The National Geographic Magazine 



bronze statue of Daibutsu or Buddha at 

 Nara, and this statue was erected in 752 

 A. D., after fourteen years in casting 

 and construction. No doubt some of 

 you who have visited Japan have seen 

 the statue, but no foreigner has so far 

 ever examined into its history and in- 

 vestigated why it was erected at the 

 ancient capital of Nara. Thus Emperor 

 Shomu succeeded in reconciling the two 

 conflicting religions of Shintoism and 

 Buddhism. This period might be called 

 the era of adaptation of the Indian re- 

 ligion in Japan. Henceforth Buddhism 

 swept from one end of the country to 

 the other, converting a large number of 

 people by the theory that ' ' Shintoism is 

 for the living and Buddhism for the 

 dead," or, in other words, that while 

 we are living on this earth the Shinto 

 gods protect us, but when we die our 

 soul returns to the last repose, where 

 Buddha reigns. 



THE MARTIN LUTHER OF JAPAN 



In the beginning of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury there was one priest by the name 

 of Shinran, who is considered in our re- 

 ligious history as a Japanese Martin 

 Luther. He revolutionized the funda- 

 mental principle of Buddhism by a new 

 doctrine, for up to that time Buddhism 

 strenuously upheld a monastic life, and 

 the priests were compelled to live in celi- 

 bacy and abstain from eating any animal 

 food. But this famous priest, seeing the 

 popular mind already turned toward 

 Buddhism, started anew doctrine that a 

 priest, being human, is just as much 

 susceptible as laymen, and abstinence 

 from human wants is against the laws of 

 nature ; moreover, a priest must live 

 among the people so as to understand 

 the real nature and feeling of man and 

 woman; therefore a monastic life should 

 be given up and priests should eat ani- 

 mal food and get married, if they de- 

 sire so to do. From this period the 

 progress of Buddhism with this new 

 doctrine was wonderful and took com- 



plete hold of the popular mind. Even 

 at the present time this Shinran sect 

 of Buddhism has the largest number 

 of believers in Japan. Thus the Japa- 

 nese have gone through three stages — of 

 imitation, of adaptation, and of origina- 

 tion — and in the last stage Shinran was 

 the originator of the new form of 

 Buddhism just as much as Martin L,u- 

 ther was of the Protestantism of the 

 Christian religion of the West. 



Next in the sphere of government 

 and law we find the same three stages 

 of evolution. After the introduction of 

 Chinese civilization our governmental 

 organization was moulded after the fash- 

 ion of the governmental system of the 

 To dynasty of China. In the year 701 

 A. D. we reorganized the departments 

 of our government in accordance with 

 the principles and forms of the Chinese 

 system, and adopted the Chinese law in 

 every branch of our national affairs. At 

 the palace the Emperor as well as the 

 petty officials wore the Chinese headgear 

 and gown. We blindly imitated every- 

 thing Chinese. This new regime for 

 the organization of the Japanese Em- 

 pire was embodied in the laws of the 

 Taiho era (701 A. D) ; but this wholesale 

 change in the political institution was too 

 much for Japan to carry out at that time. 

 Therefore those laws were only exe- 

 cuted around the capitol of Kioto and 

 were not carried out in the remote parts 

 of the country. 



But the Hojo dynasty, the second 

 military Shogunate of Japan's feudal- 

 ism, discovered the weakness and de- 

 fects in the laws of Taiho, because the 

 laws of a foreign country could never 

 be executed in toto, for the simple rea- 

 son that every nation has traditional 

 laws of its own which every law-giver 

 must not disregard. Therefore Taka- 

 toki Hojo, a great statesman, investi- 

 gated the old customs and traditions of 

 Japan and modified the Chinese-imita- 

 tion laws of the Taiho era so as to meet 

 the requirements of the country. 



