The Religions of Japan Part 31

C. Watanabe, of Cornell University, for reading to me Mr. Takahashi's interesting 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., j.a.pan, p. 397; Cla.s.sical Poetry of the j.a.panese, p. 201, note.]

[Footnote 30: The j.a.panese word Ry[=o] means both, and is applied to the eyes, ears, feet, things correspondent or in pairs, etc.; _bu_ is a term for 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 Taketori Monogatari (The Bamboo Cutter's Daughter), the oldest and the best of the j.a.panese cla.s.sic romances is (at least in the text and form now extant) a warp of native ideas with a woof 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 G.o.d-possession, other practices supposed to be Buddhistic are of Shint[=o] origin.]

[Footnote 35: The native literature ill.u.s.trating Riy[=o]buism is not extensive. Mr. Ernest Satow in the American Cyclopaedia (j.a.pan: Literature) mentions several volumes. The Tenchi Reiki Noko, in eighteen books contains a mixture of Buddhism and Shint[=o], and is ascribed by some to Sh[=o]toku and by others to K[=o]b[=o], but now literary critics ascribe these, as well as the books Jimbetsuki and Tenshoki, to be modern forgeries by Buddhist priests. The Kogoshiui, written in A.D.

807, professes to preserve fragments of ancient tradition not recorded in the earlier books, but the main object is that which lies at the basis of a vast ma.s.s of j.a.panese literature, namely, to prove the author's own descent from the G.o.ds. The Yuiitsu Shint[=o] Miyoho Yoshiu, in two volumes, is designed to prove that Shint[=o] and Buddhism are identical in their essence. Indeed, almost all the treatises on Shint[=o] before the seventeenth century maintained this view. Certain books like the Shint[=o] Shu, for centuries popular, and well received even by scholars, are now condemned on account of their confusion of the two religions. One of the most interesting works which we have found is the San Kai Ri, to which reference has been made.]

[Footnote 36: T.J., p. 224.]

[Footnote 37: "Human life is but fifty years," j.a.panese Proverb; M.E., p. 107.]

[Footnote 38: Chamberlain's Cla.s.sical Poetry of the j.a.panese, p. 130.]

[Footnote 39: S. and H., p. 416.]

[Footnote 40: Things Chinese, by J. Dyer Ball, p. 70; see also Edkins and Eitel.]

[Footnote 41: The j.a.pan Weekly Mail of April 28, 1893, translating and condensing an article from the Bukky[=o], a Buddhist newspaper, gives the results of a j.a.panese Buddhist student's tour through China--"Taoism prevails everywhere.... Buddhism has decayed and is almost dead."]

[Footnote 42: Vaisramana is a Deva who guarded, praised, fed with heavenly 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 Aime Humbert's j.a.pon Ill.u.s.tre, and from the same pictures reproduced by electro-plates which, from Paris, have transmigrated for a whole generation through the cheaper books on j.a.pan, in every European language.]

CHAPTER VIII

NORTHERN BUDDHISM IS ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

[Footnote 1: On the Buddhist canon, see the writings of Beal, Spence Hardy, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc.]

[Footnote 2: Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 43, 108, 214; Cla.s.sical Poetry of the j.a.panese, p. 173.]

[Footnote 3: See T.A.S.J., Vol. XIX., Part I., pp. 17-37; The Soul of the Far East; and the writings of Chamberlain, Aston, d.i.c.kins, Munzinger, etc.]

[Footnote 4: Much of the information as to history and doctrine contained in this chapter has been condensed from Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio's A Short History of the Twelve j.a.panese Buddhist Sects, translated out of the j.a.panese into English. This author, besides visiting the old seats of the faith in China, studied Sanskrit at Oxford with Professor Max Muller, and catalogued in English the Tripitaka or Buddhist canon of China and j.a.pan, sent to England by the amba.s.sador Iwakura. The nine reverend gentlemen who wrote the chapters and introduction of the Short History are Messrs. K[=o]-ch[=o] Ogurusu, and Shu-Zan Emura of the Shin sect; Rev. Messrs. Sh[=o]-hen Ueda, and Dai-ryo Takashi, of the Shin-gon Sect; Rev. Messrs. Gy[=o]-kai f.u.kuda, Keu-k[=o] Tsuji, Renj[=o]

Akamatsu, and Ze-jun Kobayashi of the J[=o]-d[=o], Zen, Shin, and Nichiren sects, respectively. Though execrably printed, and the English only tolerable, the work is invaluable to the student of j.a.panese Buddhism. 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 j.a.ponais, by Ryauon Fujishima, Paris, 1889. Satow and Hawes's Hand-book for j.a.pan has brief but valuable notes in the Introduction, and, like Chamberlain's continuation of the same work, is a storehouse of ill.u.s.trative matter. Edkine's and Eitel's works on Chinese Buddhism have been very helpful.]

[Footnote 5: M. Abel Remusat published a translation of a Chinese Pilgrim's travels in 1836; M. Stanislais Julien completed his volume on Hiouen Thsang in 1858; and in 1884 Rev. Samuel Beal issued his Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India (400 A.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 Century Dictionary.]

[Footnote 9: See the paper of Rev. Sh[=o]-hen Ueda of the Shingon sect, in B.N., pp. 20-31; and R. Fujishima's Le Bouddhisme j.a.ponais, 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 Binzuru is found in many j.a.panese temples to-day, a famous one being at Asakusa, in T[=o]ki[=o]. He is the supposed healer of all diseases. The image becomes entirely rubbed smooth by devotees, to the extinguishment of all features, 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: j.a.panese 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, the earliest, and except Puto the largest and richest seat of that religion in eastern China. As a monastic establishment it dates from the fourth century."--Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 137-142.]

[Footnote 19: S. and H., p. 87. See the paper read at the Parliament of Religions by the Zen bonze As.h.i.tsu of Hiyeisan, the poem of Right Reverend Shaku Soyen, and the paper on The Fundamental Teachings of Buddhism, in The Monist for January, 1894; j.a.pan As We Saw It, p. 297.]

[Footnote 20: See Century Dictionary, _mantra_.]

[Footnote 21: See Chapter XX. Ideas and Symbols in j.a.pan: 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 five elements.]

[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, hard as that may be. "Dai Nichi Ni-yorai (Vairokana) is explained to be the collectivity of all sentient beings, acting through the mediums of Kwan-non, Ji-z[=o], Mon-ju, Shaka, and other influences which are popularly believed to be self-existent deities." In the diagram called the eight-leaf enclosure, by which the mysteries of Shingon are explained, Maha-Vairokana is in the centre, and on the eight petals are such names as Amitabha, Manjusri, Maitreya, and Avalokitesvara; in a word, all are purely speculative beings, phantoms of the brain, the mushrooms of decayed Brahmanism, and the mould of primitive Buddhism disintegrated 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 ancient religion, I have never found one real Trinity, though triads, or tri-murti, are common. None of these when carefully a.n.a.lyzed yield the Christian idea of the Trinity.]