The Religions of Japan Part 32

CHAPTER IX

THE BUDDHISM OF THE j.a.pANESE

[Footnote 1: Tathagata is one of the t.i.tles of the Buddha, meaning "thus come," i.e., He comes bringing human nature as it truly is, with perfect knowledge and high intelligence, and thus manifests himself. Amitabha is the Sanskrit of Amida, or the deification of boundless light.]

[Footnote 2: B.N., p. 104.]

[Footnote 3: Literally, I yield to, or I adore the Boundless or the Immeasurable Buddha.]

[Footnote 4: A Chinese or j.a.panese volume is much smaller than the average printed volume in Europe.]

[Footnote 5: Legacy of Iyeyas[)u], Section xxviii. Doctrinally, this famous doc.u.ment, written probably long after Iyeyas[)u]'s death and canonization as a _gongen_, is a mixture or _Riy[=o]bu_ of Confucianism and Buddhism.]

[Footnote 6: At first glance a forcible ill.u.s.tration, since the j.a.panese proverb declares that "A sea-voyage is an inch of h.e.l.l." And yet the original saying of Ry[=u]-ju, now proverbial in Buddhadom, referred to the ease of sailing over the water, compared with the difficulty of surmounting the obstacles of land travel in countries not yet famous for good roads. See B.N., p. 111.]

[Footnote 7: Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 108; Descriptive Notes on the Rosaries as used by the different Sects of Buddhists in j.a.pan, T.A.S.J., Vol.

IX., pp. 173-182.]

[Footnote 8: B.N., p. 122.]

[Footnote 9: S. and H., p. 361.]

[Footnote 10: S. and H., pp. 90-92; Unbeaten Tracks in j.a.pan, Vol. II., pp. 242-253.]

[Footnote 11: These three sutras are those most in favor with the J[=o]-d[=o] sect also, they are described, B.N., 104-106, and their tenets are referred to on pp. 260, 261.]

[Footnote 12: For modern statements of Shin tenets and practices, see E.J. Reed's j.a.pan, Vol. I., pp. 84-86; The Chrysanthemum, April, 1881, pp. 109-115; Unbeaten Tracks in j.a.pan, Vol. II., 242-246; B.N., 122-131.

Edkins's Religion in China, p. 153. The Chrysanthemum, April, 1881, p.

115.]

[Footnote 13: S. and H., p. 361; B.N., pp. 105, 106. Toward the end of the Amitayus-dhyana sutra, Buddha says: "Let not one's voice cease, but ten times complete the thought, and repeat Namo'mit[=a]bh[=a]ya Buddh[=a]ya (Namu Amida Butsu) or adoration to Amitb[=a]ha Buddha."]

[Footnote 14: M.E., pp. 164-166.]

[Footnote 15: Schaff's Encyclopaedia, Article, Buddhism.]

[Footnote 16: On the Tenets of the Shin Shiu, or "True Sect" of Buddhists, T.A.S.J., Vol. XIV., p. 1.]

[Footnote 17: The Gobunsho, or Ofumi, of Renny[=o] Sh[=o]nin, T.A.S.J., Vol. XVII., pp. 101-143.]

[Footnote 18: At the gorgeous services in honor of the founder of the great Higashi Hongwanji Western Temple of the Original Vow at Asakusa, T[=o]ki[=o], November 21 to 28, annually, the women attend wearing a head-dress called "horn-hider," which seems to have been named in allusion to a Buddhist text which says: "A woman's exterior is that of a saint, but her heart is that of a demon."--Chamberlain's Hand-book for j.a.pan, p. 82; T.A.S.J., Vol. XVII., pp. 106, 141; Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXI., pp. 251-254.]

[Footnote 19: Review of Buddhist Texts from j.a.pan, The Nation, No. 875, April 6, 1882. "The _Mah[=a]y[=a]na_ or Great Vehicle (we might fairly render it 'highfalutin') school.... Filled as these countries (Tibet, China, j.a.pan) are with Buddhist monasteries, and priests, and nominal adherents, and abounding in voluminous translations of the Sanskrit Buddhistic literature, little understood and wellnigh unintelligible (for neither country has had the independence and mental force to produce a literature of its own, or to add anything but a chapter of decay to the history of this religion)...."]

[Footnote 20: M.E., pp. 164, 165; B.N., pp. 132-147; Mitford's Tales of Old j.a.pan, Vol. II., pp. 125-134.]

CHAPTER X

j.a.pANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

[Footnote 1: T.J., p. 71. Further ill.u.s.trations of this statement may be found in his Cla.s.sical Poetry of the j.a.panese, especially in the Selection and Appendices of this book; also in T.R.H. McClatchie's j.a.panese Plays (Versified), London, 1890.]

[Footnote 2: See Introduction to the Kojiki, pp. x.x.xii.-x.x.xiv., and in Bakin's novel ill.u.s.trating popular Buddhist beliefs, translated by Edward Greey, A Captive of Love, Boston, 1886.]

[Footnote 3: See jade in Century Dictionary; "Magatama, so far as I am aware, do not ever appear to have been found in sh.e.l.l heaps" (of the aboriginal Ainos), Milne's Notes on Stone Implements, T.A.S.J., Vol.

VIII., p. 71.]

[Footnote 4: Concerning this legendary, and possibly mythical, episode, which has so powerfully influenced j.a.panese imagination and politics, see T.A.S.J., Vol. XVI., Part I., pp. 39-75; M.E., pp. 75-85.]

[Footnote 5: See Corea, the Hermit Nation, pp. 1, 2; Persian Elements in j.a.panese Legends, T.A.S.J., Vol. XVI., Part I, pp. 1-10; Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, January, 1894. Rein's book, The Industries of j.a.pan, points out, as far as known, the material debt to India. Some j.a.panese words like _beni-gari_ (Bengal) or rouge show at once their origin. The mosaic of stories in the Taektori Monogatari, an allegory in exquisite literary form, ill.u.s.trating the Buddhist dogma of Ingwa, or law of cause and effect, and written early in the ninth century, is made up of Chinese-Indian elements. See F.V. d.i.c.kins's translation and notes in Journal of the Royal Oriental Society, Vol. XIX., N.S. India was the far off land of gems, wonders, infallible drugs, roots, etc.; j.a.panese Fairy World, p. 137.]

[Footnote 6: M.E., Chap. VIII.; Klaproth's Annales des Empereurs du j.a.pon (a translation of Nippon 0 Dai Ichi Ran); Rein's j.a.pan, p. 224.]

[Footnote 7: See Klaproth's Annales, _pa.s.sim_. S. and H. p. 85. Bridges are often symbolical of events, cla.s.sic pa.s.sages in the shastras and sutras, or are antetypes of Paradisaical structures. The ordinary native _hashi_ is not remarkable as a triumph of the carpenter's art, though some of the j.a.panese books mention and describe in detail some structures that are believed to be astonishing.]

[Footnote 8: Often amusingly ill.u.s.trated, M.E., p. 390. A translation into j.a.panese of Goethe's Reynard the Fox is among the popular works of the day. "Strange to say, however, the j.a.panese lose much of the exquisite humor of this satire in their sympathy with the woes of the maltreated wolf."--The j.a.pan Mail. This sympathy with animals grows directly out of the doctrine of metempsychosis. The relationship between man and ape is founded upon the pantheistic ident.i.ty of being. "We mention sin," says a missionary now in j.a.pan, "and he [the average auditor] thinks of eating flesh, or the killing of insects." Many of the sutras read like tracts and diatribes of vegetarians.]

[Footnote 9: See The Art of Landscape Gardening in j.a.pan, T.A.S.J., Vol.

XIV.; Theory of j.a.panese Flower Arrangements, by J. Conder, T.A.S.J., Vol. XVII.; T.J., p. 168; M.E., p. 437; T.J., p. 163.]

[Footnote 10: _The_ book, by excellence, on the j.a.panese house, is j.a.panese Homes and Their Surroundings, by E.S. Morse. See also Constructive Art in j.a.pan, T.A.S.J., Vol. II., p. 57, III., p. 20; Feudal Mansions of Yedo, Vol. VII., p. 157.]

[Footnote 11: See Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan, pp. 385, 410, and _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 12: For pathetic pictures of j.a.panese daily life, see Our Neighborhood, by the late Dr. T.A. Purcell, Yokohama, 1874; A j.a.panese Boy, by Himself (S. Shigemi), New Haven, 1889; Lafcadio Hearn's Glimpses of Unfamiliar j.a.pan, Boston, 1894.]

[Footnote 13: Klaproth's Annales, and S. and H. _pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 14: See Pfoundes's Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 130, for a list of grades from Ho-[=o] or cloistered emperor, Miya or sons of emperors, chief priests of sects, etc., down to priests in charge of inferior temples. This Budget of Notes, pp. 99-144, contains much valuable information, and was one of the first publications in English which shed light upon the peculiarities of j.a.panese Buddhism.]

[Footnote 15: Isaiah xl. 19, 20, and xli. 6, 7, read to the dweller in j.a.pan like the notes of a reporter taken yesterday.]

[Footnote 16: T.J., p. 339; Notes on Some Minor j.a.panese Religious Practices, _Journal of the Anthropological Inst.i.tute_, May, 1893; Lowell's Esoteric Shint[=o], T.A.S.J., Vol. XXI.; Satow's The Shint[=o]

Temples of Ise, T.A.S.J., Vol. II., p. 113.]

[Footnote 17: M.E., p. 45; American Cyclopaedia, j.a.pan, Literature--History, Travels, Diaries, etc.]

[Footnote 18: That is, no dialects like those which separate the people of China. The ordinary folks of Satsuma and Suruga, for example, however, would find it difficult to understand each other if only the local speech were used. Men from the extremes of the Empire use the T[=o]ki[=o] standard language in communicating with each other.]

[Footnote 19: For some names of Buddhist temples in Shimoda see Perry's Narrative, pp. 470-474, described by Dr. S. Wells Williams; S. and H.

_pa.s.sim_.]

[Footnote 20: The Abbe Huc in his Travels in Tartary was one of the first to note this fact. I have not noticed in my reading that the Jesuit missionaries in j.a.pan in the seventeenth century call attention to the matter. See also the writings of Arthur Lillie, voluminous but unconvincing, Buddha and Early Buddhism, and Buddhism and Christianity, London, 1893.]