The Religions of Japan Part 30

"In a philosophical light, the precedence of Buddha or of Dharma indicates the theistic or atheistic school. With the former, Buddha is intellectual essence, the efficient cause of all, and underived. Dharma is material essence, the plastic cause, and underived, a co-equal biunity with Buddha; or else the plastic cause, as before, but dependent and 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. With the latter or atheistic schools, Dharma is _Diva natura_, matter as the sole ent.i.ty, invested with intrinsic activity and intelligence, the efficient and material cause of all.

"Buddha is derivative from Dharma, is the active and intelligent force of nature, first put off from it and then operating upon it. Sangha is the _result_ of that operation; is embryotic creation, the type and sum of all specific forms, which are spontaneously evolved from the union of Buddha with Dharma."--The Phoenix, Vol. II., p. 12.

5. The mantra or sacred sentence best known in the Buddhadom and abroad.

"_Amitabha_ is the fourth _Dhyani_ or celestial _Budda: Padma-pani_ his _aeon_ and executive minister. _Padma-pani_ is the _praesens Divus_ and creator of the _existing_ system of worlds. Hence his identification with 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 last circ.u.mstance explains the meaning of the celebrated _Shadakshari Mantra_, or six-lettered invocation of him, viz., _Om! Manipadme hom!_ of which so many corrupt versions and more corrupt interpretations have appeared from Chinese, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other sources. The _mantra_ in question is one of three, addressed to the several members of the _Triad_. 1. _Om sarva vidye hom_. 2. _Om Prajnaye hom_. 3. _Om mani-padme hom_. 1. The mystic triform Deity is in the all-wise (Buddha). 2. The mystic triform Deity is in Prajna (Dharma). 3. The mystic triform Deity is in him of the jewel and lotos (Sangha). But the praesens Divus, whether he be Augustus or _Padma-pani_, is everything with the many. Hence the notoriety of this _mantra_, whilst the others are hardly ever heard of, and have thus remained unknown to our travellers."--The Phoenix, Vol. II., p. 64.]

[Footnote 28: "Nine centuries after Buddha, Maitreya (Miroku or Ji-shi) came down from the Tus.h.i.ta heaven to the lecture-hall in the kingdom of Ayodhya (A-ya-sha) in Central India, at the request of the Bodhisattva Asamga (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 many Sastras (Ron) and cleared up the meaning of the Mahayana" (or Greater Vehicle, canon of Northern Buddhism).--B.N., p. 32.]

[Footnote 29: Buddhism, T. Rhys Davids, pp. 206-211.]

[Footnote 30: Prayer-wheels in j.a.pan are used by the Tendai and Shingon sects, but without written prayers attached, and rather as an ill.u.s.tration of the doctrine of cause and effect (ingwa); the prayers being 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 Three Lectures, and Hand-book; Rev. S. Beal's Buddhism, and A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese; The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha, from the Chinese; Texts from the Buddhist canon commonly known as the Dhammapeda; Notes on Buddhist Words and Phrases, the Chrysanthemum, Vol. I.; The Phoenix, Vols. I-III.

See, also, a spirited sketch of Ancient j.a.pan, by Frederick Victor d.i.c.kins, in the Life of Sir Harry Parkes, Vol. II., pp. 4-14.]

[Footnote 32: S. and H., pp. 289, 293; Chamberlain's Hand-book for j.a.pan, p. 220; Summer's Notes on Osaka, T.A.S.J., Vol. VIL, p. 382; Buddhism, and Traditions Concerning its Introduction into j.a.pan, 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 five personifications of Wisdom, and in j.a.pan the idol is especially noticeable 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 G.o.d's incarnation in man, while Mohammedanism is the champion of uncompromising monotheism."--F.P.C. Mozoomdar's The Spirit of G.o.d, 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 Drama Ent.i.tled the Song of Songs (Boston 1890), in which this subject is glanced at.]

[Footnote 4: See The Religion of Nepaul, Buddhist Philosophy, and the writings 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, a very valuable paper by Mr. L.A. Waddell, on The Northern Buddhist Mythology, epitomized in the j.a.pan Mail, May 5, 1894.]

[Footnote 8: See Catalogue of Chinese and j.a.panese Paintings in the British Museum, and The Pictorial Arts of j.a.pan, by William Anderson, M.D.]

[Footnote 9: Anderson's Catalogue, p. 24.]

[Footnote 10: S. and H., p. 415; Chamberlain's Hand-book for j.a.pan; T.J.; M.E., p. 162, etc.]

[Footnote 11: The names of Buddhist priests and monks are usually different from those of the laity, being taken from events in the life of Gautama, or his original disciples, pa.s.sages in the sacred cla.s.sics, etc. Among some personal acquaintances in the j.a.panese priesthood were such 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's Buddhism p. 208; The Phoenix, Vol. I., p. 169; S. and H., p. 502; Du Bose's Dragon, Demon, and Image, p. 407; Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 134; Hough's Corean Collections, Washington, 1893, p. 480, plate xxviii.]

[Footnote 13: j.a.pan in History, Folk-lore and Art, pp. 86, 80-88; A j.a.panese Grammar, by J.J. Hoffman, p. 10; T.J., pp. 465-470.]

[Footnote 14: This is the essence of Buddhism, and was for centuries repeated 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, that Ezra, the scribe, could write with five pens at once; Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan, 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 j.a.pan, 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 curtain hanging before the shrine of this Kami that Arinori Mori, formerly H.I.J.M. Minister at Washington and London, was a.s.sa.s.sinated by a Shint[=o] fanatic, February 11, 1889; T. J., p. 229; see Percival Lowell'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 j.a.pan."]

[Footnote 21: S. and H., j.a.pan, 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 of other instances, and describe temples in which the renamed kami are worshipped.]

[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 f.u.kui, I had translated and read to me by a Buddhist of the Shin Shu sect. In like manner, even Christian writers in j.a.pan have occasionally endeavored to rationalize 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.