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rain whenever prayers were made to her in time of drought '. 

 And in the Sheu shen ki we read of a sick dragon, which in 

 consequence of prayers recited before his den, gave a badly 

 smelling rain, which would have spoiled the crops, if a diviner 

 had not discovered it in time and cured the dragon at the latter's 

 request. Thereupon a fertilizing rain fell and a very clear spring 

 dashed forth from a rock ^. 



§ 4. Buddhist rain ceremonies. 



In the Introduction (§ 4, pp. 25 sqq.) we have dealt with the 

 Buddhist rain ceremonies prescribed in the Mahamegha sutra and 

 those described by De Groot in his Code du Mahaydna. As we 

 will see below (Book II, Ch. Ill), also in Japan the Buddhist 

 priests gradually conquered this field, formerly the domain of 

 the Shintoists. They used the same stitras as the Chinese Buddhists. 

 The latter had a good time in the T'ang dynasty, when sometimes, 

 as we read in the Tuh i chi'^, eleven hundred Buddhist priests 

 read stitras in order to cause rain. As to these ceremonies we 

 may refer the reader to the Introduction. 



1 Ch. 130, p. 2a. 2 Ch. VI; cf. Oh. X. 



3 :^ ^ y^, ascribed to Li Yiu, ^ ^, ov Li K^ang, ^%, of the T'ang 

 dynasty. T. S., same section, Ch. 131, p. 106. 



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