the land of the gods. 431 



Buddhism. 



To Buddliism the Japanese owe a debt which hardly can be con- 

 ceived. To Buddhisin they are indebted not only for a religion but 

 for their present civilisation and culture and their high state of 

 perfection in many of the arts. Architecture, painting, sculpture, 

 <;hess, cremation, embroidei-y, engraving, and even tlie introduction of 

 the tea plant — in short, every art and industry that helped to make 

 life beautiful — developed first in Japan under Buddhist teaching. 

 Hearn asserts that " Art in Japan is so intimately associated with 

 religion that any attempt to study it without extensive knowledge of 

 the beliefs which it reflects were mere waste of time." 



As the accompaniment of Chinese learning, spreading from the 

 Ganges and the valleys of the Himalayas to China and Korea, 

 Buddhism first entered Japan from Korea about the year 552 a.d. 

 Buddhism spread to such an extent that for centuries it was the 

 popular national religion. It was adopted even by the Mikado's 

 descendants of the great Shinto Goddess of the Sun. This same 

 goddess, so highly reverenced by the Japanese to-day, became a 

 Buddha under the name of Dainichi Niorai. Yet, not■\^^thstanding the 

 remarkable progress of Buddhism, Shinto never was entirely sup- 

 pressed. From the sixth to the eighth century monks and nuns from 

 Korea and China visited Japan for the purpose of spreading the 

 teachings of Buddha and securing converts. From the end of the 

 eighth century it was by no means unusiial for the Japanese monks 

 to visit China in order to pursue their studies more nearly at first 

 hand. Thus it is that tlie Buddiiists of Japan adhere so closely, in 

 general, to the Chinese school of Buddhism. 



At the time of its introduction into the A]-chipelago the teachings 

 01 Buddha already were more than a thousand years old, and so it 

 was only natural that variety of thought had split Buddhism, 

 especially Chinese Buddhism, into numbers of sects and sub-sects. At 

 present there are ten chief sects amongst tlie Buddhists of Japan and 

 numerous sub-sects. Early Chinese sects still sur\nve in Tendai and 

 Shingon; while Nichiren and Shin are later Japanese developments. 



The peaceful and thoughttul-looking Buddhas caiTed in wood or 

 stone were introduced into Japan with an amount of pomp and ritual. 

 But, as already stated, the new religion did more than appeal to the 

 senses; it afforded food for the imagination in the doctrine of trans- 

 migration and description of distant worlds inhabited by angels and 

 Buddhas dwelling in the splendours of paradise. Tolerant and accom- 

 modating itself to the native religious ideas. Buddhism soon found 

 favour with the authorities and became the popular national religion 

 which stands to this day. For centuries the people in Japan com- 

 bined the worship of Kami with the worship of Buddha. " Until the 

 epoch of the Restoration (1868), the credulity of the people and their 

 confidence in the power of the gods was very great," wrote a former 

 Kami priest. '' There was," ho remarks, " hardly an instant when 

 one did not hear hand-clapping, drum-beating, and praying. Whether 

 it was this sect or that, a Kami (shinto-god), or Hotoke (Buddha-god), 

 an idol of wood, clay, or stone, the people worshipped it, prayed to it, 

 and offered it rice, flowers, tapers, itc. The very pious prostrated 

 themselves and touched the ground with their foreheads, hoping that 



