Babism, 166. Bakin, 444. Bangor Theological Seminary, 378. Batchelor, Rev. John, 317. Beal, Rev. Samuel, 8. Beauty, 207. Beggars, 208. Bells, 307, 308. Benten, 204, 207, 218. Bible, 27, 104, 364, 386. Binzuru, 237. Birth, 84. Bishamon, 218. Bodhidharma, see Daruma. Bodhisattva, 169, 204, 234. Bonzes, 310. Bosatsu, 170, 204; see Bodhsattva. Brahma, 247. Brahmanism, 163, 185, 186, 218. Brothers, 125, 126. Buddha. Amida, see Amidaism. The Buddha, 101, 103, 161, 162. Gautama, 155, 161-164. Shakyamuni, 160. Siddartha, 410. Tathagata, 259. Tathata, 243. Bunyin Nanjio, Rev. , 231, 425. Buddhism, 42, 74, 76, 106, 133, 136, 137, 140, 185, 186, 227, 231. Buddhist, 165, 166, 183, 214, 229, 252. 

Cannibalism, 74. Canon, Chinese, 103; Shint[=o], 39-41. Capitals of Japan, 182, 183, 296. Celibacy, 272. Cemeteries, 308. Chair of Contemplation, 252. Chamberlain, Prof. B. Hall, 39, 324, 388. Chastity, 68, 124, 149, 320. Cheng Brothers, 138, 139. China, 134, 199, 215, 328, 355. Chinese, 83, 134; Buddhism, 232. Christianity and Buddhism, 166, 183, 185, 187, 195, 217, 218, 265, 270, 300-302, 306, 315, 319. Chronology, 41, 370, 387. Chu Hi, 11, 108, 139, 143, 144, 356. Cleanliness, 84, 97. Clement, Prof. E. M. , 407. Cobra-de-capello, 21. Cocks, Mr. Richard, 380. Columbus, 328. Comparative religion, 4-6. Confucius, 100-106. Confucianism, 74, 107, 213. Concubinage, 149. Constitution of 1889, 96, 122. Corea, see Korea. Courtship, 124. Creator, 145, 285. Cremation, 182. Crucifixion, 115, 368. 

Dai Butsu, 203. Daikoku, 218. Dai Mi[=o] Jin, 190, 204, 206, 230. Daruma, 186, 208, 254. Davids, T. Rhys, 155, 172. Death, 84. De Brosses, 23. De Forest, Rev. J. H. , 226. Demoniacal possession, 281. Déshima, 354, 358, 362-365. Dharari, 199. Dharma, see Daruma, 186. Dhyana Buddhas and Sect, 172, 252, 254. Diet, 293, 294. Divorce, 125, 149. D[=o]-sen, 236. D[=o]-sh[=o], 181. Dragon, 20, 21, 74, 115, 198, 242. Dutch, 90, 336, 340, 353, 354, 358, 360, 362, 363-365, 366. Dutt, Mr. Romesh Chunder, 161. 

Ebisu, 218. Ecclesiastes, 214. Echizen, 312. Edicts against Christianity, 335, 336, 342. Edkins, Dr. J. , 249. Education, 313, 320. Embassy round the world, 373. Emperor, 148. Emura, Rev. Shu-zan, 232. England, 37. Eta, 115, 150, 275, 316, 317, 367. Ethics, 92, 94. Euhemerus, 192, 193, 197, 201. Eurasians, 344. Evil, 58, 78. Evolution, 62. Ezekiel, 36. Ezra, 102. 

Family Life, 122, 125-127. Female divinities, 66, 305, 319. Fetichism, 22-27. Feudalism, 10, 108-110. Filial piety, 123, 149, 213. Fire-drill, 55, 56. Fire, God of, 53. Fire-myths, 53. Five Relations, 105, 114, 148-150. Flags, 26. Flood, 53. Flowers, 58. Forty-seven R[=o]nins, 118, 119. Franciscans, 336, 337. Friends, 127. Fudo, 279. Fuji Mountain, 400. Fujishima, Rev. Ryauon, 231. Fukuda, Rev. Gyo-kai, 425. Fukui, 23. Fuku-roku-jin, 218. 

Gardens, 237, 294, 295. Gautama, 158, 161, 164. Genji Monogatari, 149. Genj[=o], 181, 232, 233, 238, 239. Germanic nations, 10, 44. Ghosts, 206. Giyoku, 183. Gnostics, 193, 195. God-possession, 201. Gold, 184, 196, 210, 291. Golden Rule, 128. Gongen, 204, 205, 220. Gore, Mr. T. , 7, 384. Graveyards, 308, 368. Greater Vehicle, 165, 170, 240, 244. Gubbins, Mr. J. H. , 403, 447. 

Hachiman, 204. Hades, 53, 64. Hara-kiri, 112, 121, 339. Harris, Mr. Townsend, 145, 352, 360, 370, 371. Hayashi, 129. Heathen, 13, 30. Heaven, 62, 63, 70, 81, 105, 112, 118, 144. Hepburn, Dr. J. C. , 372. Hidéyori, 340, 342. Hidéyoshi, 313, 333, 338. Hindu history, 156. Hi-nin, 115, 150. Hinayana, 165, 167, 169, 228, 232, 238. Hiouen Thsang, see Genj[=o]. Hiraii, 2. Hirata, 86. History of China, intellectual, 137. Of Japan, intellectual, 230. Of Japan, political, 10, 37, 44, 219. Of Japan, religious, 227, 228. Hitomar[=o], 60. Hiyéisan, 16, 297. Hodge, 102. Hodgson, Mr. Brian H. , 411, 414. Hokké-Ki[=o], see Saddharma Pundarika. Hokusai, 314. Holland, 338. H[=o]nen, 261, 264. H[=o]-[=o], 184, 237. Hospitals, 216, 315. Hoss[=o]-Shu, 238, 239. Hotéi, 218. Hotoké, 202, 269. 

Idols, 175, 207, 216. Idzumo, 44, 65. Ikk[=o], 273. Inari, 190. Indra, 163, 247. Ingwa, 217, 302, 321; see Karma. Inquisition, 347, 348, 368. Insurance by fetich, 24, 25. Isaiah, 100. Isé, 28, 184, 201. Iyéyas[)u], 91, 100, 132, 134, 204, 205, 338, 342, 357, 358. Izanagi and Izanami, 52, 63, 64, 207, 218. 

Jade, 292. Jains, 166. Japan, area, 9. Census, 9. Ethnology, 43, 44. Geography, 9, 43, 44. Government, 40. History, 10, 37, 44, 109. Origins, 43. Population, 8, 9. Various names of, 73. Japanese Bride, The, 125, 149. Japanese characteristics, 112, 285, 361. Language, 113, 116, 135. Writing, 200. Jataka tales, 169. Jealousy, 124. Jesuits, 247, 329, 337, 341, 342. Jesus, 76, 97, 100, 117. Jimmu Tenn[=o], 389, Jin Gi Kuan, 49, 94, 390-392. Jizo, 247, 305. J[=o] d[=o] sect, 250, 275. John, 2, 60. J[=o]-jitsu sect, 181, 235. Joss, 23. Jun-shi, 68, 76, 119. Ju-r[)u]-jin, 218. 

Kaburagi, 36, 60. Kada Adzumar[=o], 91. Kamui, 30. Kami-dana, 86, 88, 295. Kamui, 30. Kana, 199, 200, 274. Kanda, Dai Mi[=o]-Jin, 205. Karma, 162, 169, 186, 234, 258. Kato Kyomasa, 278, 334, 339. Ké-gon sect, 242-244. Kéichu, 91. Kern, Prof. H. , 155, 239. Ki[=o]to, 183, 296, 330, 336. Kirin, 19. Kishimoto, Mr. Nobuta. , 11. Kiushiu, 339. Kiyomori, 120. Knos, Dr. George Wm. , 182, 228, 288, 385. Kobayashi, Rev. Zé-jun, 425. K[=o]b[=o], 89, 197, 205, 248, 250. Kojiki, 29, 32, 40, 41, 52, 74, 82-90, 149, 195, 197. Ko-ken, Empress, 310. Kompira, 204. Konishi, 334, 335. Korea, 9, 21, 26, 40, 41, 74, 106, 107, 168, 179, 180, 292, 310, 328, 332, 333, 334, 355, 368. Kosatsu, 368. Ku-ya, 198. Kumi, Prof. , 76-82. Kun-shin, 111, 113, 116, 117, 213. Ku-sha sutra, 232, 233. Kwannon, 181, 207, 247, 319. Ky[=u]so, 132, 144. 

Lamaism, 107. Language of China, 237. Of England, 295. Of Holland, 364, 365. Of Japan, 39, 113, 116, 134, 265, 295, 299, 364. Of Korea, 116. Lao Tsze, 102, 144, 218. Laws of Japan, 358. Lecky, Mr. , 344. Legendre, Gen. , 385, 389. Legge, Dr. J. , 100, 378. Libraries, 253, 327. Lingam, see Phallicism. Literature, 39, 100, 141, 156, 159, 216, 252, 313, 318, 369. Liturgy, see Norito. Lloyd, Rev. A. , 258. Loo-choo, see Rin Kin. Lotus, 434, 435, 437. Love, 117, 118. Lowell, Mr. Percival, 397, 423. Loyalty, see Kun-shin. Luther, 271. Lyman, Prof. B. S. , 383. 

Mabuchi, 90, 91. MacDonald, Rev. James, 8. Magatama, 68, 292. Mahayana, 105; see Greater Vehicle. Maitreya, 169, 170, 218, 236, 244. Malays, 9, 43. Mandala, 203. Munjusri, 170, 171, 179, 262. Mantra, 248. Many[=u]-shu, 39, 40. Marco Polo, 42. Mark, 60. Marriage, 123, 126, 149. Martyrs, 337, 344, 359, 360, 362, 366-369. Masakado, 209. Matsugami, 209. Matsuri, 28. Meiji Era, 112, 116, 256. Mencius, 106, 112, 137. Mendez, Pinto, 42. Mexico, 349. Mikado, 44, 45, 76, 92, 95, 96, 114, 117, 184, 191, 201. Mikadoism, 45-49, 74-82, 184, 202. Military monks, 247. Minamoto, 271. Ming dynasty, 134. Mioken, 279. Miracles, 216, 267. Mirror, 83. Missionary training, 6-8. Mito, 111, 134, 143, 366. Miya, 82-84, 209. Monasteries, 162, 165, 298, 311, 312. Monotheism, 15, 81, 103, 104, 145, 174, 187. Morse lectureship, 4. Morse, Prof E. S. , 377. Motoöri, 80, 91, 290. Mozoomdar, 411, 420. Müller, Prof. Max, 211. Munzinger, Rev. C. , 403. Murray, Dr. David, 402. Mutsuhito, 60, 316. 

Nagasaki, 332, 337, 343, 344, 358, 362. Nakatomi, 48. Names, 127, 202, 265. Names of Japan, 73, 82. Namu-Amida-Butsu, 259, 261. Nanjio Bunyin, 231. Nara, 182, 237, 243, 296. Nehan, see Nirvana. Nepal, 167, 168, 171. New Buddhism, 284, 285. Nichiren, 277, 278. Sect, 277-280, 334, 339. Nihilism, 236, 240, 241. Nihongi, 41, 56, 62. Nikk[=o], 185, 263. Nirvana, 162, 163, 186, 200, 302, 303. Nitobé, Mr. Inazo, 352, 360. Nobunaga, 312, 331, 332. Norito, 38, 47-49, 54, 55-58, 79, 80, 96. Northern Buddhism, 165. 

Obaku sect, 283. Offerings, 57. Ogurusu, Rev. Ku-ch[=o], 214. Obashi Junzo, 145. Ojin, 204. Onna-ishi, see Phallicism. Original prayer, 271. Original vow, 273, 312. Orphan asylums, 216. Osaka, 130, 312, 368. 

Pagés, Mr. Leon, 449. Pagodas, 203. Pantheism, 31, 142, 143, 187, 219, 243. Paradise, 210, 229, 259, 261, 280. Parliament of Religions, 5, 39, 72, 283. Peking, 105. Perry, Commodore M. C. , 129, 316, 352, 360, 364, 365. Persecutions, 93, 343. Persian elements, 195, 202, 304. Personality, 116. Pessimism, 214. Phallicism, 29-30, 49-53, 88, 380-384. Philo, 192, 197, 201. Phoenix, 19, 20. Pilgrimages, 298, 290. Pindola, see Binzuru. Poetry, 223; see Many[=u]shu. Politeness, 74, 241. Popular customs, 192. Population, 8, 9, 177, 291, 359. Popular movement in China, 138. Portuguese, 344, 345, 347. Pratyekas, 234. Prayers, 86-88. Prayer-wheels, 175. Printing, 133, 134, 200. Prometheus, 53. Protestantism, 155, 162, 252, 274. Pronouns, 116. Proverbs, 28, 179, 226, 270, 307, 332, 352, 389. Psychology of the Japanese, 230, 241. Pure Land of Bliss, 198, 263-265. Purification of 1870, 206, 210, 213, 222, 248, 360. Pyrronism, 240. 

Rai Sanyo, 143. Rakan, 305. "Reformed" Buddhism, 270, 274-277. Renny[=o] Sh[=o]-nin, 258. Revision of Confucianism, 148-152. Revival of pure Shint[=o], 91-96. Revolving libraries, 253. Ris-shu, 236-238. Rituals, see Norito. Riu Kiu, 9, 109. Riy[=o]bu, 89, 191, 203, 209, 211, 212, 223. Rosaries, 266. 

Saddharma Pundarika, 170, 229, 246, 280, 304. Sado, 341. Salt, 85. Samurai, 110, 119, 146, 151, 152. San Kai Ri, 211. Sanron sect, 182, 240. Sanskrit, 25, 182, 200, 210, 245, 249. Saratashi, 218. Satow, Mr. Ernest, 39, 47, 386. Satsuma, 313. Schools of Philosophy: Chinese, 136-139. Indian, 159-164, 232. Japanese, 356-358, 369. Sekigaharu, 338. Sendai, 119. Seppuku, see Hara-kiri. Serpent-worship, 30-33, 278, 279, 385. Seven Gods of Good Fortune, 217, 218. Shaka, 160, 161, 179, 254. Shakyamuni, see Shaka. Shaminism, 15-17. Shang-Ti, 103, 104. Shari, 182. Shastra and Sutra, 231. Shichimen, 278. Shigomori, 120. Shimabara, 344. Shingaku movement, 369, 370. Shingon sect, 185, 203, 248-251. Shinran, 271-274. Shin sect, 270-276, 317. Shint[=o], 38, 42, 76, 89, 96, 97, 142, 184, 195, 214, 319. Sin, 285, 288. Sh[=o]-gun, 110, 115, 143. Shomon, 236. Sh[=o]toku, 180, 181, 208, 236, 313. Siddartha, 410. Soga no Inamé, 180. Soshi, 95, 278. Southern Buddhism, 165, 167. Spaniards, 336, 337, 340, 347. Stars, 92. Statistics of Buddhism, 309. Of Shint[=o], 400, 401. Sugawara Michizané, 204. Suicide, 112, 118-121, 147, 151. Suiko, 180. Sung dynasty, 414, 437. Sun-goddess, 66, 104, 201, 203. Sun-worship, 46, 47, 82, 87. Swastika, 305. Swords, 7, 378. Syle, Rev. E. W. , 36. Syncretism, 191-194, 205. Synergism, 268, 271, 272. Szma Kwang, 138. 

Taik[=o], see Hidéyoshi. Takahashi, Mr. Gor[=o], 384. Takashi, Rev. Dai-Ryo, 238. Takétori Monogatari, 423. Tantra system, 194. Ta[=o]ism, 106, 215, 218. Tathagata, 259. Tathata, 243, 246. Taylor, Bayard, 380. Tea plant, 208. Téi-Shn philosophy, 139, 145. Temples, 83, 93, 209, 305-309. Ten, 144. Tendai sect, 185, 244-248, 268. Tenjin, 204. Tenn[=o], 184. Tenshi, 184. Terence, 128. Theism, 172. Theological seminaries, 6-8. Tibet, 165, 167, 170. Tobacco, 209. Tokugawas, 141, 143, 356, 365. Torii, 84, 210. Tortoise, 19. Transmigration of souls, 315. Tree-worship, 30, 31. Triads, 171, 255, 279. Trinity, 428. Tripitaka, 160, 170, 231. Tsuji, Rev. Ken-ko, 425. Tsukushi, 44. Tsushima, 44. Tycoon, see Sh[=o]-gun. 

Uéda, Rev. Sho-Hen, 425. Upanishads, 156, 161, 162. Ushi toki mairi, 31. Uzumé, 68. 

Vagra, 305. Vagrabodhi, 248, 249. Vairokana, 184, 244, 250. Vedas, 156, 158, 159, 160, 162. Vehicles, the three, 234, 235; see also Hinayana and Mahayana. Victims, 74. 

Washington, 114. Western Paradise, 277. Wheel of the law, 302. Whitney, Prof. W. D. , 211, 277. William the Silent, 114. Woman, 123, 149, 275, 318-320. 

Xavier, 324, 329, 330, 345, 346, 347. 

Yamato, 44, 76, 87, 91, 109, 177, 179. Damashii, 44, 147, 151, 152, 172. Yamato-Tosa art, 114, Yedo, 110, 115, 119, 141, 220, 238, 340, 360, 366. Yen Sect, 252-256. Yezo, 43, 317. Yoga, 157, 197, 199, 201, 209, 211. Yoga-chara, 194, 203, 249. Yokoi Héishiro, 112, 316, 366, 367. Yori, see Phallicism. Yoshida Shoin, 147. Yoshiwara system, 404. 

Zend[=o], 261-262, 267. Zenk[=o]ji, 179, 181.