Shinran and His Work

by Arthur Lloyd

[1910]

STUDIES
IN
SHINSHU THEOLOGY

BY

REV. ARTHUR LLOYD, M.A.

TOKYO

KYOBUNKWAN

[1910]

And he said unto them:
"If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle."



PREFACE

I must not allow my book to come out without expressing a word of thanks to friends who have helped me; to Mr. Tada, for his translation of the Shoshinge, to Prof. Anezaki, for reading through several of my chapters, to Mr. Tachibana, for his trouble in making the index, and to the Rev. W. F. Madeley, for assistance with his typewriter.

I do not reckon myself to have reached final conclusions, but I hope I have cleared the way for further study.

ARTHUR LLOYD.

Tokyo, 20 March 1910.






Contents

CHAPTER



PAGE


I.

Introductory




II.

The Shinshu in its relations to S'akyamuni and to Buddhism in general




III.

Shinran, the Founder of Shinshu




IV.

The Shinshu after Shinran's death




V.

The Shoshinge




VI.

Objects of Worship




VII.

Shintai and Zokutai




VIII.

Amida Nyorai




IX.

Hozo Biku




X.

Shinnyo Hosho




XI.

The Salvation of Sentient Beings




XII.

Of Faith in General, i.




XIII.

Of Faith in General, ii.




XIV.

After Justification




XV.

Ho-on (#)




XVI.

Sozoku (#)




XVII.

Keijin (#)




XVIII.

The Shinshu on Faith-healing




XIX.

The Care of the Dead (A Shinshu Funeral)




XX.

The Care of the Dead(Days of Mourning etc)




XXI.

Morning and Evening Prayers




XXII.

Fasts and Festivals




XXIII.

Fasting (Shojin #)




XXIV.

Conclusion




APPENDIX




I.

Komyoji (#)




II.

Manichaean Influences in the Shinshu




III.

Caulaucau








[p. 1]



SHINRAN AND HIS WORK.



COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN SHINSHU THEOLOGY.



CHAPTER I.



INTRODUCTORY.

It is my intention in these lectures to sketch, for my own benefit, as well as for that of my Readers, the history and doctrine of the Shinshu or "True Sect" of Japanese Buddhism, such as it is to be seen today in many parts of the Empire of Japan. The Shinshu is one of the Amida or Jodo Sects, so called either from its chief, we may say, only Deity, the Original and Unoriginated Buddha, Amitabha or Amitayus, Lord of Boundless Life and Light, whom the Japanese know as Amida Nyorai, or Mida; or else from Jodo or Paradise, the safe Heaven of freedom from sin and evil, which Amida promises to all who, with full trust and confidence, draw near and invoke His Name, which, carved on a tablet and placed in a holy place, is the quasi-Sacramental Exposition and Pledge of His Immeasurable Compassion and Mercy.

There are in Japan four sects of Buddhism which profess a belief in Amida and practise the Nembutsu. [**] Two of these--the Yudzunembutsu and Ji,

[p. 2]

[paragraph continues] --are insignificant in influence and numbers. The other two--the Jodo and the Shinshu are weighty and numerous, comprising between them more than one half of the Buddhist believers in this country. The Shinshu is the youngest, and by far the most popular of them all, and carries out to its logical conclusions the principle of Salvation by Faith in the Vow of Amida, the One Buddha, which lies at the root of the doctrinal system of all four sects. It is a purely Japanese sect--so, as a matter of fact, are all the Jodo sects;--for it is only in Japan that it has been found possible to establish religious sects on the sole principle of Faith in Amida looked upon as the One and Only Buddha. Yet it has its roots in the past, and the Shinshuist proudly points to the fact that the Amida doctrines have come down to him from the great Indian Mahayanist doctors, Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu, through China, to the earliest days of Buddhism in Japan, and that what Shinran elaborated was only the logical development of that which previous Japanese doctors, Shotoku, Kuya, Genshin and Honen, had established.

Nay, he will trace his spiritual pedigree still further, and claim that his doctrines come to him straight from the Buddha S'akyamuni himself, and will defend, as genuine records of S'akyamuni's teachings, the three Sutras [**] in which, towards the end of his career, the great Indian Teacher, brought his mission to a conclusion, by pointing his hearers to the Mercies of the Great Buddha of Boundless Life and Light. He had taught them, says the

[p. 3]

[paragraph continues] Shinshuist, for many long years the doctrines of the Holy Path [**] ("this is the way: walk ye in it"). But the Holy Path is a road along which it needs strength and courage to walk, and the majority of mankind are feeble. For the weary, the heavy-laden, the sinner, the great S'akyamuni at last opened the Gate of Faith in the Mercies of Amida, and thus made his system all-embracing and universal, by welcoming to his fold the ignorant and sinful, as well as the wise and holy.

The numerous points of resemblance between Christianity and Shinshu will not fail to strike the readers of these pages. These resemblances may be accounted for in many ways.

(i) The "Three Books," may be the genuine records of S'akyamuni's Teaching. In that case they will .fall at the end of S'akyamuni's life, between B.C. 490 and 480, after the fall of Babylon and when Persia was already at grips with Greece. It is impossible to deny that, by that time, the teachings of Jewish prophets may already have found an echo in Indian teaching halls and viharas. [*+]

[p. 4]

Or (ii) the "Three Books" may not have been composed until somewhere near the time when we get the first literary mention of them, i.e. about the middle of the second century A.D. In that case, it would seem impossible to deny the possibility of Christian (and esp. Gnostic) influences in their production. [**]

Or again (iii), if we consider that the Amida Sects, as distinct bodies, do not make their appearance on the scene until after Nestorians and Buddhists had been working together side by side for a few centuries in China,--that great school-house of Japanese religion,--we may again suppose that there has been an influencing of Buddhist thought by Christian ideas. In the course of these Lectures we shall frequently have occasion to consider the wonderful coincidences which exist between Christian theology and what we may call the theology of the Shinshu. The Japanese theologians discuss a very large number of

[p. 5]

problems, such as the relations between Faith and Works, Conversion, the New Birth, Abstinence from meats, and from marriage, etc. which are almost identical with those which agitated the Christian Communion during the Apostolic age and afterwards,--strange to say, in almost every case do we find the Shinshu doctors taking the same side as St. Paul in their treatment of these questions.

There is a great deal to be said in favour of any or all of these hypotheses, but this is not the place in which to say it. There is another and more generous way of looking at the problem. It is equally possible, we may say, that there has been no historical connection whatever between Christianity and the Mahayana. It is quite possible that neither faith has borrowed from the other, but that God, Who fulfils Himself in countless ways, has brought Shinshuists and Christians, along totally different roads, to the common acknowledgement of the fact that there is One and Only One Lord and Saviour of Mankind, and that He willeth all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the Truth, by faith in what He has done, and not. through any works or merits of their own. [**] Viewed superficially, the Saviours are respectively God-in-Christ and Amida Nyorai--poles apart from each another. Go below the surface, and there is much reason for concluding that the two conceptions are identical, and that, without being conscious of it,

[p. 6]

our worship, under different forms and names, is all the while being directed towards the same object. Throughout this book I purpose consistently to take this line of argument, viz. that when the Shinshuist recites his Nembutsu, he is (however unconsciously) addressing the same Divine Person whom the Christian worships, on his knees in the closet or before the Altar, and I believe that the witness to Himself which God has thus given to the Japanese is one which the Christian missionary would be ill advised to set aside or neglect.

The adoption of this line of argument will save me from a great deal of antiquarian research and historical disquisition,--discussions which are after all of but little value for the practical issues of life. These matters will mostly appear only in footnotes and appendices, as matters of secondary importance, and I shall be able to expose, in considerable detail, and with constant reference to Christianity, the actual teachings of the Shinshu itself, what answer they give to the spiritual needs and cravings of mankind, how and in what way they help men to be better, where they conflict with Christianity, and where they have fresh light to throw on points which we Christians have held, perhaps, mechanically, without a due appreciation of their full significance.

In order to give definiteness and order to my book, I am basing it on a Japanese work which has but recently appeared--a Catechism of Shinshu Doctrine, [**]--which I shall follow faithfully from

[p. 7]

chapter to chapter, and from section to section. I shall not give a romanized Japanese text, nor even necessarily a literal translation. My missionary readers (to whom alone such an original would be important) ought to be able to read the Japanese text for themselves in the popular style in which Mr. Nishimoto's book is written. Facilities for checking my statement will be easily obtained by comparing them with the Japanese from which I take them.

I hope none of my Christian readers will suspect me of advocating any form of Christian doctrine at variance with that sound Nicene Faith which the Catholic Church formulated for herself at the end of that long struggle which was, in fact, if not in name, a struggle against the Orientalism of invaders from Asia. I hope also that no Buddhist (if any Buddhist condescends to read me) will think that I want to score a cheap victory, and to degrade his Amida, by identifying him, however tentatively, with God as revealed in Christ. It is with no controversial aim that I take up my pen. Rather, I feel that the quarrel between Eastern Buddhism and Western Christianity is one to be best solved by the path of meditation and prayer. For, if, through the exercise of Faith, we could, even for a few weeks only, realize that the Lord whom we variously worship is One and the Same, the Source of Life and Light, and if, with that Faith, we could come just as we are, Christians and Buddhists, and ask for Light, are we to doubt Christ, or are we to doubt Amida, by supposing that Light would be withheld from his children by One whom Christians and

[p. 8]

[paragraph continues] Buddhists alike delight in calling a Loving Father?

My Lectures will therefore be a first step in a new and perhaps dangerous missionary experiment--the homoeopathic treatment of Shinshu Theology. I am fully aware of the dangers that attend my experiment,--what beleaguered city was ever yet taken without danger to the besiegers? Still, I venture to ask for a sympathetic hearing till I have said my say. I ask for no endorsement, though I trust the reasonableness of my propositions will commend them in time to the thoughtful reader's Christian or Buddhist conscience. In the old days of Japan, when a samurai was about to undertake some doubtful enterprise which his clan could not be expected readily to endorse, he would cut himself off from his kinsmen, and become a ronin. Then, if he failed, he failed, and the clan took no harm: if he succeeded, he returned in triumph to his feudal lord, bringing with him the fruits of his victory. It is quite good to be a ronin for Christ's sake. If I fail, I fail, and the faithful will disown me, though I myself shall hope to be saved "so as by fire." If I succeed, my work will bear its fruit, and the result will be ad majorem Dei gloriam.

A. LLOYD.

Tokyo, Oct. 1909.

Footnotes

^1:* A Japanese contraction for Namu Amida Butsu "Glory to the Buddha Amitabha."

^2:* Muryojukyo, Kwammuryojukyo, Amida Kyo.

^3:* Jap. shodo.

^3:+ If the Ahasuerus of the Book of Daniel is Identical with Cyaxares II of Xenophon's Cyropaedia (and Xenophon is sometimes a safer guide than Herodotus), it will be seen that there must have been a very close connection between the Medo-Persian Kingdom and N. W. and Central India. See article by Bosanquet on "The Chronology of the Medes" in the Journal of the "R. As. Soc." for 1858. If the Amida teachings are the genuine teachings of S'akyamuni himself, we must not only say, with the Shinshuist, that he did not promulgate them until towards the end of ministry, but we must go further and say that it cannot have been until the end of his ministry that he himself learned of the mercies of Amitabha. For it is [p. 4] inconceivable that a Teacher, with a large and compassionate heart, like S'akyamuni, should have been content to teach to suffering humanity the long and painful road of salvation by works and merits, and to have withheld from them the short and easy Path of Salvation by Faith. I conclude therefore that if this doctrine came to the Buddhist world from the lips of S'akyamuni himself, it was a doctrine which he only learned long after his Enlightenment under the Bo Tree, and which he preached as soon as he knew it. It was a "better way," and between B.C. 500 and 480, there must have been many opportunities, even in India, of learning of Him whose worship was at that juncture rising from a national cult to the world wide faith of an Isaiah or an Ezekiel.

^4:* I have touched on the connections with Gnosticism elsewhere,--in my Wheat Among the Tares, and in my lectures on the Japanese Mahayana, (not yet published).

^5:* Early India seems to have had a monotheistic faith of its own, opposed by the warrior caste (to which S'akyamuni belonged) against the prevailing Pantheism of the Brahmans. (Girerson, in Asiatic Quarterly Review July 1909).

^6:* Shinshu Hyakuwa by Nishimoto, published by Moriya, Tokyo.




[p. 9]



CHAPTER II.



The Shinshu in its relations to S'akyamuni and to Buddhism in general.

( section section 1-17.) [**]

The Shinshu claims to be a Buddhistic sect.--Buddhism, as a religion, presupposes no creator, only a Law of Cause and Effect which has always worked inexorably as far as human thought can carry us backwards, a Law through the operations of which all the worlds comprising the universe have been evolved out of the original chaos of matter (Jap. Shinnyo Skt. Butatathata), and brought to their present state of growth, decay, or ruin.

The Founder of Buddhism is the Buddha S'akyamuni whose death may be placed about the year 480 B. C. The religion reached Japan, officially, by way of Central Asia, China, and Corea, about the middle of the sixth century A.D. About a thousand years had thus elapsed from the Nirvana of S'akyamuni to the time when Buddhism first reached these shores. In the course of these centuries it had become one of the most stupendous systems of religious teaching that the world has ever seen. Its sacred books numbered over six thousand volumes: the articles in its creed were described as being 81,000 in number, and the whole system was aptly

[p. 10]

compared to an immense pharmacopoea, in which were to be found drugs and prescriptions for every one of the spiritual troubles of mankind (including toothache and the teething of children). [**] No physician ever came across all human diseases in the course of his practice, or had occasion to try all drugs: no religious teacher ever had to deal with all forms of ignorance and sin, or to provide remedies suitable for each case. The utmost that any teacher of Buddhism can do is to draw from this vast storehouse a few doctrines that seem most suitable for the wants of those with whom he has to deal, and to formulate for himself a particularized system which may lie wholly within the confines of Buddhism, and yet scarcely touch any one of the sister systems formulated, within the Buddhist sphere, by other minds.

Hence, almost from the very commencement, Buddhism has been a religion with many (and occasionally diametrically opposite) doctrines, erected, from time to time, into conflicting sects and denominations.

We may pass over the Indian and Chinese sects, [*+] which have now none but an antiquarian value. All that has come in the way of denominationalism from India to Japan is the division into the three vehicles, or yanas [*++] as they are called. Shinshu

[p. 11]

claims to belong to the last and truest of these, to the Real Mahayana, which has satisfactorily solved the problem of making the personal experience of the individual believer serve for the salvation of others.

Again, if we contemplate the Supreme, whether by that we mean an individual personal God or an impersonal principle, we shall at once recognize, as indispensible attributes, the existence in Him (or It) of Mercy and Wisdom. The Supreme without these two attributes is unthinkable to the mind of civilized man. Moreover, Mercy and Wisdom are not merely attributes of God, they are also avenues by which we can approach Him. Buddhism professes to have two gates by which we may touch the Supreme, the Gate of Wisdom, and the Gate of Mercy. It professes philosophical teachings whereby man is taught to know, see, understand, all the Wisdom that there is in the Supreme; it has also a Gate of Mercy, through which the Mercy and Love of the Supreme flows into man's heart to soften and purify it. The Shinshu teaches its disciples to enter Heaven by the Gate of Mercy. It is pietistic [**] rather than philosophical.

But there are two ways of entering even at the Gate of Mercy. We may try to enter in on the strength of our own merits, [*+] and claim the clemency

[p. 12]

of Heaven as a reward for the good deeds and holy actions that we have done ourselves This is known in Japanese as shodo, the "holy path," and is the path generally taught by Buddhist sects. But Buddhism (in Japan at any rate) speaks also of another way by which the gate may be entered. It tells of a Saviour who has entered for us, [**] who has smoothed the path, and prepared the mansion, and now calls us to the Paradise of Bliss. This is called in Jodo mon, the Gate that leads to Paradise, and it is to this Gate that the Shinshu believer is taught to direct his footsteps.

Again, a man may enter the Gate that leads to Paradise by faith in the Saviour who calls him to come that way, and yet find room in his heart to give worship and reverence to other Buddhas, Saints, and deities. Other Jodo sects may do this, [*+] but the Shinshuist knows (or professes to know) no Saviour but Amida, whom alone he worships with his whole heart.

Similarly, a man may say; "It is true that I am saved by faith, but my faith in Amida cannot set me free from obedience to the wise rules laid down by S'akyamuni for the guidance of his disciples." [*++] So he abstains from meat and worldly amusements, abjures marriage and lives in a monastery. "But,"

[p. 13]

says the Shinshuist, in reply, "the Truth is not so. If I am saved by Faith, the Law becomes of none effect. If Amida saves me through His merits only, then my actions come to be of infinitely small importance, Neither what I eat, nor my attitude towards marriage, nor anything of this kind can possibly affect my eternal salvation." So the Shinshu believer, clerical or lay, lives as a citizen of the world, eats as his neighbours eat, marries like them and rears up children, and says that the home and not the monastery is the focus of the religious life.

It follows from all this that the attitude of the Shinshu towards S'akyamuni himself has been radically modified. Alone among the sects of Buddhism, the Shinshu offers no worship to the Founder of the Buddhist religion, not even that limited worship which it renders to Shotoku Taishi, to Shinran himself, and to a few quite unknown Japanese worthies. [**] "The only reason," says Shinran, in a poem [*+] to which his followers pay peculiar reverence, "the only reason why S'akyamuni appeared on earth was that he might make known to men the Great Saving Vow of Amitabha." And Amida, the Father, the Eternal Being, who originated the Law

[p. 14]

of Cause and Effect, [**] has, by his Vow for the Salvation of Men by Faith alone quite regardless of their merits, so profoundly modified the working of that Law, that it really seems doubtful whether the definition of Buddhism with which we started really holds good for the Shinshu, or whether we ought not to place the Shinshu in a category by itself as a quasi-Buddhist religion which contains in it elements which are apparently not of Buddhist origin.

Footnotes

^9:* The reference is to the paragraphs in Shinshu Hyakuwa.

^10:* Nanjo's Cat. of the Tripitaka actually gives the names of Sutras containing remedies and charms for these ailments.

^10:+ I refer to the numerous Hinayana Sects in existence about the commencement of the Christian era.

^10:++ The author of the Saddharmapundarika Sutra speaks of three yanas or vehicles. 1. That of the Arhats (Hinayana) which only talked of the Salvation of the Individual himself. [p. 11] 2. That of Pratyeka Buddhas (apparent Mahayana--Gondaijo) which enabled a man to reach Enlightenment (more than Salvation) but only for the Individual. 3. That of the Bodhisattva, or true Mahayana (Jitsudaijo) which taught the believer to use his Enlightenment for the benefit of his fellow-creatures.

^11:* Shukyoteki as opposed to gakumonteki.

^11:+ Jap. jiriki.

^12:* Hence the words tariki, "another man's efforts," or igyo.

^12:+ Such sects are known as Hobenmon: sects which adapt their teaching and rites to the weakness and prejudices of their followers. As opposed to such sects the Shinshu profess to be the Shinjitsumon or True Gate.

^12:++ To the Shinshuist all the laws of the ancient Vinaya discipline are Hoben, "accommodations."

^13:* The so-called Zenchishiki or "righteous and wise men" of Shinshu. It is noteworthy while the worship of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is like the false Angel-worship against which St. Paul warns us, the honour now paid by the Shinshu to their Zenchishiki is like the commemoration of good men which has always obtained in the Christian Church.

^13:+ The Shoshinge of which a translation will be found later in this book.

^14:* Rev. K. Tada, Shoshinge Kowa. p. 74. (Nyorai wa) kono sekai no yorodzu no mono wo suburu tame ni innengwa no taiho wo sadame, go-jishin mata kono taiho ni yotte arawase tamai, kono taiho ni yotte sono issai no hataraki wo shimeshi tamau no de arimasu. "In order that he might regulate all things in the world, he established the law of cause and effect, manifested himself, too, in accordance with this great law, and by it manifests (to the world) all his operations." This comes very near the acknowledgement of a First Cause.




[p. 15]



CHAPTER III.



Shinran, the Founder of Shinshu.

( section section 18, 19, 20.)

Shinran Shonin, to give him the name by which he was called during the greater part of his life, and by which he is still mostly known, [**] was born in the year 1173 A.D., in the third year of Shoan, on the first day of the fourth month, a date not to be confounded with the first of April of our reformed, Western, calendar. Through his father, Hino Arinori, a high official in the court of the Emperor Takakura (A.D. 1169-1180), one of the puppet-rulers whose fate lay in the hands of the all-powerful Taira family, he was connected with the Fujiwara family, being a descendant of the famous Fujiwara Kamatari (A.D. 614-669), better known as Nakatomi no Kamako, the faithful minister of the Emperors Kotoku, Saimei, and Tenchi, who had overthrown the ambitious family of the Soga, had placed his own equally ambitious but more fortunate family in their place at the right

[p. 16]

hand of the reigning sovereigns, and had had a leading part in the so-called Taikwa reforms, (645-701). The founder of the Fujiwara family had brought himself to power by confronting and browbeating the Buddhism which centred in Nara, which was an exotic from India, and which had given many indications of a proneness to intriguing interference in the domestic policy of Japan. He had opposed to it the Confucian doctrines of China, which, under the splendid administrators of the early Tang period, had made the Celestial Empire a model for the world to copy; his successors, keeping their hold on the Imperial policy, had introduced new forms of Buddhism, administered from the new capital of Kyoto, which had been more ready to acknowledge state supremacy than had been the more "High Church" monks of Nara and the South, and which ended by being themselves enervated by the artistic, cultured, but withal, worldly, school which took its inspiration from the great Tendai monasteries of Hieizan and Miidera. By the twelfth century, the Fujiwaras, nay, even their Imperial puppet-masters themselves, were groaning under the tyranny of the Hieizan and Kyoto monks, but the spiritual tyrants seemed lastingly secure in what was at the time, practically, a religious monopoly over Japan.

Through his mother, Shinran was connected with the Minamoto family, the great opponents of the Taira, who were then supreme in the councils of the Empire. Her name was Kikkojo, she was the daughter of Minamoto Yoshichika, the second son of Yoshiie (1041-1108), better known as Hachiman

[p. 17]

taro. Yoshiie had taken part in many of the wars and campaigns of the troubled times in which he lived: Yoshichika had been appointed Governor of Tsukushi (Kyushu), had been recalled for maladministration, but, refusing to accept his recall, had murdered an Imperial envoy and set up a rebellion, which was, after some time, put down with a strong hand by Taira Masanori. After his defeat, he fled to the north, where he became a monk, but, coming back once more as a rebel into the wicked world, was captured and put to death (1187). [**]

Thus, on both sides, Shinran was connected with traditions hostile to the Taira family, and more so, perhaps, to the predominating Tendai influences in religion. His father died when he was four years old, when he was eight he lost his mother. It is quite possible that the daughter of Yoshichika had her own version of her father's life to pour into the receptive ear of her young son. The orphan was taken up by his relatives. "He was adopted and nourished by his father's elder brother Noritsuna," says a Japanese biographer, [*+]" and he learned Confucian doctrines from his father's younger brother Munenari ... From an early age he entertained a desire of leaving the world and seeking the priesthood."

[p. 18]

It would seem that his uncles soon tired of their charge, for the boy entered a monastery at the age of nine, and the Confucian studies, if continued at all, must thenceforward have been pursued under the guidance of clerical tutors. The temple he chose (should we not rather say, chosen for him by his guardians?) was the Shoren-in, one of the numerous priests' residences on Hiyeizan, the head of which was a certain Hangen, who had at one time been Archbishop of the whole community, and who also held the court office of Shonagon. Hiyeizan was the central monastery of the Tendai sect, and enjoyed all the spiritual (and worldly) privileges supposed to be attached to an Established Church.

The political unrest of Japan during the eleventh and twelfth centuries found its counterpart in the religious world, and there were already movements afoot against the worldliness, as well as against the complex errors, of the Tendai system. In the miseries of the time, men were looking for a simpler creed, and a more spiritual devotion. Already in 971 Kuya had died, who, Prince of the Blood though he was, had become an itinerant preacher in order that he might win men to trust in, and invocation of Amida's name. Already in 1017, the gentle Genshin, whom the Shinshu revere as one of the great Patriarchs of Amidaism, [**] had retired from Hieizan to Yokogawa, where he had taught the Faith in the Buddhist Saviour to a select band of disciples. A civil war of monks broke out in 1041, which must have made spiritual or religious

[p. 19]

life a sheer impossibility in any of the great barrack-monasteries (it is the only name for them) on Hieizan, at Mii, at Nara, at Negoro, and which drew from the Emperor Shirakawa (1073-86) the plaintive sigh that he could control the monks of Hieizan no more than he could restrain the turbulent waters of the Kamo river, or regulate the cast of the dice. In 1124, Ryonen Shonin had his vision of Amida, which told him to clear out of Hieizan as a den of thieves, and found a sect which should have but one ceremony for all men,--the Invocation of Amida's name. [**] Fifty years later, in 1174, Genku, better known as Honen Shonin, the Japanese St. Francis, had founded a sect now known as the Jodo, which was a revolt against the complexity of Tendai doctrine and the unspirituality of the Tendai life. Mongaku Shonin (1186) can scarcely be reckoned among religious reformers, but the first year of the thirteenth century saw the foundation in Japan of the Zen sects which, like the Jodo, carne out from Hieizan. [*+] The orphan Shinran fell into the midst of a whirlwind of unrest, and was caught by it.

Shinran's progress, whilst he remained in the Tendai fold, seems to have been fairly satisfactory, for we presently find him, whilst still a young man, Rector of one of the Hieizan temples. His undoubted piety, the organizing and administrative powers which he afterwards so strikingly displayed

[p. 20]

in the direction of the great religious movement of which he was the originator, perhaps also the family influence which he could command for the benefit of the clergy, all marked him out as a man destined for promotion, just as a few years previously the self-same qualities had directed the favourable attention of the authorities to the saintly Genku.

But, like Genku, Shinran found himself bewildered by the extraordinary comprehensiveness and multiplicity of the Tendai system. The Tendai may de described as a brave attempt, but one hopeless of success, to unite into one comprehensive system all the various religious influences and streams of teachings which had come into China since the first introduction of Buddhism and other Indian and Central Asian beliefs, and, in Japan, particularly, to harmonize all these with the native tenets of the ancient Shinto, in such a way as to assure the supremacy of the Crown over all causes within the bounds of the Empire. But the Tendai had conspired with the Fujiwara and other ambitious Houses, and the Crown was no longer a free agent. Shinran, we are told, "studied widely and deeply," and found that all the doctrines he met with in the various branches of the Tendai philosophy were "holy and pure," but that they did not satisfy his soul. The unrest of the times had seized him, and his whole nature clamoured for light. Study and books had failed to give him what he wanted, and he betook himself to prayer, going from shrine to shrine, and from idol to idol, to proffer his petitions.

At last, in the Rokkakudo, or "Hexagonal Temple," before an image of Kwannon, he gained the

[p. 21]

light he wanted. Let us pause for a moment to enquire what this Kwannon implied to Shinran, in his then state of Faith. Amida (and the Tendai also worship Amida, though not with the exclusive devotion of the Jodo sects), the ideal Buddha, the Father of all, who desires that all men should be saved, has two special qualities--Mercy and Wisdom. These two qualities take visible forms and show themselves to men, the one in Avalokites'vara or Kwannon [**] (his son), who is the Embodiment of his Compassion, capable of manifestation in many forms and shapes for purposes of practical succour, the other in Seishi (Skt. Mahasthatnaprapta), of whom I have never read that he was ever manifested in fleshly form, [*+] but who is considered to be the spiritual manifestation of the Wisdom of God. The Three, therefore, are at once distinct in Person, and one in Essence, and bear a striking resemblance to the Unity of Three Persons in our Christian Trinity. There is an Amidaist school even in Tendai, and Shinran must have known of it, when, praying for guidance, he knelt before the Kwannon of the Hexagon Temple.

To him came the answer in the shape of a vision of Kwannon, the Lord of Mercy after whom he was feeling, and the Vision said, "Go to Genku,

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the Holy Hermit of Kurodani, and he shall teach you." So Shinran went to Genku, and became his most distinguished disciple.

Genku was then living at Kurodani, near Kyoto, in a humble cottage on the site of the present pretentious monastery of Chion-in. He had retired to this spot to escape from the persecutions of his Tendai brethren, who looked upon him much as a starchy English rector of the eighteenth century may have looked upon one of Mr. Wesley's itinerant preachers, and there he had gathered a few disciples around him,--the nucleus of the present Jodo sect. Genku based his teachings on the so-called "Three Books," spoke of Amida as the Divine Being whom it had been S'akyamuni's special mission to declare to the world, and exhorted his followers to constant faith in Amida's Mercy as declared in his Vow, and to an equally constant devotion to the faithful and devout recital of the Holy Name. He himself would seem to have desired even more drastic reforms for the purpose of carrying the message of salvation through Faith more effectively home to the people, but his disciples as a body were not, perhaps, ready to follow him. He retained therefore all the ancient rules of the Vinaya discipline, and all the ancient ceremonies, as far as was possible under the changed circumstances in which he found himself. I have always thought of Genku as of some cautious, spiritually-minded, Anglican reformer, steering his way carefully between the extremes of Popery and Puritanism, and losing something of his power from his very caution. When I add that, to my mind, Genku is one of the most attractive

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personages in the whole history of the Japanese Mahayana, it will be seen that I have here set down nothing by way of disparagement.

Shinran became Genku's favourite disciple, and it was the affection which the master had for the disciple, that enabled the latter to carry the principles of Salvation by Faith to their logical conclusion.

One day, a distinguished member of the Fujiwara family, Kanezane, came to Genku with a request. ''I want to find," he said, "amongst your disciples a husband for my daughter. I wish my daughter's husband to be a priest as well as a householder, to retain his sacred character whilst yet living the life of the ordinary layman and mixing with the world. I desire him, by means of a concrete example, to demonstrate that the religion of Salvation by Faith in Amida is one which concerns the layman as well as the monk. It will be for the good of the country if we can show that the family and not the monastery is the true focus of religion." Fujiwara Kanezane is one of the great men of Japan, and I am glad to have called attention to his action in this matter. It must have required courage, in a Buddhist country, with religion at a low ebb, (a time when people will often cling with desperate tenacity to the externals of religion), to propose to sweep away an ecclesiastical discipline that has held its ground undisputed for two thousand years or more, and Kanezane deserves credit for the courage of his convictions.

Genku accepted Kanezane's proposition, and his choice fell on Shinran. Shinran (always a retiring man) was at first most unwilling to undertake the

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responsibility. But Kanezane and Genku repeated their request with great insistence, and at last, after more than a year of hesitation, Shinran gave his consent. He became the son-in-law of Kanezane, by so doing became also the Founder of a sect of Buddhism, which, while proclaiming Salvation by Faith in Amida, also proclaimed that if a man be saved by Faith only, and not by works at all, he must let no man judge him in the matter of meats and drinks, of marriage or celibacy, because these things fall at once into insignificance when compared with the far greater principles now at stake. [**]

But before Shinran's Sect came into definite existence, he was called upon to suffer.

Kanezane died in 1207, and by his death Genku and Shinran lost their firm protector. The monks of the older schools, whether at Kyoto or at Nara, alarmed by the radical character of the changes advocated by the two friends, lost no time in trying to compass their ruin. Kyoto and Nara represented, as a rule, two hostile camps of Buddhism; but their common hatred for Genku's doctrines united them against his person, and a few weeks only remained for Kanezane to live when the intriguing monks procured Genku's degradation and banishment, first to Tosa, and then to Sanuki. Shinran shared his

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teacher's fate, being banished to Echigo, and for the moment it seemed that the Jodo movement had been entirely suppressed. [**]

In 1211, on the accession of Juntoku, Shinran was recalled and pardoned. Genku was also recalled, but he was an old man now and worn out by his sufferings, and he returned only to die the following year. Shinran remained the most prominent person connected with the Salvation-by-Faith School.

After Genku's death, his older disciples, who had been first shocked by Shinran's marriage and his setting aside of the rules of discipline, even with Genku's sanction, and were then scared by the ill-feeling and persecution which had arisen out of this action, determined to refrain from these drastic changes, and constituted themselves a sect of Jodo priests retaining the Discipline. Shinran could not draw back, nor did he wish so to do. Separating himself from his brethren of the Jodo, he resolved on the formation of a fresh body of disciples. Genku's original followers had called themselves the Jodo Shu, or sect of the Pure Land: the name which Shinran gave to his own disciples was that of the Jodo Shinshu, or True Sect of Jodo, claiming thereby to be true successor and representative of Genku's doctrine. The sect is called Shinshu, "true sect", for short. Other names in frequent use are the Monto and lkkoshu.

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For the next few years we find him constantly itinerating for the propagation of his doctrines. Thus, in 1212, after a short visit to Kyoto, to return thanks to the Court for his recal from exile, we find him at Yamashina, a village hard by the capital, founding the Koshoji Temple.

Some time afterwards (1227) we find him at Inada in Hitachi, writing and preaching: the next year he is laying the foundations of his faith in modern prefectures of Nagano and Niigata, still the great strong-holds of his followers. [**] We next find him at Takata in Shimotsuke, founding a Temple for which the Emperor Go-Horikawa gives him an autograph inscription on a wooden tablet. In 1232, he is at Kamakura examining a newly made edition of the voluminous library of the Mahayana Scriptures. Three years later, he is at Kibe in Omi, founding a temple which is still of considerable importance. About 1240, he returns to Kyoto, residing first in one place and then in another, and gathering round him an ever-increasing number of devoted adherents. In November 1262, he is taken ill, and after short sufferings falls gently asleep, at the age of ninety, on November 28 of the same year. His character can best be estimated by the examination of his teachings.

Footnotes

^15:* Shinran's name was originally Zenshin. When about 28 years of age he changed his name to Shakhu, but after a year or two went back to his original name. His name of Shinran was assumed when he formally began his Apostolate. He sometimes wrote under the pen-name of Gutoku. In 1876, an Imperial Decree conferred on him the posthumous title of Kenshin Daishi (the Great Teacher who had the Vision of Truth), and this is still his official designation.

^17:* There is another account which says that Kikkojo, who was married at the age of fifteen, was the daughter of Michichika Minamoto, the Rokujo Kurando, 1149-1202, an active minister under seven consecutive Emperors, whose daughter was the wife of the Emperor of Go-Toba and mother of the Emperor Tsuchimikado.

^17:+ Bukkyo Kakuha Koyo, vol. v.

^18:* See my translation of Shoshinge in chapter V.

^19:* This is the Yuzunembutsu sect, still extant.

^19:+ I have taken these dates from Haas, Annalen d. japanischen Buddhism's, vol. xi. p. 3. of Transactions of German As. Society of Japan.

^21:* It is a mistake to speak of Kwannon as a female deity. Kwannon is the son of Amitabha, capable of appearing in many forms, male or female, human or animal, according to circumstances. But he is never manifested except as a means of practically demonstrating the Divine compassion for a suffering creation.

^21:+ Certain apparent exceptions to this statement will be considered later.

^24:* We can also see the grounds on which the Shinshu theologians take their stand, when they say that they, and not the Jodo, are the true followers of Genku. For, apparently, in overthrowing the compulsory celibacy of priests and the disciplinary laws against meat-eating, Shinran was acting in perfect conformity with the instructions of his teacher. Genku, at Kanezane's instigation, set forth his doctrines in a book entitled Senjakushu.

^25:* Kanezane had by this time himself entered the Order of monks. He joined the Zen sect, with the introduction of which he had a great deal to do. (Others say he joined the Tendai.)

^26:* In one Dr. Murakami's magazines I have seen a series of articles horn his pen, describing his childhood in a "parsonage" in one of the Shinshu villages in Echigo. Allowing for the differences in the surroundings, these papers reveal an atmosphere not unlike that of country parsonages in remote parts of England or Germany, where social life is simple and where the parson is not above working with his own hands at the cultivation of the glebe.




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CHAPTER IV.



The Shinshu after Shinran's death.

( section section 21-24).

Shinran's remains were cremated at the Enninji temple, and his ashes buried at Otani on the outskirts of Kyoto. He left behind him several children, mostly sons, with at least one daughter. Of the eldest, Inshin, nothing seems to be known. The second, Zenran, had a son, Nyoshin, who was appointed to succeed his grandfather in the headship of the sect, and is therefore reckoned as the second Patriarch. With him Zenran's line seems to have died out. But Shinran had also a , Kakushin-ni, who had devotedly attended on her father during his last illness, and through whom the succession of Shinran's line was continued. Her grandson, Kakunyo, was the third head of the Shinshu, and the succession then passed to Kakunyo's son Zennyo and to his grandson Shakunyo. Eleven years after Shinran's death, Kakushin-ni and Nyoshin built a Temple at Otani, to which the Emperor Kameyama granted the name of Kuonjitsujo-Amida-Hongwanji, together with the status of an Imperial Chapel. The Temple was popularly known as the Hongwanji, and it may therefore in a sense be looked upon as the parent temple of the still united Shinshu body.

It was not long before the Shinshu showed signs of division, and at the present day there are ten

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sub-divisions of the religion. These sub-divisions have no doctrinal importance; some arose, doubtless, from that pride which in all ages and times is a fruitful mother of schisms, but in some, the divisions must be attributed to a jealous affection for the revered memory of the Founder, and a desire to exalt the dignity of some particular Temple in which Shinran himself had laboured. I purpose giving a short account of these sub-sects, which are occasionally interesting for the light they throw on the subsequent experiences of the sect. [**]

I.--The Bukkoji ("temple of Buddha's Light") originally called Koshoji (temple of the restoration of the right"--possibly in reference to Shinran's recal from exile and pardon), was found by Shinran himself, in 1212, the year in which he commenced the active propagation of his system. It was situated in the village of Yamashina in Yamashiro, in the suburbs of Kyoto, and was Shinran's home for fifteen years. In 1227 he transferred it to the care of his younger brother Shimbutsu, and the Temple long remained in the hands of Shimbutsu's successors. In 1320 it was removed to Shibudani on Higashiyama, Ryogen being then Abbot.

It was in the reign of the unfortunate Godaigo, (1319-1338) when the troubles were brewing which culminated in the setting-up of a rival line of Emperors. In the confusion of the time, men, making a cloke of religion for nefarious purposes, brought the Shinshu into disrepute by their misuse of the doctrine of Salvation by Faith. There arose a clique

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known as akunin shoki ("evil livers whose faith was right"), and Ryogen set himself to work with pen and word to put a stop to their malicious abuse of a good doctrine. He died a martyr to the cause he had taken in hand. In 1336, in the forty-second year of his life, and the twenty-first of his Abbot-ship, he was waylaid and killed by a party of akunin-shoki, dying with words on his lips of pious exhortation.

II.--The Senshuji ("temple of the exclusive devotion," i.e. to Amida) was founded by Shinran himself, at Takata, in Shimotsuke, in A.D. 1225, and entrusted by him to the care of one of his disciples. The group of believers attached to this subsect is called the Takata-ha. The most celebrated of its Abbots, Shinge, transferred his See from Takata to Isshinden, near Tsu, in Ise, and there built a temple, in 1465, which is now the head-temple of the Takata or Senshuji-ha. Shin-ye was much troubled by the activity of a heresy named Mugeko-ha "the sect of the unimpeded light,"--a sect of enthusiastic "perfectionists" who have had their counterparts in the history of European sectarianism.

III.--The Kinshokuji Temple, at Kibe in Omi is the head temple of the Kibe-ha. It was founded in 1235 by Shinran, and remained constantly under his jurisdiction and that of his successors Zenran and Kakunyo. On Kakunyo's death it became the head of an independent administration, in the hands of Kogen and his descendants, who are now represented by the Kibe (Baron) family, the hereditary heads of this sub-sect. I believe that the coming

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into existence of this sect illustrates the policy of the early Shinshu leaders and their Imperialist (and Imperial) patrons. It seems to have been their idea to counterbalance the power of the great temporal lords, as also of the great monasteries, by the creation of a kind of spiritual peers, whose secular position and spiritual influence would, it was hoped, have great and beneficial weight in the State at large. [**]

IV. V.--We have already spoken about the Hongwanji, the headship of which remained in the direct line of Shinran's descendants. The Hongwanji at Kyoto was always looked upon throughout Japan as the truest representative of the Shinshu, and the believers who adhered to it far outnumbered those of the other divisions of the Shinshu household. After Shinran, by far the most influential of the Hongwanji Abbots was Rennyo Shonin, otherwise known as Yeto-Daishi (1415-1499) whose merits are so well recognized by the Shinshuists that they speak of him as the "Second Founder" of their Faith. Writer, preacher, organizer, poet, in the midst of a very troublesome world, Rennyo left behind him a great reputation, the memory of which still continues.

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Not long after Rennyo's death, even if not before that event, the troubles of the times drove the Hongwanji priests from Kyoto, and the Headquarters of the Sect were for many years moving about from place to place in Central Japan. At last, in 1591, Kennyo Shonin, a notorious fighter, and a turbulent Churchman if ever there was one, returned to Kyoto, and rebuilt the Hongwanji at Horikawa in the city. The reigning Abbot for many years, Kosa, the eleventh of the line, died in 1592 and was succeeded in the Headship of the Hongwanji by his two sons Koju and Kosho. Ten years later, in 1602, Tokugawa Iyeyasu took Kosa's third son, also named Kosa, and appointed him to the headship of a new Hongwanji Temple, erected at Karasumaru in Kyoto. Thus Japan gained a new "hereditary Bishopric," but, as a result of its establishment, the mighty Hongwanji, the most powerful ecclesiastical institution Japan has ever seen, was divided into two rival, if not conflicting, sections. Iyeyasu understood quite well the principle of divide et impera.

VI. VII.--Neither the Koshoji-ha, nor the Izumoji-ha, call for any special notice.

VIII. IX.--The has its influence mainly in the province of Echizen. It originated during the period of Shinran's exile to Echigo. On his road to his place of exile, he stopped one evening at a small farm-house in the village of Uyeno. After supper he preached to the people, and out of that sermon grew a great religious movement which spread far and wide in that remote country. After Shinran's return from exile, his fifth son, Dosho,

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took up his work, and the result is to be seen in the Seishoji sub-sect of the Shinshu.

Nearly the same account may be given of the Shoseiji-ha. It also originated in the province of Echizen during the period of Shinran's exile. Only, in this case, it was Shinran's eldest surviving son Zenran who took up the work, and the headquarters of the subsect were at a later period (1475) removed to Yamamoto in the same province.

X.--The Senshoji-ha, whose chief seat is at Fukui, in Echizen, seems to be the only one of the Shinshu sub-sects which cannot trace its origin absolutely to Shinran himself. The date given for its foundation is 1290.

These three last-mentioned bodies seem always to have worked amicably together in Echizen, without any overlapping of jurisdiction, or clashing of interests. They are known as the San-monto-ha "the three Monto or Shinshu sub-sects," the Senshoji at Fukui being considered the most important and central Temple for all three bodies.

It will be thus seen that the ten divisions of the Shinshu do not represent so many schisms or fractions. They are rather ten Dioceses of the same Communion ruled by hereditary Bishops with coordinate jurisdiction in certain localities. They present no doctrinal divergencies. In the quieter sub-sects there was probably more of spiritual life than in monster institutions like the Hongwanjis.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER IV.

I.

It would be a very valuable piece of work if some scholar would undertake, say for one of our Asiatic Societies or for the Melanges, a study of the Life of Fujiwara Kanezane, from the voluminous and valuable Diaries that he has left behind him.

According to the Shinshu authorities whom I have followed in the text of my chapter, it was at Kanezane's suggestion that Shinran instituted his reforms in Buddhism. This statement is not accepted as absolutely true by all sects of Buddhists. What seems certain is that Kanezane was much interested in the introduction of the Zen sects, from China, and that he was also known at times to recite the Nembutsu, as a prayer for temporal benefits, and not, as Honen taught, merely as an act of thanksgiving for spiritual blessings. In other words, he used prayer in the Christian sense of the term, and he had connection with China.

It is interesting to note that Kanezane was the contemporary of Temujin (better known by his later title of Ginghis khan). Temujin became, in 1195, the ally of Wan-Khan (the Prester John of mediaeval romance), the Christian King of a Christian Nation, the Keraites, who were converted to Nestorianism about A.D. 1010; and the allied princes joined in expeditions for the conquest of China, (which accounts perhaps for the Exodus of Chinese Zen priests to Japan). After Wang-Khan's murder, Temujin had his skull set in silver for use as a drinking cup. I think that we have here the key that will unlock many of the undoubted points of resemblance between Shinshu and Nestorianism. A monograph elucidating the problems of Kanezane's life is much to be desired.

II.

section section 25, 26, 27, of the Shinshu Hyakuwa relate (i) to the transmission of the Shinshu Faith from Nagarjuna to Honen, and so to Shinran, (ii) to the lives and writings of the seven Patriarchs, as they are called, through whom the Faith was transmitted, and (iii) to the three Sutras on which the whole teaching of Amida is said to be based. These three Sutras have already been translated into English, and may be consulted

[p. 34]

by the student in Volume XLIX of the Sacred Books of the East. I have referred to the transmission of the Shinshu Doctrines in my lectures on the Japanese Mahayana delivered last winter, and need not repeat my statements. For some of the Patriarchs there already exist valuable monographs, e.g. on Vasubandhu, by Dr. Takakusu in the Trans. of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain, on Genku (or Honen) by Dr. Anezaki in the Transactions of the Congress of the History of Religious, Oxford, 1908, and one on Asvaghosha, (who is, however, not one of the seven) in a recent number of the Journal Asiatique. The best thing I can do for my readers is to furnish them with a translation of Shinran's own poem, the Shoshinge, which will be found in the next chapter. This will give Shinran an opportunity of speaking for himself.

Footnotes

^28:* section 24. I have also consulted Bukkyokakushe Koyo.

^30:* These hereditary Bishoprics (in the case of the Hongwanji it might almost be called a hereditary Papacy) have not always been ideal, the bad intermingling curiously with the good. It is interesting to note that the Shinshu shares the institution of "hereditary Bishops," with the Nestorians of today, possibly therefore also with the mediaeval Nestorians of China. Haas notices (in 1215) the grant by the Emperor of a purple or violet cassock to a "Bishop" (daiso-jo) of the Zen sect.




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CHAPTER V.



The Shoshinge.

Before proceeding with the treatment of my subject it will be well for me to put my readers in possession of this celebrated poem [**] or hymn, composed by the great Shinran himself, which is said to form a part of the daily devotions of every truly devout Shinshu household. I shall constantly have occasion to refer to it in the course of these pages, as it forms in itself a sort of summary of the whole historical position of the Shinshu. I am fortunately able to avail myself of the assistance afforded me by a translation from Mr. Tada's own pen. I have in several passages made use of words and phrases drawn from Christian theology to express what I have believed to be the real meaning of the poem. I have done so purposely, my object in doing so being to call attention to the parallelisms between the two systems. They are indeed well called parallel, for like parallel straight lines they "meet in Infinity." May we say that Infinity is God?

[Pages 36 through the top of page 46, which contain the Japanese text of the Shoshinge, are presented as thumbnailed images--JBH].

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TRANSLATION.

1-2. I put my trust in the great Tathagata of Infinite Life and Boundless Light!

3-10. Hozo the Bodhisattva, [**] in the days of his humiliation, being in the presence of the Tathagata Sejizaio, [*+] examining the degree of excellence of the Paradises of all the Buddhas, the causes of their formation, and the angels and men in them, made his great Vow and proclaimed his mighty Oath, which he meditated and selected for the space of five long Kalpas; and he repeated the Vow of announcing his Holy Name 'Amida' in all the Ten Quarters.

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11-16. Universally doth he send forth his endless, boundless, all-pervading, unrivalled, supreme Light, his Light of Purity, of Joy, of Wisdom, His changeless, unconceivable, unexplainable Light, brighter than the brightness of Sun or Moon. His Light illuminates worlds more numerous than dust, and all sentient creatures enjoy it and are illuminated thereby.

17-20. His Holy Name [**] which was revealed by his Vow of Salvation, is the fundamental Power that justly determines us to enter into his Pure Land. His Vow to make us put our sincere trust in it is the effective cause which produces perfect Enlightenment. His Vow to lead us without fail into Nirvana has been fulfilled; in consequence of it, we can acquire the same rank as the Bodhisattva [*+] in this life, and Nirvana in the next.

21-24. The reason why the Tathagata S'akyamuni was revealed to the world was solely that he might proclaim the Boundless Ocean of Amida's Fundamental Vow. Men, numerous as the Ocean Waves, who are subject to the Five Obstacles [*++] and

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entangled in Evil, should certainly listen to the Tathagata's true words.

25-28. If once there be aroused in. us but one thought of joy and love (in consequence of the Vow), we turn just as we are [**] with our sins and lusts upon us, towards Nirvana. Laymen and saints alike, [*+] even those who have committed the five deadly sins, [*++] and slandered the Holy Laws of Buddha, will yet, by faith in the power of the Tathagata, enter into the enjoyment and taste of his mercy, as surely as the water in the mountain stream ultimately reaches the Ocean and becomes salt.

29-35. The Light of the Divine Heart which has taken hold of us, illuminates and protects us

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continually, and dispels the darkness of Ignorance. It is true that the dark mist of covetousness and passion constantly overhangs the sky that is above the believing heart. Yet, though the sky above may be constantly overcast, beneath the cloud [**] it is light, there is no darkness.

35-40. When we have made Faith our own, and have received a sight of the great mercy and a thought of pious joy, we pass away sideways [*+] from the five evil spheres of life. [*++] If any layman, whether good or bad, hears and believes the all-embracing Vow of Amida-Buddha, him will the Tathagata S'akyamuni praise for his wisdom, and will call him a lotus-flower among men.

41-48. For sentient creatures, who are heretical, evil, and proud, to believe and accept the practice of Amida's Fundamental Vow, is indeed a hard matter, there is nothing harder than this.

Abhidharma [* section] Doctors of Western India, noble

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priests of China and Japan, have declared to us that the true meaning of the Great Saint's (S'akyamuni's) appearance was to point to the true Vow of Amida, and the Vow is just the way for us.

50-54. S'akyamuni the Tathagata, on the mountain peak in Lanka, [**] (in Ceylon), prophesied for the people assembled to hear him that there should appear in South India, a great teacher, Nagarjuna by name, who should destroy the conflicting views of Entity and Non-Entity, [*+] who should clearly teach the excellent law, of the Mahayana, who should reach the Class of Joy and be born in Paradise.

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55-60. He (Nagarjuna) [**] taught that the way of Salvation by one's own efforts is like a toilsome journey by land, that the Way of Faith in the Merits of Another is as an easy voyage in a fair ship over smooth waters, that if a man put his trust in the Fundamental Vow of Amida, he will enter at once, by Buddha's power, into the class of those destined to be born in the Pure Land. Only let him ever call upon the Name of the Tathagata, and gratefully commemorate the great all-embracing Vow.

61-64. Vasubandhu, [*+] also, the Bodhisattva, composed his praise of the Pure Land, put his whole trust and confidence in the Tathagata of Boundless Light, established the truth by the Sutras, [*++] and made clear the way of 'cross-wise going-out' through the merits of the great Fundamental Vow.

65-72. (Vasubandhu taught), with a view to the Salvation of Men through the Faith in Another's merits which Amida bestows [* section] upon us, the mystery

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of the One Heart. If a man enter into this Faith, he will acquire the merit of the Great Ocean of Divine Treasures, and will certainly be admitted to the Great Company of the Saints, in the present life. In the future life, he will go to the Pure Land which shines with the Light of Wisdom like the lotus, and having acquired the Holy Existence with divine power he will return to the forest of human passions, and there, in the garden of life and death, (for the Salvation of his fellow creatures), will manifest himself in various transformations.

73-78. Take Donran [**] our teacher, whom the king (Wuti) of the Lian Dynasty reverenced as a Bodhisattva. From Bodhiruci, the Master of the Tripitaka, he received the teaching of the Pure Land, and burning the ascetic books (in which he had hitherto put his trust), put his faith in the Paradise of Bliss. He followed the teachings of Vasubandhu, (which he learned from Bodhiruci), and clearly taught that Amida's Great Vow was the effective cause of Birth in Paradise.

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78-84. (Donran taught) that the Grace of new birth into Paradise, as well as that whereby we can return to Earth to aid our fellowing-beings, is a gift which we receive through the Buddha's power, and that the effective cause whereby we are justly determined to be born in the Pure Land, is only the believing heart. Wherefore, if we, blind and sinful persons, arouse this believing heart, we can perceive Nirvana in this life. Afterwards, without fail, we reach the Pure Land of Boundless Light, and teaching all sentient creatures that are involved in misery of Earth, lead them to salvation.

85-92. Doshaku [**] taught that the innumerable practices for perfecting righteousness by one's own efforts are of no value, and the invocation of the Name which comprises all virtues, he praised as beneficial. He spoke much of the three marks of Non-Faith [*+] and Faith, and showed that in all three Ages [*++]

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it is the principle of Mercy that alone rules and draws men. Though a man had done evil all his life, yet, .if he were once brought near to the Great Vow, he would reach the Land of Bliss and enjoy the fruits of Salvation.

93-94. Zendo [**] was the first that understood the true will of Buddha S'akyamuni in his age, [*+] and that had pity, alike for those who practised meditation or moral good, as for those who lived in wickedness.

95-100. Zendo taught that the Effect of Salvation is given by the Holy Light [*++] and the Sacred Name of Amida, and expounded the Great Ocean of Wisdom contained in the Fundamental Vow. The believer, having rightly received the adamantine heart of firm faith, and having answered to the calling of the Tathagata with a joyful heart, like Vaidehi [* section] receives the threefold assurance [***] and

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immediately enters into the happiness of the Eternal Life. [**]

101-102. Genshin studied all the teachings of S'akyamuni, and earnestly aspired to go to the Buddha's Land. He exhorted all men to go there too.

103-108. Genshin [*+] established a difference between a pure and an impure Faith, the one deep and the other shallow. Also, he taught that there are two forms of Paradise (Kwedo and Hodo), as places of rest for those of deep and shallow faith respectively. O deadly sinner! Invoke but once Amida-Buddha! He is taking hold of us. Though our eyes of flesh can not clearly see him owing to our sins, yet is his mercy constantly present to illuminate our minds.

109--112. My teacher Genku [*++] threw light on Buddhism, and had deep compassion for the laity, good or bad. It was he who originated the Shinshu teachings in this country, and propagated

[p. 56]

in this wicked world the doctrine of Amida's Selected Vow. [**]

113-116. Genku taught that the reason why men keep constantly returning to the Home of Error (bodily life), is entirely due to our being fast bound with doubt. In order that we may enter straight into the peaceful and eternal abode of Nirvana, it is necessary for us to receive the believing heart.

117-120. Thus prophets and teachers, propagating the teachings of the Sutras, have saved countless men from countless evils. Monks and laymen in the present age! We must put our hearts together, and believe the words that these exalted monks have spoken.

Footnotes

^35:* It may be well to state here that great doubts have been thrown upon the historicity of Shinran. It is maintained by some that no such person as Shinran ever existed, that, in other words, he was a mythical personage, invented by Genku's not over scrupulous disciple, Zenshin, for purposes of his own, and that no documentary proof of Shinran's existence can be advanced dating less than a century from the date of his supposed death. On this point I have reserved my judgment, and have given Shinran the benefit of the doubt.

^46:* Hozo is in the Sanskrit Dharmakara. It is the name given to Amida during the period of his sojourn on earth as a man. It will be borne in mind of course that, according to the Shinshu teachings, he existed as Amitabha before his appearance on earth in the form of a man. The in-i no to ki, which Mr. Tada has translated "days of his humiliation," form an interlude between an eternal Past and an eternal Future, just as do the thirty three years of the earthly life of Jesus Christ.

^46:+ Sejizaio. Sanskrit Lokes'vara Raja, "King Lord of the World." In the Sukhavati Vyuha this is the name given to the Buddha before whom Hozo appeared to make his vow. Cf. Heb x. 5-11, and Phil ii. 9. 10.

^47:* His Holy Name, i.e. Amida Butsu.

^47:+ A Bodhisattva is the stage immediately below that of a Buddha. If we remember that a Buddha is a "perfect Being," we shall also see that there is an analogy between a Bodhisattva, and a "Son of God" such as Saint John speaks of.

^47:++ There are said to be 5 obstacles which call men away from the duties of religion, and so hinder their Salvation (go-joku): 1. War, sickness, calamity. 2. The hindrances which come from contact with immoral men and which infects our lives. 3. The hindrances of false doctrine, heresy, and schism. 4. The hindrances of our own lusts and passions. 5. The despondency which leads men to accidie or acedia, i.e. "getting slack," and sometimes even to suicide.

^48:* Just as we are. Mr. Tada's words will at once suggest a well-known Christian hymn which has the same thought.

^48:+ Laymen and Saints alike. We shall see, in the course of these chapters, that there are certain historical connections between the Manichaeans and some of the Amidaist Fathers. It is possible that the distinction here made between laymen and Saints may be an echo of Manichaeism. We shall land it again in the case of later Patriarchs, and in the Appendix.

^48:++There are two enumerations of the deadly sins. In the Hinayana, they are 1. Parricide, 2. Matricide. 3. The murder of a religious man. 4. The introduction of strife into the Church. 5, With evil intent to wound a Buddha. The five deadly sins of the Mahayana are the following:--1. Sacrilegious defilement or destruction of temples, images, or holy vessels 2. To speak slightingly or contemptuously of the three Vehicles or forms of faith. 3. To treat religious persons with disrespect. 4. The deadly sins of the Hinayana, mentioned above. 5. Committing any of the ten forbidden things, taking life, theft, adultery, lying, unclean language, malicious talking, a double tongue, greediness, anger, folly. It is probably to the latter that Shinran is here referring. Cf. x. Tim i. 8-16.

^49:* Beneath the cloud. It is possible that this word "cloud" may have some reference to the name given to Manichaean temples, Dar-un-Komyoji, "Temple of the Light Shining in the Great Cloud." See Appendix I and II

^49:+ Sideways i.e. by a short cut. Salvation by Faith. For the expression, "taken hold of us," a few lines above, Cf. Phil. iii. 12.

^49:++ The five spheres of existence into which Evil enters are: 1. Angels, (liable to fall). 2. Men. 3. Devils in Hell. 4. Hungry Demons. 5. Beasts and Brutes.

^49: section Abhidharma etc. In these lines, Shinran is referring especially to the seven Patriarchs of the Shinshu, whom we shall have occasion to mention again. The writers of the Abhidharma or metaphysical treatises of the Buddhist Canon must all be placed the end of the first century A.D., if not later. [p. 50] The Apocryphal Gospel of St. Thomas tells us that the great Christian preacher met a martyr's death at Gandhara, the very spot where the remains of Kanishka's temple with the relics of S'akyamuni have recently been discovered. And only a few years after this there arises in Buddhism a school of preachers who say that Salvation comes not by any works that man can do, but by Faith in One who has given himself to be our Saviour!

^50:* Lanka is the old name of Ceylon. In the Sutra known in Japan as the Ryoga Kyo, (Lankavatara Sutra) it is said by some that S'akyamuni (whether miraculously or not) visited Ceylon, and there prophesied that Nagarjuna should appear some six centuries afterwards, and do all the things here mentioned. I cannot here enter into the question of the genuineness of this much disputed Buddhist prophecy.

^50:+ The question of Entity and Non-Entity which troubled Buddhism in the first century A.D. also under the name of the Gnostic heresy known as Docetism, was troubling the infant Christian Church. From recent discoveries it would seem the Entity teachers (Sarvastivadins) were most powerful under Kanishka.

^51:* Nagarjuna's date may be placed somewhere about A.D. 120, during the reign of Kanishka, who flourished until about A.D. 150. The Council which Kanishka held is said to have devoted very especial attention to the Abhidharma, and was followed by a great out-burst of missionary activity which brought the Amida books to China in A.D. 147. V. A. Smith (Early Hist. of India p. 231) says that this was due to Kanishka's conquest of Khotan, which opened the way for his Buddhist subjects to penetrate into China.

^51:+ Vasubandhu's date is now generally placed about A.D. 450.

^51:++ One Shinshu priest has explained this to me in the Singular, as referring only to the Daikyo, or Amitayurdhyani Sutra.

^51: section bestows. Cf. Eph. ii. 8.

^52:* Donran is esteemed as the first of the Chinese Patriarchs. His date is given as A.D. 500-560, and his activities fell under the rule of the Lian Dynasty, A.D. 502-557. Donran apparently began life as a Taoist philosopher, who being very anxious to complete some philosophical investigations, and fearing lest he should die before they were completed, sought for some potent elixir of Life. Bodhiruci, an Indian missionary, working at Loyang from A.D. 503 to 558, pointed him to the Amida Scriptures. But it is evident that Bodhiruci, like his Master, Vasubandhu, mainly thought of the hope set before the believer of "returning to the forest of human passions," and it was this that attracted Donran, as giving him the hope of completing his investigations. Re-birth in Paradise was to him a thing to be desired mainly on that account.

^53:* Doshaku's birth is given as A.D. 554, or thereabouts. He is reckoned as the Second Chinese Patriarch, and lived long enough to see and advise his successor, Zendo. See Appendix I.

^53:+ Non-Faith and Faith. A faith which is not a true one, says Mr. Tada in his commentary, may be known by the following characteristic marks. 1. It is not pure and simple. 2. Is not a faith "with the whole heart." 3. Is liable to changes. On the contrary, a true faith is. 1. Plain and simple. 2. Whole-hearted. 3. Lasting (sozokushin).

^53:++ The three Ages are well known to Buddhist thought. (a) The period of Upright Law, to last for 500 years after the Nirvana. By that time the true understanding of S'akya's teaching would have died out. (b) A period of 1000 years, beginning 500 years after the Nirvana--the Image Law Period. Then (c) a second millennium (or according to the Shinshu, 10,000 years, of the Decay of the Law. In this period Shinran appeared, as did also Nichiren. Doshaku's teaching was that, whatever [p. 54] might be the period, the Mercy of the Buddha would still hold good, and the more so when the decay of Faith made Salvation by Works more and more difficult. It is instructive to note the parallel between Doshaku's thought as here given, and St. Paul's arguments as to the relations between the Gospel and the Law as worked out in the Epistle to the Galatians.

^54:* Zendo. circa A.D. 614. See Appendix I.

^54:+ in his age. i.e. in S'akyamuni's own age. This would mean that Zendo first understood that S'akyamuni's chief object in teaching, was to point men to Amida. Manes apparently did the same.

^54:++ Holy Light. i e. Komyo. See Appendix I and II.

^54: section Vaidehi, Queen of Bimbisara, to whom S'akyamuni first gave the teachings about Amida, in the Amitayurdhyani-Sutra.

^54:** threefold assurance. lit. san-nin, the three forms of perfect patience. But the word seems to correspond more or less with the threefold plerophoria or "full assurance," mentioned by St. Paul in Col. ii. 2; Heb. vi. 2; X. 22.

^55:* Eternal Life. Compare a very similar thought in St. John V. 24

^55:+ Genshin, first Japanese Patriarch. A.D. 912-1017. Wrote much on the efficacy of prayer. The distinction which Genshin makes between the two forms of Paradise, and the two kinds of faith, savours somewhat of Manichaeism. Kwedo is a place where the soul is "purged" from the seeds of error, by the "fire" of the Holy Name. See Appendix I and II.

^55:++ Genku's date is A.D. 1133-1212. Genku's compassion for the laity was called out by the political and social miseries of his time, and by the neglect of their duty as religious teachers by the large and influential sects of the day. It is the contention of the Shinshu that all Shinran's reforms were really prompted by Genku (Honen).

^56:* Selected Vow: because Hozo Biku made his Vow after a careful study and examination of all the different Paradises of the various Buddhas.




[p. 57]



CHAPTER VI.



Objects of Worship.

section section 28, 29, 30.

The Shinshu has as its principal object of Veneration the Tathagata Amitabha, "that is to say Namu-Amida-Butsu." [**] In the house-hold shrines of the laity there is no other object of worship but this: in temples and places of public worship, worship is offered also to Shinran Shonin (now officially known as Kenshin-Daishi), to the zenchishiki "righteous and holy men," (a term which includes the founders and patron saints of the various honzan, or cathedrals of the sub-sects or dioceses mentioned in a previous chapter), to the Seven Ko-So, or Patriarchs honoured by Shinran in the Shoshinge, as responsible for the transmission of doctrine, and finally to Shotoku Taishi, as the introducer of Buddhism into Japan, and as a great favourer of the Nembutsu practices and faith. These, together with Amida, form what are called the Go-hon-zama, or five classes of venerable Beings.

It is never, however, maintained that the worship given to Shinran, to the "righteous and holy men,"

[p. 58]

to the Patriarchs, or to Shotoku Taishi, stands on a par with that offered to Amida Himself. This may be seen by the fact that, in household worship, no notice is taken of any one of them, also that Mr. Nishimoto, in his Catechism, having just mentioned their names, never reverts to them again, and never attempts to build any doctrines on the worship offered to them. They are clearly of no doctrinal importance whatever, and the worship (matsuri) offered to them is clearly of that lower type which Christian theologians sometimes call latreia, to distinguish it from the perfected and whole-hearted douleia (or "slavery") which is due to God alone. Plato made the same distinction, so do the Hindoos. A Vaishnavite in India is practically a monotheist. He believes in One God with all his heart. Yet he will give a lesser worship to twenty minor deities, without feeling that he thereby takes aught from the worship due to Vishnu the Preserver. In the Shinshu, this lesser worship, or latreia, is reduced to very small limits, and may indeed be said to be almost non-existent. The Shinshu believer can no more be said to worship e.g. Shotoku Taishi, in the ordinary sense of the term, than the Anglican can be said to worship St. Paul or St. John, because of the few Saint's Days in his Calendar.

But, however small may be the worship given by the Shinshu Buddhist to the unnamed Zenchishiki, or the somewhat obscure Patriarchs, of whom the average lay believer scarce knows the names, it is more than that which is given, either in households or Temples, to S'akyamuni himself. The Founder of Buddhism has absolutely no place

[p. 59]

in the worship of this influential and powerful body of religious persons, who nevertheless call themselves Buddhists. I won't say that he has been wholly excluded from the Life of the Sect. His teachings are still much revered and studied, the Shinshu preacher still draws from the Sutras the inspiration of his sermons, and Shinshu scholars have done as much as most for the elucidation of S'akyamuni's teachings. S'akyamuni is the Moses of Buddhism, but he has been extruded from the Shinshu Sanctuary; and we can well understand the indignation of Shinran's great opponent, Nichiren, when he found some children playing in the road with a broken image of S'akyamuni, which had been discarded from the Temple, as useless lumber, since the villagers had given ear to the exhortations of Shinran's itinerant preachers. [**] It is as hard to imagine a "Buddhism without Buddha," as it is to recognize a "Christianity without Christ."

Naturally, the Shinshu theologian has arguments to advance in defence of his position. It is said by some that, as the greater includes the less, so Amida includes S'akyamuni, the latter being only a partial manifestation or incarnation of the former. (This is the view known as ni son it-chi # "two Blessed Ones with One Object," as though the unity of purpose had resulted in the Unity of Person).

The other view is known as ni son bettai (#) "'two Blessed Ones with separate personalities." Those who hold this view maintain that S'akyamuni

[p. 60]

was a distinct personage from Amida, and that he was and remains the Lord of the World that now .whereas Amida is Lord of the World to come. Shinshu is altogether a religion of the other world. It teaches men to put their whole trust in the Paradise prepared for them after death. It has therefore no need to teach fasting, celibacy, or the other religious practices which S'akyamuni was at such great pains to teach and institute.

Still, it must be confessed that the reasons thus given, though they would have been, perhaps, sound enough in the beginnings of Buddhism, as grounds for the total exclusion of S'akyamuni from the worship of the Buddhist communities, must have appeared in a very different light, when they were urged as grounds for the exclusion of S'akyamuni from the altars on which he had been venerated for fifteen centuries. A more radical revolution in religion can hardly be imagined.

Scarcely less strange is the absence, from nearly all the most modern authorities on Shinshu doctrine of all mention of the supposed Jodo and Shinshu doctrine of the Trinity. Neither the Shinshu Hyakuwa, nor the Shinshu Seikun, as far as I have read it, nor Mr. Tada's works, as far as I am acquainted with them, allude to it. And yet in a Life of Shinran, published apparently as late as 1904 there is abundant evidence of it. In vol. i of that book, Amida is constantly spoken of as ikko sanzon no Butsu (#) "the Buddha of three Persons and One Light," or as san son itchi (#) "the three Blessed Ones with one object." In this Trinity, Amitabha,

[p. 61]

the Unoriginated, the Supreme, is the Father: by Him stands the Son, the Embodiment of Amitabha's Compassion,--in Sanskrit Avalokites'vara, "the Lord that looks down," in Japanese Kwanzeon, or Kwannon; and another, the Embodiment of his Wisdom,--in Sanskrit Mahasthamaprapta, "He that hath obtained great strength," in Japanese, Seishi. [**]

The three are One, and the Father, Amida, is the Centre and the Heart of the Trinity, the source of Compassion and Wisdom. When the Compassion of the Most High is to be manifested to men, Kwannon, the Embodiment of the Compassion which is in the Godhead, becomes Incarnate: when the Wisdom of the Father, or his Might, is set forth, Seishi, the Embodiment of Divine Wisdom, manifests himself in and through some human personality.

So far the picture corresponds to our own ideas of the Trinity of God. But as the Gnostics of the Apostolic times, and especially those who sprang from the same regions and came into existence about the same time as the Buddhist Mahayana, held that the Divine Son had often become incarnate, (one of those incarnations being that one which took place at Bethlehem in the days of Herod), and as both Manes and Mahomet claimed to be the Paraclete, the Incarnation of God's Wisdom, so the Shinshu (and not the Shinshu alone) has believed in many incarnations and manifestations of Kwannon and,

[p. 62]

[paragraph continues] Seishi, respectively the second and third persons of the Buddhist Trinity. It comes to one as a shock, after having been told that the Shinshu are the Unitarians of Buddhism, to learn, on the authority of a popular book, written for the edification of ignorant but pious persons, that Shotoku Taishi was an Incarnation of Kwannon, that Honen Shonin, the teacher of Shinran, was Seishi in the flesh, that Tamahi-no-miya, Shinran's wife, was an incarnation of Kwannon, and that Amida himself condescended to take flesh as Shinran. [**] The tendency of the present-day Shinshu is to drop these fabled incarnations, and we can only rejoice that it should be so. We lose our reverence for an Incarnate God when Iris Incarnations are constantly taking place in varied forms and shapes. But it is interesting to find ourselves thus brought face to face, once more, with one of the earliest problems of Christian History, and to be under the necessity, as Christians, of proving once more that there has been but one Incarnation of the Godhead--that of God in Christ. It is a significant point in our favour that the official Shinshu teaching also recognizes but one Incarnation properly so called,--that of Amida in Hozo Biku. Our Catechism of the Shinshu mentions no other. The rest are apparitions rather than Incarnations. [*+]

Footnotes

^57:* I believe that a distinction is sometimes made between Amida Nyorai, and Namu-amide-Butsu. The former is used to denote Him, as he was and ever will be, the Absolute. The latter term (which is also the invocation of praise) is Amida, after his Incarnation as Hozo Biku, when he had attained his glory and received the "Name above every Name."

^59:* This incident was one of `the turning points in Nichiren's life.

^61:* I often think in connection with this grouping of Buddhistic deities, of Zechariah's Vision of the two witnesses the priestly and the royal--that stood before the Lord of the whole earth.

^62:* Shinran Shonin Go ichidai Kowa vol. i, p. 71, 73.

^62:+ The Shinshuist gets his teaching of the incarnations of Kwannon from the Fumonbon, a chapter of the Hokkekyo. But the Hokkekyo is not officially recognized as one of the fundamental documents of the Shinshu. It is indeed the strongest weapon the Nichiren sect possesses for combating what it considers to be the Shinshu heresies concerning Buddha.




[p. 63]



CHAPTER VII.



Shintai and Zokutai.

section section 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37.

In the romantic history of Shinran's life, to which I have already made allusion, there is a very pretty little story about his courtship. I will not vouch for its historical accuracy, but I think it will serve my purpose well enough to quote it here.

It was in Shinran's early days, before he had: begun to be troubled with doubts touching the infallibility of the Tendai system, and when he was still a rising and promising young monk at Hieizan.

He had been on business of the monastery to Kyoto, and was on his way home. Near the foot of the mountain he overtook a young maiden, who accosted him. She was desirous, she said, of going to worship at the famous shrine on the mountain: would he be kind enough to act as her guide and take her with him?

Shinran was greatly shocked. "You are a woman," he said, "and no foot of woman may tread the holy mountain. I cannot take you with me."

But the young woman would take no refusal. "I am a woman," she said, "but I have a human heart, and my human heart longs for salvation. Am I to be denied that which my soul longs for?"

Shinran suggested a nunnery, but the suggestion was not welcomed. "Your nunneries," she said,

[p. 64]

[paragraph continues] "are like your monasteries, places where women get together to pore over books and heap up knowledge, and think they shall be saved by what they know. I am not a learned woman, and if I were, what good would my learning, immersed in a convent, do to my suffering sisters? I desire to be saved in order that I may save others, I want some simple faith suitable for simple souls; for whilst monks and nuns are poring over Sutras of doubtful meaning in the selfish quiet of the monasteries, there are thousands of men and women in Japan perishing for lack of a few satisfying mouthfuls of Saving Doctrine."

Shinran was not a man of ready words. Some years later, when he had joined Honen, his master sent him, in his own stead, to be the champion of the Jodo cause in a public disputation. He went, announced his arrival, took his seat modestly near the door; listened to all that the adversary had to say, and then brought shame on his Master and himself by slipping out of the room, without making a speech in defence of his own position. We should not therefore be surprised to be told that he remained silent under the attacks of his fair fellow-traveller.

But the maiden went on with her attack. Producing from her pocket a crystal burning glass, such as we may often see in Japan, she said: "Please take this and keep it. It has the power to collect the sun's rays and focus them on one point, on which it shines with burning heat. Do the same for religion: collect and focus into one point the whole system of the faith, and let that one point

[p. 65]

be made burning and bright, so that it may kindle. into zeal even the simplest and most ignorant soul."

Then she left him, and it was not for some years that he discovered that he had been conversing with the daughter of Fujiwara Kanezane, the lady who afterwards became his wife. [**]

I have told this story because it seems to it illustrate one or two of the questions brought before us in our consideration of the Shinshu Catechism.

For what period in the world's history, we are asked, and for what persons are the Shinshu doctrines of Salvation by Faith in Amida specially suitable? They are suited especially for the "last days," is the answer, for the matsudai, [*+] the sue no yo, in which we live. And they are suited for sinners, for weak, vacillating, helpless, persons like ourselves, who have not the moral and spiritual strength necessary for the working out of our own salvation. What does not St. Paul tell us of the last days, and of the mercy of God revealed to sinful man in them? And what sign of Christ's truth is there greater than this,--that the "poor have the Gospel preached unto them?"

St. Paul has focussed the whole of Christianity for us into a single point. "I determined to know

[p. 66]

nothing among you save Christ Jesus and Him crucified," and the focussed rays of light, coming through that burning glass, have always been bright and powerful. "Christ and Him crucified" has always been a simple formula, well within the intellectual grasp of the most ignorant and the most unlearned. And Christians have at times been charged with almost wilful ignorance.

So has it been with Shinshuism. Tama Hi no Miya's gift to her future husband bore its fruit, when he became a disciple of Honen, and preached that simple faith which Honen first formulated into a system, but which a constant succession of pious monks had held and taught throughout all the years since the commencement of the Mahayana. Faith in Amida has always been in Japan a burning glass, quickening certain souls into spiritual life, and giving hope to the ignorant, the unhappy, the sinful. And, like Christians, the holders of this faith have at times been charged with ignorance. Monto mono wo shirazu,--the "Monto know nothing,"--has passed into a proverb.

But as there were occasions when St. Paul could "speak wisdom," so the Shinshu has its philosophies for the perfect, the spiritual, the wise man. It does not reject knowledge, it only assigns it to a secondary , instead of making it the end-all of religion. "Had Christ said, 'He that hath known me hath known the Father, he would have been but a man," said to me a disciple of Honen. "But he said 'He that hath seen me,' and that word SEEN showed Him to be God."

There is a simple summary of the Shinshu faith

[p. 67]

which our Catechism proceeds to discuss ( section section 33-37). Its composition is ascribed to Rennyo Shonin, the great renovator of the Shinshu in the fifteenth century, and the Faith is therein treated of as consisting of two portions,--the shintai, or "true position," and the zoku-tai or "ordinary position." I have been unable to satisfy myself in the choice of a term with which to render these expressions into English. They correspond roughly speaking to the "duty towards God" and the "duty towards one's neighbour" in the English Church Catechism, but they are more than that. They imply grounds of belief as well as duty based on belief, and so may be looked upon as half-creed, half-duty. In another light, shintai may be spoken of as our justification, zokutai as the gradual sanctification of the heart and life.

The shintai is the short-cut (keiro) of the believing heart which intuitively sees what it does not yet possess or understand, and which apprehends the fruits of Amida's Enlightenment through faith in him. The shintai is especially the faith of those who make a special profession of religion. It is shusseken no ho. The zokutai, on the contrary, is the position of the man who is in the world and who has to do his duty in that position. All sects of Buddhism make the same distinction, but the Shinshu, which is especially the religion of the layman, lays especial stress on the zokutai, considering it of more importance among Shinran's followers than anywhere else in Buddhism. The distinction is also found in the Larger Sukhavati Vyuha. It is claimed

[p. 68]

that the Eighteenth Section of Amida's Great Vow contains both. [**]

I will end this chapter by giving a translation (taken from Satow and Hawes' Guidebook to Japan. Introd. p. 92) of this Shinshu Creed.

Shintai.--"Rejecting all religious austerities and other action, giving up all idea of self-power, we rely upon Amida Buddha with the whole heart for our salvation in the future life, which is the most important thing; believing that at the moment of putting our faith in Amida Buddha our fate is settled. From that moment, invocation of His Name is observed as an expression of gratitude and thankfulness for Buddha's mercy. Moreover, we bear in thankful remembrance our reception of this doctrine from the Founder, and succeeding chief priests, whose

[p. 69]

teachings have been as benevolent and as welcome as light shining in a dark place."

Zokutai.--"Furthermore, we must, during our whole life, observe the laws which are appointed for our duty."

___________

NOTE ON SHINTAI AND ZOKUTAI.

Dr. Nanjo in his Short History of the Twelve Buddhist Sects, page 128, defines Zokutai as being equivalent to the Sanskrit Samvritisatya, or "truth by general consent." It is, he says, that "part of the doctrine of this sect, which has reference to the distinction of good and evil in conduct in this world."

"Those who belong to this sect are recommended to keep to their occupation properly, and to discharge their duty, so as to be able to live in harmony. They should also cultivate their persons and regulate their families. They should keep order and obey the laws of the government, and do their best for the sake of the country. Buddha says in the Great Sutra, (i.e. the Larger Sukhavati Vyuha): "you should separate yourselves from all evil, and select and practise what is good, thinking and considering well:"

Shintai Dr. Nanjo defines as Paramartha satya "true truth." The term "refers to the distinction between belief and doubt in the mind." By putting their belief in Buddha Amitabha, the faithful become members of the Shojoju (Skt. Samyaktva ras'i) or "mass of absolute truth,"--a term which may be considered as being analogous o the Communion of Saints in certain of its aspects, or to what some Roman Catholic Theologians would call the "Soul of the Church."

Shojoju represents that to "that class of beings who will certainly be born in the Pure Land of Amitabha Buddha, and attain to Nirvana there in the next life. They are taken hold of within the light of Amitabha Buddha, joyful in heart, practising always the great compassion of Buddha, and suffer transmigration no more. Therefore they are called Avaivartikas (Jap. Futaiten), or 'those who never return again.' They derive this benefit at the moment of their putting faith in Buddha."

[p. 70]

By Nirvana is meant "the state of enlightenment of Amitabha Buddha." In other sects, it is held that the soul, after reaching Paradise, must still, in that Paradise, practise good works for a long time, before reaching to that state of light. But the Shinshu have a phrase ojo-sokujobutsu which means that the state of ojo, 'going to be born in the Land of Bliss,' is itself to become Buddha. This implies that at the moment of death, the perfection of the Believer is accomplished.

As for the Zokutai, in other sects it is used as a means of working out salvation. In the Shinshu it is merely the expression of gratitude for a salvation already received.

Footnotes

^65:* In Shinshu books, Shinran's wife is always spoken of as Tama no Miya, "Princess Burning-Crystal."

^65:+ The Shinshu arrangement of the ages to come after the death: of S'akyamuni is somewhat different from that which we find in the Nichiren system (see my Japanese Mahayana). In the Shinshu, it is 500 years of Upright Law, 1030 years of Image Law, and 10,000 years (instead of 1000 only) of corrupted Law, at the end of which the knowledge of the Law will perish.

^68:* The eighteenth section of Amida Vow, as given in vol. XLIX of the Sacred Books of the East (Description of Sukhavati, p. 73), is as follows:--

"When I have obtained Buddhahood, if those beings who are in the ten quarters should believe in me with serene thoughts, and should wish to be born in my country (Paradise), and should, say, ten times have thought of me (or repeated my named--if they should not be born there, may I not obtain the perfect knowledge; (shintaimon)--barring only those beings who have committed the five deadly sins, and who have spoken evil of the good law" (zokutaimon).

There is a certain amount of discrepancy, as to the arrangement of the different sections of the Vow between the Sanskrit and the Chinese. It is interesting to notice that Buddhism too has no unforgivable sin. For such sinners, as, e.g. Ajatas'atru, there is still hope in Amida's Mercy. Still, after Faith has been received and accepted, there comes the obligation to keep the laws of the Zokutaimon. Failure to observe this, or sinning against the light involves forfeiture of the grace for a while at least.




[p. 71]



CHAPTER VIII.



Amida Nyorai.

( section section, 37-41).

Momotose mo
Inoru kokoro no
Hakanasa yo,
Namu Amida Bu no
Muryoju naru ni.

"What a vain prayer it is, to ask for a hundred years of life, when Amida is yours, whose Life is Everlasting!"

It is said of one of the Chinese Patriarchs of the School of Faith that, before his eyes were opened, he went every where seeking for the Elixir of Life. The celebrated Bodhiruci met him. " You are seeking," he said to him, "for a medicine that shall ensure you a hundred years of life. I can point you to something better than that." And he preached to him Faith in the Buddha of Life Eternal. It must have been this incident that inspired the little poem which I have put at the head of this chapter.

In a little Handbook of Doctrine lately published by teachers of the Jodo Sect [**] and therefore identical in teaching with what the Shinshu hold, there is a

[p. 72]

catena of passages from Sutras, as well as from later theological treatises, which bear upon Amida.

He is there described as a Being whose Length of Life is Immeasurable in Past, Present, and Future. He never had a beginning. He will never have an end, His life at this present moment fills everything. If we picture Him to ourselves, His form is such as the Japanese artists delight to paint,--colossal in stature, [**] with a face "as the sun shining in his strength,"--enko no kebutsu, [*+] the personified Buddha of Perfect Light. His Light is as immeasurable as His Life: it has had no beginning, it will have no end, it is as boundless in space as it is in time. It illuminates the Ten Quarters (jippo), which is the Buddhist equivalent for the Universe, and there is no place which it is does not reach. Wherever He is, He is king, and the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of Ten Quarters are "the Angels of His that do Him service," there is none that rendereth Him not homage.

Yet, though the Universe is not large enough to contain Him, he has a-local habitation where He may be seen by the eye of faith. He is gokuraku no aruji, "The Lord of the Paradise," and it is in Paradise that He is especially able to display His

[p. 73]

[paragraph continues] Attribute of Mercy. Other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas may abandon a sinner in sheer despair of procuring for him a saving conversion; but Amida never despairs. A dying thief, a lower and more miserable creature, if such there be,--would be welcome in Paradise, in the place where the deadly sins (go shu no aku) can find no entrance, where the eightfold work of salvation (hachi-gedatsu) bears its perfect fruit, and where the threefold light (san-myo) of Wisdom, Compassion, and Might, is constantly shining.

It would take many long ages of constant speaking, day and night, to exhaust even one half of the attributes of Amida. We may never come to know them all; but of His great Compassion we are quite sure, for did He not become Incarnate for us in the person of a certain Hozo Biku? That Incarnation was the visible embodiment of His Compassion: it was undertaken "for us men and for our salvation," and it is this that gives to the Believer in Salvation by Faith the assurance that Amida is no mere name, but that in Him Essence and Name are one and indivisible. [**] Compassion is the Heart of Buddha.

[p. 74]

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.

I

Amida and God.

I venture to suggest that, in estimating the Buddhist conception of God, as shown in the Jodo doctrine of Amitabha, special consideration should be given to certain statements of St. Paul. In Eph. iv. 5, he speaks of the Father as being epi pantun (Transcendental), dia pantun (Immanent), en pathin (Indwelling). In 1. Cor. vii. 6 he speaks of Him as the Divine Substance (ex oy ta panta), out of whom are all things, of the Son as the Divine Agent through whom (di oy) all things are made, and again of the Father as the Ultimate Object (emeis eis ayton) to whom we all tend. I believe that the working out of these passages would lead the Shinshuist to results which, while thoroughly in harmony with the Faith of the Church, would also be agreeable to what he believes respecting Amida.

II

Amida in the Shingon Sect.

Circumstances have recently led me to the study of Japanese Funeral customs. I have found a special interest in the rites of the Shingon, a sect which I believe to have in it very considerable elements of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. (See my Wheat among the Tares and Papers on the Formative Elements of Japanese Buddhism in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan). Shingon is very largely a symbolic religion, and the funeral service employed consists mainly of symbolical

[p. 75]

manual acts (mudra), and the recitation of certain quasi-sacramental Sanskrit formulae (mantra).

When, prior to its removal to the Temple, the corpse has been placed before the temporary altar in the house on which stand the thirteen Buddhas whom the Shingon reverence, the priest commences the service with lustration, and meditation on the Three Secrets, the Three Actions, and the Three Classes of Buddhas. Then, accompanying his actions with symbolical gestures, he recites (i) a formula significant of his desire for Enlightenment, and (ii) one of meditation on the teachings of Fugen (Samantabhadra), the meaning of which I have not been able to discover, except so far that Fugen is said to have been especially concerned with teaching the Unity of the Buddha.

Next follows (iii) an invocation of Abraxas (A-ba-ra-ka-kia), the god of the Alexandrian Gnostics of the first century A.D., who is thus still worshipped in Japan. Abraxas is treated as the sum-total of the Universe, composed of atoms or particles of Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Void, (see the interesting chapter on God or Atoms in Mr. Glover's masterly work on the Development of Religious Thought in the Roman Empire during the First Century A.D.). Next follows (iv) the invocation of Five Abstract Buddhas--Amogha, Vairocana, Mahamudra, Manipadma, Jalapravarta. These names, with the exception of the second, are practically unknown, but the same personages appear later on as the five Dhyani Buddhas (Gochi Nyorai) of Japan. Mahavairocana, Akshobya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha and Sakyamuni. (It is well known that Manes held that God was unknowable, except through his Five Manifestations or Spirits, to whom corresponded the great religious teachers of Antiquity Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Manes himself, and Moses.) This second list shows that Amitabha is one of the Five--shall we call them?--Manifestations of Abraxas, the Gnostic God. That he corresponds to God in Christ may be inferred from the analogy of Manichaeism.

Having thus invoked God, as the Shingon know him--the invisible Sum-total of the Atoms, manifested to men through his five personified attributes,--the celebrant goes on to invoke (v) Amitabha in particular, as the god that brings Immortality (The Sanskrit form in the Mantra is said to be amrita immortal), and (vi) Amitabha with his companions, Kwannon and Seishi, to come and meet the soul in its passage from this world to the next. But it is mainly Amitabha the 'conductor of souls' that is the object of worship, for the celebrant next invokes Jizo

[p. 76]

and Fudo, (Kshitigarbha and Acaravijyaraja), the conductor of souls and the champion of the righteous, and it is not until these have been summoned to the aid of the worshippers that the celebrant at last raises his heart to the invocation of Vairocana the Great Buddha, who stands to the Shingon very much in the same position as that held by Amida in the Shinshu. I believe that we have in the Shingon and the Shinshu two distinct strains of Gnostic teaching, the one representing Alexandria and the schools of Basilides and Valentinus, the other, the heresy of the Elchesaites, and that the latter has, through Nestorian and other influences, gradually drawn nearer to Christian ideals of Faith. Other analogies will be found in the thirteen Buddhas whom the Shingon look upon as the guardians of the spirits of the dead, and the thirteen realms of the dead in Gnostic books (e.g. Pistis Sophia). Also between the baptism of the corpse as practised in Shingon, and the 'Sacrament of the Ineffable' of the Gnostics.

Footnotes

^71:* Jodo Seikun.

^72:* I think we should remember that there are certain passages in the Old Testament which also give "anthropomorphic" descriptions of God which must evidently be taken in a figurative sense. It is interesting to compare Hippolytus, Philosophumena, Bk. ix. 462-3 (Ed. Migne), and to remember that the sect there described had its origin at the time at which, and in the locality from which, the mission started which brought the Amida Books to China.

^72:+ Cf. Col. i. 16. eikun toy theoy toy aoratoy.

^73:* These last phrases are ascribed to the Chinese Patriarch Zendo. If any of my readers will take the trouble to verify my statements by comparing them with the Japanese handbook from which I have summarized them, he will, I think, acknowledge that I have not exaggerated the similarity between the Shinshu conception of Amida and our notions of God. Dr. Haas, of Heidelberg, has pointed out to me in a recent letter that Zendo, whilst highly honoured by the Amidaists in China and Japan, never secured for any of his writings the distinction, accorded to many Chinese scholars of inferior merit, of a place [p. 74] in the Tripitaka Canon. He thinks it is possibly due to a suspicion in the minds of the compilers that Zendo's teaching contained in it elements that were not genuinely Buddhist. There is a phrase fushi sogo, "the turning of the hearts of father's and sons to each other." It is the title of a well-known Japanese treatise: but it is found in Zendo's Commentary on the Sukhavati Vyuha. Zendo was contemporary with the arrival of the Nestorian Mission to China. He flourished about A.D. 620.




[p. 77]



CHAPTER IX.



Hozo Biku.

( section section 40-46)

We now come to one of the most interesting features of the Shinshu system.

Amitabha, the Unoriginate, the Boundless in Power and in Love, the Being through Whom the worlds were made, in accordance with the operation of the Law which He Himself had given, and through which alone He manifests Himself to the world, looked down from His Abode and beheld with compassion the miseries of blind and ignorant creatures. He resolved to save them, to bring them back to Himself from their ceaseless entanglements with Life and Death, and, to do so, determined to become man and live as man among the creatures he had come to save. He emptied Himself [**], therefore, of His Divinity and appeared on earth as a King's Son. He emptied Himself of His Royal State, and became a monk, and then, coming into the presence of the Buddha of his time [*+]--Sejizai-o-butsu (in Sanskrit, Lokes'vara Raja), "the King-Buddha, Lord of the World," made the Vow [*++] on which the Shinshu believer

[p. 78]

pins his faith. The Vow having been registered, long ages of expiatory labours ensued. These labours were entirely borne as man. Amitabha had emptied Himself of his glory and become Hozo the monk. None of his contemporaries knew who it was that dwelt concealed beneath that humble form, for the Supreme had emptied Himself and veiled His glory. It was as man for man that He must work out the task of Man's Salvation.

Having accomplished that work, [**] He returned to where He was before, and received a Name more precious even than that which he had borne originally. Amida Nyorai, as the Japanese call him, had become Namu-Amida-Butsu. [*+] The name signifies the import of the work accomplished. Amida is no longer merely the Infinite, the God afar off, but the Infinite that has become Finite, that has worked out man's Salvation, that has conquered death (amrita) [*++] and that remains the personified and personal object of the believer's worship and thanksgiving. It requires no great ingenuity to recognize the wonderful parallels to the Story of our Redemption as we humbly believe it.

The question arises, Is Hozo Biku a historical personage or not? The author of Shinshu Hyakuwa is quite certain that he is. We believe in his historicity,

[p. 79]

he says, on the sole testimony of Sakyamuni, which ought to be sufficient for us, inasmuch as it is quite as strong as the evidence that we actually have for the historicity of the early Emperors of Japan and of many Sages and Saints in Chinese and European history. ( section 42). It is true that Hozo Biku may have been the creature of S'akyamuni's fancy: that would not necessarily imply that he had had no real existence,--for there are many creatures of the imagination that may claim a practically real and true existence. (David Copperfield, to wit, for whose historicity the Town Council of Dover has made itself responsible, by affixing to the wall of a house in the Market Square a tablet indicating the spot where David sat whilst waiting for his Aunt.) Historicity is not the sole Test of Truth, it is only a spiritual short-sightedness that would induce us to think so [**] ( section 43). When Hozo lived, and when he fulfilled his Vow, we have no means of determining: the statements of the Sutra vary between a period of ten kalpas ago and a period, still more remote, of indefinite magnitude. In things religious there are no distinctions of time, near or remote, [*+] a thousand years are but as one day, and we must be content with a general expression that it took place at some period of remote antiquity. What is of the utmost importance for us to believe is that the

[p. 80]

personal continuity has never been broken, that the one thread of identical personality runs through the whole series of events connected with the Redemption of Man, that as the Amida, Who, from His abode in Heaven, looked down with compassion on sinful mankind, is identical with Hozo the monk who made his Vow to accomplish salvation so, through all the time that the Vow was in the working-out, the personal identity remained constant and unchanged. The Hozo of the period of His Humiliation (to use a Christian term for the Buddhist # in-i) was the same as the Hozo of the period of His Glorification # kwa-i), when, having wrought deliverance for man, He received His new name of Namu-Amida Butsu, the Infinite Being that has become finite and has worked out man's salvation ( section 45). The glorified and ascended Amida must therefore still be looked upon as a Personal Being, the distinctive personality which He assumed when He appeared on earth as Hozo has continued with Him and has passed for ever out of this world into those spiritual realms into which Namu-Amida Butsu entered on the day on which Hozo Biku's labours were finally accomplished ( section 46).

I believe that I have honestly set forth the teachings about Hozo Biku, as laid down in the Shinshu Hyakuwa. I may perhaps be allowed to formulate the conclusions that I draw from a very long study of the subject.

The testimony of S'akyamuni must always be a very weighty matter, for the Indian Sage was not one that spoke lightly and rashly, but always with due deliberation and with tremendous authority.

[p. 81]

[paragraph continues] But no other evidence than S'akyamuni's authority is alleged for the Hozo story, and Buddhists are not all of one mind as to the genuineness of the Sutras in. which it is contained. The Southern Buddhists know nothing of the books, and there is not a shred of outside historical evidence to support the story they tell. There is, also, no gainsaying the fact that the Shinshu themselves are obliged to confess that the doctrine lay dormant for five centuries after S'akyamuni's death and never showed its face until about the end of the first, or beginning of the second, century of the Christian era, and that in regions where Christianity had already then been preached. On the other hand, however, those who reject these Scriptures, as not being genuine, bring forward no alternative supposition or theory to account for these books having come into existence. We are, therefore, constrained to admit that the only account hitherto given of the origin of these Sutras is that they are the genuine records of actual teachings of S'akyamuni. Those who reject this view have advanced no other theory to take its place.

I therefore, for the time, and until I see proof to the contrary, accept them as genuine records of S'akyamuni's teachings. The story of Hozo Biku is true, at any rate in the sense that it is in accordance with a universally felt want of our human nature, to which it supplies an answer. It states an everlasting fact,--"so it is written, so it must needs be,"--that there is only one way in which the Redemption of Mankind can take place. God must become man, must suffer and labour as man, must conquer sin and death in man, must open the

[p. 82]

way for man by faith. S'akyamuni, who had come forth, says Shinran, that he might preach Amida, did so with the eye of the genuine Seer, who gazes on the Eternal Verities and beholds the Present and the Future as though they were the Past,--and as he preached he framed his vision into a prophecy. To my mind there is nowhere, in the whole range of ancient religious literature, a more clear and distinct prophecy about the Person and Work of Christ, than that which is contained in the story of Hozo Biku as I have tried to set it forth accurately and carefully from Shinshu writings.

I do not ask my readers to accept my conclusions hastily and without due consideration. I only venture to ask that the question be investigated, carefully and prayerfully, by all those, whether Christian or Buddhist, who are concerned in the religious of Japan. I believe the identification which I have pointed out to be one of prime importance: it will indeed be a day of gladness when we realize that we of the East and West are children, in a very special sense, of One Father, and servants of One Lord. I do not expect any speedy recognition of the truth of what I have here brought forward. The truth can always afford to wait for recognition. And when recognized it always tends to the bettering and uplifting of the world.

Footnotes

^77:* Dr. Anezaki reminds me that there is a similar Kenosis spoken of in the case of S'akyamuni.

^77:+ A list of 81 Buddhas is given, Sacred Books of the East, vol. XLIX, Description of Sukhavati p. 6. They are not Buddhas in the sense in which Amitabha is one, merely perfectly enlightened Human Teachers.

^77:++ For Amida's Vow see ibid. pp. 12-24

^78:* Hozo's life is summarized in the work already quoted pp. 24-27.

^78:+ Shinshu Hyakuwa, section 14, speaks of the Vow as the Chosemujo no Hongwan, and of Amida as Dai jihi-emman no Myoho-o--"the mysterious spiritual king that has perfected mercy."

^78:++ In the Shingon books Amida is generally Amrita, "the One that has Immortality."

^79:* The Nichiren Sect (the subject is constantly alluded to in the Nichiren Organ, the Myoshu) frequently charges the Shinshu with the absence of historical warrant for their interpretations of Buddhism.

^79:+ Enkin kokon no shabetsu nashi. cf. the expression in the N.T. "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."




[p. 83]



CHAPTER X.



Shinnyo Hosho.

( section section 47, 48, 49, 50, 51)

I read some months ago, in the Guardian, a short review of a small treatise on God by an author hitherto unknown to me. The author's argument was that God may, for practical purposes, be divided into two, the God whom we know, and the God whom we do not know. The God we know is God as we observe Him in the works of Nature, and as we learn of Him in the Revelation which He has been pleased to make to us. Rut when we have searched all the realms of scientific and metaphysical investigation, when we have mastered all theological Truth, when we have seen God reflected in the Face of Christ Jesus and have learned that he is a Trinity, there still remains, behind all, an immense area (if we may so call it) of the Godhead, about which we have no knowledge, and never can have. It is a region into which we have no means of entering and about which we can predicate nothing.

Had the author of the treatise in question had the advantage of an education in Japanese Buddhist thought, he would have called the "Unknown Area" of God Shinnyo Hosho (#), a term which I will now proceed to explain.

Shinnyo Hosho is the Real Substance (hontai) of the Universe, the acme (gokuchi) of the Truth. It is the one true Substance (ichinyo) which permeates

[p. 84]

the two Essences (ni-sha) of Matter and Mind in such a manner that Matter and Mind may be said to be the two forms or modes of its Being, if this terminology does not savour too strongly of Spinoza. It is unbounded in space, infinite in time. It is the warp and woof that form the texture of the Universe: as the one, it runs like a thread through Past, Present, and Future, as the other, under innumerable combinations and metamorphoses, it permeates the whole of Creation and is to be found in everything great and small. As an abstract Reality it is one, but it has two aspects. There is matter (butsu) and there is Mind (shin): there is no Third Thing such as the Reason (Ri) which some systems postulate. There is nothing But Matter and Mind, joined together in one primordial, everlasting, Substance, about which we are not in a position to predicate any thing whatever.

Hut Mind means movement (the very character by which the Japanese denote Mind, #, signifies and symbolizes movement), and the primordial movement of the primordial Mind in the primordial Substance of Shinnyo or Ichi-nyo, produces, from the very beginning, a distinction between the one and the other. Without losing its immanent character, Mind gradually distinguishes itself from Matter and assumes a personal form, which is, roughly speaking, what we should call God. In Japanese it is Hoshin (#), the Dharmakaya, or 'spiritual body,' assumed by the Mind of the Universe in the process of distinguishing itself from Matter. It is called the Body (# shin) of the Law (ho); the Law

[p. 85]

which produced that spiritual Body is the same as that which operates constantly and uniformly in Matter,--the Law of Cause and Effect,--which commenced its operations from the moment when, in an unthinkable Eternity long ago, the primordial Mind began to stir itself in the primordial Matter in which it was immanent. It has produced, on the one hand, the phenomena of Nature, or Creation, [**] on the other, the gradual Revelation, to man, of God, as the Shinshuist knows Him.

The Hoshin is of two sorts. It is, in the first place, Hosho Hoshin, the Spiritual Body of the Buddha, as He is, which is still considered as an integral part of Shinnyo Hosho. This is formless, and incapable of description, and answers more or less exactly to God, as He is hinted at, rather than described, in certain passages in the Old Testament. But it is impossible for men, with their finite thoughts and still more finite language, to speak of God, except under some form with which they themselves are familiar. Hence we get, in the Old Testament, the anthropomorphic language about God,--his holy arm, his feet, finger, eye, ear, face. Such language a Japanese would call hoben, an accommodation of the Truth to the capacity of the hearer, and Buddhist Theology speaks not only of a Hosho Hoshin, which it is

[p. 86]

beyond the Power of Man to describe or comprehend, but also of a Hoben Hoshin, a Spiritual Body of God, accommodated to the capacity of Finite Man, and spoken of under a Human Shape.

Amitabha in the Shinshu Theology is conceived of as having been originally an integral and co-eternal factor in Shinnyo. In process of time (to adapt my language to the necessities of the case) he became Hosho Hoshin and Hoben Hoshin, and it was as the latter, as God personified, that He built up His Paradise and residing there, attracts all those that believe in Him. According to Shinshu Theology [**], Hozo Biku must be looked upon as the Incarnation of Hoshin, of Dharmakaya, of the highest Form that the personified Mind of the Universe can take, as an Incarnation in other words, of God.

But the Incarnations of the One Buddha are of two sorts. I will mention the lower kind first. It is known in Japanese as Ojin (#) or Keshin (#), in Sanskrit, as Nirmanakaya. This is the material body assumed when Buddha is manifested upon earth for the salvation or help of man. Some Gnostic sects held (this is especially true of the particular sect from which I consider the Shinshu to have descended) that the Deity had often been incarnated in fleshly form, the Incarnation

[p. 87]

of Jesus Christ "in the days of King Herod" being the last and most perfect one. Similarly, the Buddhists will tell us that there have been many Incarnations of Buddha in the Nirmanakaya, and they will instance Sakyamuni as the most perfect instance of this. The Shinshu believer will add another instance of an incarnation, which he holds to have been more perfect than that of Sakyamuni, the Incarnation of Buddha as 'very man' in the person of Hozo Biku [**], such as He was in the days of His humiliation, before He had attained to that glory which became His when He had fulfilled His Vow for the Salvation of Mankind and became Namu Amida Butsu.

Between the Dharmakaya, the Hoben Hosshin, of Amida the Supreme, and the Nirmanakaya or Ojin of Hozo Biku, is placed Sambhoga Kaya--Hoshin (#), the so-called "Body of Compensation." It is the Body in which Amida-Butsu, the glorified Saviour, who has worked out man's salvation, is now set forth as the personal object of worship for the Shinshu believer. It is, as it were, a counterpart that glorified Humanity in which we believe that Our Risen Saviour Jesus Christ, having passed into the heavens, is sitting in His Mediatiorial Kingdom

[p. 88]

[paragraph continues] "at the right hand of God," (this term being evidently a hoben, a figurative expression intended to be an "accommodation" of a great truth to our finite human language). [**]

Thus we may see that Amida is conceived of, in one aspect, as a Being whose Substance is absolute and unconditioned (zettaisha), in another, as an idealized, glorified, Being (ri-butsu), in another, as an actual tangible, material, Buddha, in that Incarnation which the Shinshu consider to be historical. He has three bodies, the one, absolute, invisible, intangible, only to be seen by the eye of Faith; another, fleshly, human, the body of Hozo Biku whilst on earth, the third, spiritualized matter, glorified and exalted. The Body of Hozo Biku was material, but it has passed away, the Compensation Body of Amida Butsu is localized in Paradise, and definitely distinct, though immaterial. The Dharmakaya of the Absolute is invisible, intangible, formless, and can only be apprehended when it veils itself under material substances behind which it dwells among us with a real but purely spiritual Presence. It requires but little ingenuity to see the important bearing which all this has on some of the most vital beliefs of Christianity.

Footnotes

^85:* Of course, Creation is a word the Buddhist cannot use in its strictest sense. To him, as to the ancient Gnostic, there is no Creation, but rather a Development and gradual manifestation of God and of Material Phenomena. In writing this section I have made much use of the passages from older writers given in Shinshu Seikun pp. 390-400.

^86:* It must be remembered that other Buddhist Sects do not accept this. According to the Shingon, Amida does not represent the Dharmakaya at all, but only the Sambhogakaya--Hoshin--the next lower forms of Manifestation. For them Vairocana, the Abraxas of the Gnostics, the Supreme God of the Manichaeans, is the Highest Manifestation of God.

^87:* It was the Hoben Hosshin which became man in Hozo Biku. Hozo therefore stands on a higher plane than Sakyamuni, who was merely Ojin or Keshin (Nirmana Kaya). To say that a man was a Keshin, of Amida, Kwannon, or Seishi, meant no more than what we say of a man, "The Spirit of God is in him"--It is in this lower sense that the term Keshin is used of men like Genku, Shinran or Shotoku Taishi. And according to the Shinshu there has, never been more than one Incarnation like that of Hozo.

^88:* The parallelism is so striking that I need not comment on it. I will content myself with quoting the exact words of Shinshu Hyakuwa section 49. Hoshin Butsu (i e. the Sambhogakaya). Kore we Shinshu (Jodo mon) ni hanzon to suru Amida butsu no gotoki, in-i ni oite shutoku gyo do no ko ni mukuite, arawaretaru kekkwa no Buddha wo sashite in no de arimasu. Dr. Anezaki, who has been kind enough to read these pages for me suggests that the Sambhogakaya of Buddha corresponds rather to the Holy Spirit in Christian theology. But the above quotation is very clear.




[p. 89]



CHAPTER XI.



The Salvation of Sentient Beings.

( section section 52-59.)

"Amida," "says the Shinshuist, saves us by the exercise of His two great attributes of Mercy and Wisdom" (hi-chi no ni-toku wo motte warera wo sukuu section 52). [**] He saves the world by Wisdom, when He allows a part of himself to become incarnate in one of the Nirmanakaya or Keshin forms, to become the spiritual teachers of suffering humanity. In this way many of the Buddhas and Saints in the past have laboured with Him, or rather He has laboured in them, and in none more conspicuously than in Sakyamuni, who is the Teacher par excellence of the Buddhist world. He saves by Mercy by virtue of His Incarnation as Hozo Biku, His sufferings, His exaltation, His enthronement in Paradise after He had reconquered, as man, all that He had voluntarily surrendered, as the Supreme Buddha.

Whichever way he chooses, His object is still the same,--to save from sin and its attendant miseries His poor children who are fast "bound in misery and iron," so fast that they cannot get out of their prison-house without some one to help them.

[p. 90]

[paragraph continues] Buddhism believes in birth-sin, the guilt of which it does not become less awful to contemplate when it is accepted as the inevitable consequence of previous sins, a guilt contracted from many sources, in the course of a long series of previous lives. It is from this guilt, this Karma, that Amida would save us. If we listen to His voice, and trust in His mercies, we pass from death to life, death loses its hold on us, there is no returning to this vale of sin and misery. If we refuse, there is no vengeance, no unending misery of hell awaiting us. There is rebirth, there may be rebirths, and some of these rebirths may be in Hell. But Hell is not a place of endless sojourn. There is death in Hell, as there is on Earth, as there is in every place but the Heaven where the invisible Dharmakaya sits enthroned. And everywhere may be heard the voice of Amida: and they that hear shall live.

And what is the Voice?

To the Shinshuist it is summed up in the six Chinese characters Namu Amida Butsu (#). This Myogo, or Sacred Name, as it is called, is to the Shinshuist all that the Crucifix is to the Catholic, or the Sacred Monogram I.H.S. It is the Symbolical Embodiment of all that Amida, in fulfilment of His Great Vow, has done for man. Indeed, it is more. It is what the Passover was to the Jews, what the Holy Sacrifice is to the Christian. It is itself the answer to the question, "What mean ye by this Sacrifice?" ( section section 52, 53). Wherever the Myogo is seen written or carved, or wherever (for the Myogo has this advantage

[p. 91]

over the Christian monograph that it appeals to the ear as well as to the eye, and can be heard as well as seen)--wherever the Nembutsu is recited, it bears witness to that which Amida has done. They who hear it for the first time enquire about the reason, and they to whom the sound is a familiar one pause to remember its meaning with gladdened hearts. There is said to be in the Myogo all the Strength of the Great Vow.

When a man thus hears the recital of the Myogo, he places himself by faith in a position of entire and absolute trust in the Mercies of Him whom he believes to have done such great things for him. By this act, a vital union (if I may so call it) is effected between the believer, who is sinful, and Amida, who is sinless, a union which cannot be effected without the cutting of sin and evil. From the moment that the believer puts his whole trust and confidence in Amida, the roots of his sins are cut, the past Karma destroyed, and if he does not enter Paradise at once, yet he is placed in safe keeping in the Sacred Heart of Amida. (Dai-jihi, dai-chie no Busshin ni ireru koto ni narimasu.) [*+]

[p. 92]

It is after this initial step has been taken, after the believer, by an act (Ketsujo) of Faith, has taken advantage of that which the Mercy of Heaven has provided for Him that the Wisdom of Buddha comes into play. For the Faith which has been placed as a seedling in our hearts must be watered and refreshed by teaching and doctrine, and that teaching the Shinshu Buddhist finds, or thinks he finds, in the Scriptures which contain the undoubted teachings of Sakyamuni, the man that came, according to Shinran, to testify in India to Amida and Hozo Biku.

Footnotes

^89:* We may perhaps see traces of the same thought in the juxtaposition in our Creed of the Holy Catholic Church and the Communion of Saints. The Church is the Body through which is unto angels and men the "manifold wisdom of God": the Saints are the special recipients of his love.

^91:+ Shinshu Hyakuwa section 54 quotes the authority of the Chinese Patriarch Zendo, (who is also mentioned in the Shoshinge). It is also remarkable that Zendo speaks of the Myogo, or the Call of Amida to the Soul, as a "sharp sword," a term which becomes more significant when taken in conjunction with the phrase "cutting between flesh and bone," which I have found elsewhere (in Anshinketsugoshokowa) seen applied to the effects of the Myogo. These quasi-echoes of Scriptural phrases are constantly surprising the student in his study of Shinshu books. In the chapter on Buddha no mi-na in Shinshu Seikun p. 362-373 it is said the Name is more highly to be valued than either [p. 92] pictures or idols, for it is indeed the Foundation of Salvation, the hearing of it constituting Ojo (#) i e. "birth into Paradise while still living," or the new Birth of Buddhism. The Myogo summarizes all wisdom, is the fulfilment of all virtues, the crown of all religious rites. It renders unnecessary all other worship, for the Name of the One Buddha is the pleroma of all that is worshipped as God. (Ichibutsu no na sunawachi shobutsu no Na). I have often thought that the Cult of the Sacred Heart may prove to be one of the instruments in God's hand of the turning of Buddhism to Christ.




[p. 93]



CHAPTER XII.



Of Faith in General, (i).

(Extracts from ancient writers.)

I have judged it best in this chapter, instead of following the order of the questions and answers in Shinshu Hyakuwa (of which a short analysis will be found in the next chapter) to give from another book, the Shinshu Seikun, already cited, a catena of passages taken, mainly, from Japanese writers of the Middle Ages. If the Christian reader, bearing in mind what I have said of the wonderful parallels between the story of Amida, incarnate for man's salvation in Hozo Biku, and that of Christ, will read these passages in a Christian sense, he will, I think, find theta to be not devoid of edification. He will also, I believe, acknowledge that the devout worshipper of Amida, even though he may never actually have heard the name of Christ, may yet be far nearer to the Kingdom of God than many a man who calls himself a Christian, but shuts his eyes to the pure light of the Christian Faith. I shall take the liberty of interspersing among the extracts comments and criticisms of my own, but I shall do so in such a way as to make what is my own clearly distinguishable from what I have derived from ancient Japanese sources.

127. [**] "They who travel along the Way make Faith their starting point."

Genshin 942-1017.

[p. 94]

127. "It is said in the Nirvana Sutra that the Believing Heart is the Cause of Supreme Perfect Enlightenment. There are in truth innumerable causes of Enlightenment, but if you understand what a Believing Heart is you embrace them all."

Anon. [**]

127. "In the House of Life and Death we stay for a while with doubt and fear: into the City of Nirvana we make our entrance through Faith."

Genku 1133-1212.

"Among the Shonin's followers (i.e. Shinran's), the Believing Heart means Trust, and Trust is the same thing as Peace of Mind."

Rennyo 1415-1499.

[In this sentence, the word for "trust" is tanomu. Tanomu is used as a verb meaning to "entrust somebody with something" or to "commit some particular duty to some one's care." The believer in Amida entrusts his salvation to Amida's care, and after that he has peace of mind (anshin). The word tanomu is really the paratithenai in 1. St. Pet. iv. 19. cf. also 2. Tim. i. 12.]

128. "That which is called Faith (the Believing Heart) is Faith in the Imputation (to us) of the Virtue of the Great Vow."

(Rennyo.)

[I have here given "imputation" as the equivalent for the word eko #. The word, which is used commonly for Masses

[p. 95]

for the dead, means "to divert from one person towards another." So the Virtue of the Great Vow is diverted or transferred from Amida to the believer. Cf. Romans iv. 18-25.]

128. "Faith is the implicit and absolute Belief in a man's words. For instance, if a man, whom we know and hold in confidence, should tell us of what he has seen,--here were mountains and yonder was a river,--we should believe what he tells us, even though we had not seen the country ourselves. Nay, though others should come and tell us a different story, if we had confidence in the first narrator, we should still believe his story, whatever the rest might say. Thus is it with our Faith. We believe in Mida's Holy Vow, because it is S'akyamuni that has told us of it, and we can have no two minds about it."

Shinran 1168-1257.

130. " The New Birth (ojo) of all Sentient Creatures has been perfected by Amida: but Sentient Creatures remain in doubt and disbelief, and are consequently still entangled in the wheel of existence (ruten #). The Sun shineth to every quarter under Heaven, but the blind see it not, and are not enlightened, because their eyes are holden. Thus also, though our New Birth (ojo) is all settled so far as Amida's Enlightenment of us is concerned, our want of belief causes us, poor sinful creatures, to remain in the wheel of Life and Death."

Rennyo.

131. "In order that we may discern things, we want more than eyes, we must have the light of

[p. 96]

the Sun. Our New Birth is not the work of our own mind, it comes from the Mind of the Tathagata. But here, as it is a question that regards His own words, we need not ask whether we have light on them or not, whether the darkness has been dispelled or not, whether the Tathagata vouchsafes to us His enlightenment or not. "If I cannot procure Salvation for all Beings I will not accept the Buddhahood for myself," said the Tathagata, when, as Hozo Biku, He had reached the Stage of Perfectionment. The Sun has risen, shall we doubt whether Night still lingers? If the Sun has risen, the Night has gone, and the Sunlight alone is shed abroad. It is therefore of the utmost importance for us clearly to discern the enlightenment gained for us by the Tathagata. For, if the Tathagata, in the Person of Hozo Biku, did not gain salvation (shogaku) for us, our New Birth is a matter of uncertainty. But inasmuch as Hozo Biku, who made the Vow, that he would not accept Buddhahood unless the New Birth were made possible for all Sentient Creatures, is really identical with Amida the Tathagata, why should we have any doubt?"

Shinran.

[I would suggest, as a parallel passage to this, 1. Cor. xv. 12-18. I feel sure that the reader cannot fail to be struck by the constant, and, to my mind, significant echoes of Pauline doctrine that insist on making themselves heard.]

135. "There are three words that are practically

[p. 97]

identical, to entrust (tanomu), to believe (shinzuru), and Salvation (on-tasuke). For it is the Mystery of the tariki Faith that there is no room in it for doubt,--only for thankfulness."

Shinran.

135. "Just as a Son receives his father's goods (as a present earnest of future inheritance), even so do we receive, in the present life, the Merits of Amida's labours for us (i.e. ojo). All Amida's prolonged labours were undertaken for the Salvation (on-tasuke) of each single individual amongst us, so that they are a matter for individual and personal gratitude, whenever the layman hears the recital of Amida's Vow made for his sake."

Shinran.

137. "Even though the Mind of Faith (kimyo no kokoro) should rise up within us, that is none of our doing. It is the Mercy and Compassion of Amida that is shining in our hearts."

[Cf. Eph. ii. 8; and especially 2 Cor. iv. 6. "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus." The parallelism is all the more striking because of the use of the word futismos by St. Paul.]

137. "The word shinjin, "believing heart," may also be read as "straight heart." It is found in the believer, and is therefore supposed to come from the believer. But this a mistake. It comes from the Heart of the Tathagata. For, if faith came from the crooked heart of

[p. 98]

man, it could not be 'straight.' It is only because it is the gift of Amida that Faith can be described as 'straight.'"

Anon.

[The character for shin in shinjin is #, and means both 'belief,' or 'faith,' and 'straightness,' and 'honesty.' Shinjin therefore means both a 'believing heart,' and also an 'honest heart.' The quotation is from an anonymous book, Shinshukyo yoshu. It is described in Shinshu Seikun p. 563.]

245. "The word Is-shin (One Heart) signifies the Union of Hearts, that is, the Union of our heart with that of Amida. The Jugiron of the Tendai sect says truly that in the world there is always a lover and a beloved, and that love is perfected when lover and beloved meet. Amida is the lover, we are the beloved, and when we turn with our whole heart to Amida and surrender ourselves to Him, our hearts become one with His, and i-sshin is realized. But a heart which is distracted over many things cannot realize this Union--that privilege is reserved for those hearts that are devoted to the thankful remembrance of Amida's Mercies (the Nembutsu)."

Genku.

[Cf. St. Luke x. 40-42]

146. "In the Gate of Holy Path (Shodomon, see above chap. ii, ) men work out Wisdom, and thus escape from life and death: by the Gate of the Pure Land, men return to foolishness, and thereby enter into Life (o-jo). They put no trust in Wisdom, they profess themselves

[p. 99]

to be merely helpless, and unwise persons. But they put their whole trust in the Great Vow, and thus enter into Life.

Genku.

[1. Cor. i. 17-25. When the rich young man came to Christ, the Master told him that if he would enter into life he must keep the commandments. That was the Shodomon. When He told him to abandon all the riches wherein he trusted, and "come follow me,"--that was the Jodomon--"thou shalt have treasure in Heaven." S. Matth. xix. 16-22]

147. "When a man hears the preaching of the Pure Land, and, believing in it, feels a thrill of pleasure run through his frame, it shows that in some past life he has already heard something of that of which he now receives the full message. And now that he believes, he receives the New Birth. But if he hears as though he heard not, and gives no credence, he is one that has. but newly come up to the sphere of humanity from one of the three paths of evil. The impediments of sin have not yet been removed, and there is as yet no turning of Faith in his heart. Inasmuch as he does not yet believe he cannot yet escape from the bonds of life and death.

Genku.

[There are in Buddhism six grades of Sentient Existence. 1. Heaven (where dwell gods and angels), 2. Man, 3. the Animals. All these have virtues and good qualities of their own. But below these come (4), Monsters of Greediness (gaki), and (5)

[p. 100]

[paragraph continues] Monsters of Lust and Violence (shura), and these may be in human form, though devoid of the qualities of Humanity. Below all (6), are the demons that inhabit the Hells (jigoku). These last three are known as the san-akudo, or 'three bad spheres of existence.' It is the privilege of Man that to him the Gospel can be preached, for Man, though "lower than the Angels," has the hope of being "crowned with glory and honour." It is for this reason that we so often find the expression ukegataki jinshin wo ukeru, "to receive a human body which it is so hard to receive." This extract also illustrates another doctrine which I have frequently cone across in Shinshu writings, to wit, that the call contained in the recital of the Holy Name must in the end prove effectual. We may hear it once and again, and turn away, but it will have found a lodgment in the mind and ultimately (it may be a long time later), when the call comes, it will have a familiar and a welcome sound. (Rom. viii. 29. 30).]

166. " There are two ways of embarking on (the ship of) the Great Vow, and two ways of not embarking. To take the latter first, we do not embark on the Great Vow, when (i) we commit sin. For, in that case, we feel that our Salvation (ojo) will not be secure, even though we repeat the Nembutsu. So we hesitate to take the decisive step. But (ii), we also refrain from

[p. 101]

embarking, when the religious mind (doshin, lit. the heart of the Way, the virtuous mind) is aroused in us. For then we feel that, inasmuch as we are so very religious, we shall obtain Salvation for our own virtue and without any need of reciting the Nembutsu. We place our own Virtue first, and the Great Vow second, and so we neglect the Act of Faith.

Next, as to the two ways of embarking. (i). We embark, when we have committed as in. For then we feel that the commission of sin settles our fate and determines our condemnation to Hell. At that moment we hear the recital of the Sacred Name, and the thought, "Oh the joy of the assurance of Salvation!" comes to our mind, and we take the step of Faith, and embark. And (ii) the step is taken when we have the religious mind. For then we say, 'this virtuous feeling will not cause my salvation. This feeling has existed from a remote past, and yet I have not been freed from the bonds of life and death. I will not therefore ask myself whether I have religious sentiments or not, I will not revolve in my mind the weight or otherwise of the sins I have committed. I will only turn my thoughts to the Salvation which can be obtained by the Invocation of the Holy Name.' When a man thinks thus he embarks on the ship Tariki Hongwan (Faith in Another's Power--the Power of the Great Vow)."

Genku.

Footnotes

^93:* The numbers refer to the pages in Shinshu Seikun.

^94:* When I put "Anon" after a quotation I mean that I have not been able to find the author's name. In the Shinshu Seikun only the names of the books are given.




[p. 102]



CHAPTER XIII.



Of Faith in General, (ii).

Summary of the Questions and Answers in Shinshu Hyakuwa.

( section section 52-70).

section 52. Amida, it is said, has two qualities (toku) whereby He saves us--Mercy and Wisdom. We, sentient Beings, travail in pain (kumon shite orimasu), being fast bound in a kind of slavery to sin and evil, and from this we cannot free ourselves, because the fetters have been fastened on us by the Karma of an immemorial past. And Karma has relations not only with the past. It affects our present condition, it brings with it an endless chain of re-birth, life, and death, which stretches away into the boundless future. From this bondage Amida delivers us. He looses the bonds of sin and evil by the Might accruing to Him from His Great Vow, with His Light He illuminates our minds, giving us supernatural and glorious Wisdom, of His Mercy he places us in a position equal to His own, practically giving us power to become 'sons of God.' For the above reasons the Shinshuist speaks of his Salvation as the Salvation of Amida.

section 53. Of the "Might accruing to Amida from His Great Vow" we have already spoken when dealing with the Story of Hozo Biku. That

[p. 103]

[paragraph continues] Might is enshrined in the Sacred Name, handed down to us by the living voice (Koe) of a great company of devout believers, inciting us to a Mind of Belief and Trust, and filling us with supernatural grace in consequence of the efficacy of the prayers which we ourselves recite after we have laid hold of salvation.

section 54. Sin is an abstract thing (mukei), in the sense that it has so many forms and shapes that it is impossible to lay hands on any one thing and say that this is the Original Form of Sin. Its effect is, as stated above, to enchain us with fetters of habits, easily formed but almost impossible of rupture, and involving us in much pain and distress of mind. But the moment we put our trust in Amida, the fetters are snapped, peace of mind ensues, we are at peace, because we have entered into the Heart of Buddha, and being at peace, our actions become quiet and peaceable, and the liability to consequent misery is removed.

section 55. The process by which this result is attained is the putting into operation of Amida's Mercy and Wisdom, and is embodied in the Name Person of Namu Amida Butsu. We must suppose that in the Mind of the Everlasting Buddha there must have been from everlasting a plan of Salvation for men, originating in his Everlasting Compassion. But Salvation is not complete unless the Faith of those saved be subsequently nourished and illuminated by the Divine Truth and Life. This is given to us

[p. 104]

by the manifest and manifold operation of the Boundless Wisdom of the Nyorai.

section 56. Is devoted to the exposition of the meaning of the Myogo, or Sacred Name of Namu-Amida-Butsu.

section 57. Both Shinran and Rennyo insisted on the supreme importance of Faith. "If a man," says the latter, "does not know the importance of Faith, treat him as an outsider. Whoever knows what Faith is, and understands it (from practical experience) treat him as belonging to the Shinshu."

section 58. Faith comes by hearing. Whenever a man hears the Gospel (iware) of Amida, the knowledge will come to him that he is deeply involved in sin and evil, and that it is impossible for hire, try as he will, to save himself from the sin in and around him. That is one side of the 'Gospel message'. Simultaneously, however, with this 'conviction of sin' comes the firm conviction that Amida does save us, and that His Vow remains sure. Then, in a moment, doubt disappears and we find ourselves rejoicing in the Merciful Heart of Amida.

section 59. What feelings are ours when we have thus learned to believe (Mida Butsu wo shinzuru Kokoromochi)? Before conversion, our lives have been spent in the midst of evil, and our minds have been dragged down to the low level of our surroundings. The Voice of the Preacher, telling us of Amida Butsu, acts as a Sursum Corda. It tells of our Father, of his gracious invitation, of the arrival of the lifeboat.

[p. 105]

[paragraph continues] Then our heart utters the Nembutsu, but not as a prayer. It is an act of Thanksgiving for the spiritual mercies we have received. We are filled with shinjin kwanki, "joy in believing."

section 60. The object with which we put our trust in the Power of Amida's Saving Vow is that we may be turned from darkness to light, and receive the fruits of Saving Knowledge (bukkwa). It is our only chance.

Nishi ye yuku
Michi yori hoka wa
Ima no yo ni
Ukiyo wo idzuru
Kado ya nakaran.

"In this poor life at last,
I see no other gate, by which to flee
From sin and pain that wreathe this Transient-World,
But that which leads West to the Paradise
Of Amitabha.

section 61. Faith is given to us: it is not of ourselves. It is the believer's own mind that believes; but that which fixes the mind in belief is the having understood (tettei suru) the Great Merciful Heart wherewith Amida saves us. The faith which turns with repentance (kijun sure) to the commands of Amida is not faith in one's self (jiriki). It is distinctly faith in Another (tariki).

section 62. It is true that the word shinjin, may be translated as "believing heart," and also as "straight heart." But the tariki Faith must

[p. 106]

not be understood to teach that a man is to turn even with an honest and true heart to Amida and ask to be delivered or rescued from this or that evil. To wrestle in prayer of this kind (neji-kakarite) is a jiriki form of devotion. It may bring deliverance from the particular evil or misfortune, but it does not bring that feeling of rest and peace (dai-kwairaku-shin) which is known as anshin or ando. The tariki believer knows that Amida saves him, that He invites him, that He will provide, and knowing this, he comes in perfect trust, and leaves everything in Amida's hands.

section 63. It may be asked, Is not this 'coming in perfect trust' a form of jiriki? Not so. (It is a case of 'turn thou us, O Lord, and so shall we be turned.') Amida turns us to Himself, fills, us with His grace, and bestows faith upon us.

section 69. Where then does Karma operate? "It is a case of ta-in-ji-kwa, 'others have laboured and ye have entered into their labours,' which is not the law of Karma." This objection is sometimes heard.

It is true that Faith is a gift which comes from Amida, given without our efforts. But it is our work to receive and accept it (just as it is the "work of God to believe on Him whom He hath sent"). Karma has three constituent parts, known as in--the primary cause--e.g. the seed, en--the secondary cause; e.g. the Sun and rain, and gwa the fruit. Amida's gift is in, our acceptance is en, our Salvation is gwa.

section 65. The faith which we thus receive and accept

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comprises all the spiritual Power which was acquired and stored up by Hozo Biku in the performance of the labours necessary for the fulfilment of the Great Vow which He undertook for man. Among the Powers thus acquired by Hozo we must include the power to smite sin and evil, and the power to draw men to Himself into the paths of righteousness.

section 66. Of this power we are assured by Faith, the Symbol of the Sacred Name being the quasi-sacramental pledge to assure us thereof. Faith is the stamping of Amida Himself upon the heart of the believer.

section 67. Some may think that it is necessary first to cleanse the heart from all defilement, and then to receive the inestimable gift. that is not so. The depraved heart (moshin) of the sinner cannot cleanse itself by its own efforts. If it were possible for it to do so, there would be no room for the exercise of Mercy. It is a comforting fact that Saving Faith can be received by the sinner whilst yet in his sin. This fact throws the greatness of Amida's compassion into more striking prominence.

section 68. But, when a sinful man turns to the light, one of the first results must be the filling of his mind with abhorrence of his own sins. Can a man, whose mind is troubled about these things, enter that Heart of Buddha to which access is gained by the tariki faith? Certainly not. Mere contrition or troubling about the soul, or constant introspection cannot save. All that is required is Conversion, the turning

[p. 108]

of the heart to Amida, (kijun suru). The rest will come in due and natural course.

section 69. We must beware lest we presume to say of any living man that, because he has received this lively Faith, therefore he has attained to the perfection of Buddhahood. All we can is, that the perfect seed has been planted, that the sowing is complete. 'His seed remaineth in him,' but it needs the sun and rain to bring its fruit to perfection.

section 70. And, similarly, we must be on our guard against those titles of honour which men give at times to those who are supposed to have made progress in holiness. These titles, intended as honours, should serve for our humiliation. For what have we that we have not received? All the Virtues implied by these honorific titles have been bestowed on us by Him, who is the Divine Mercy. Still, as Genku, says,

Mi wa koko ni
Mada ari nagara
Gokuraku no
Shoju no kazu ni
Iru zo ureshiki.

"The happiness!
To know that whilst our bodies still are here,
In this poor world, our selves are numbered
Amongst the Holy Ones of Paradise."

____________________

I have the less hesitation about offering this somewhat sketchy analysis to my readers since I have learned that a more careful translation of the whole Catechism is being prepared by a missionary friend in Tokyo.




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CHAPTER XIV.



After Justification.

( section 71, 72, 73, 74, 75)

We have now reached that portion of the Shinshu Catechism which deals with Zokutaimon, i.e. with the earthly life of the believer after he has received justification by Faith in Amida, has cast all his cares upon Him, and has entered into the Sacred Heart of Buddha. We shall find it necessary to consider many questions relating to Grace and Sanctification, and again we shall be astonished by the similarities between the Shinshu and the Christian systems of Theology.

And first, let me summarize what I have been taught, as a Christian, concerning God's grace. It will enable me to describe more accurately the Shinshu position.

Grace consists in the direct illumination of the mind, and the inspiration of the will, by God. [**] It is necessary for all good actions: it is indispensible to the just man, because, without it, he cannot persevere in the state of grace, or work out his own salvation: it is equally necessary to the man outside the covenant of grace, because, without it, he can not only not turn to the safe refuge of religion, but cannot even do any action that is good. All that is ethically good in human life comes through the grace of God. But the grace of God is over all his works:

[p. 110]

there is not one that is excluded from it. It is God's spiritual sunshine that gives light to the just as well as to the unjust. It is not limited to priests and monks, nor to that class of people whom the Japanese call Shukyoka (religiously minded persons): it illuminates and inspires the statesman in his cabinet, the merchant at his desk, the carpenter in his workshop: it is the inner soul (as it were) of all good actions, secular as well as religious, and there is no man, be he the most despicable of creatures, who does anything in accordance with the promptings of God's grace, that shall fail to receive from the all-just tribunal of Heaven his due meed of praise and encouragement. If I may express myself in Buddhist terminology, the grace of God is the source (the in #) of all good karma. [**]

Turning now to the Shinshu Hyakuwa, I find (in section 71) that the earthly life of a believer after receiving the Believing Heart may be compared to a day spent on the road along which one travels to enter into the full happiness of the Fruits of Enlightenment. (Shinjin wo etaru ue no jinsei-seikwatsu wa, Bukkwa no kofuku ni iru dochu no hi-okuri de arimasu).

The travellers along this road dwell continually in the Glory of Mida's Light ("One the Light of

[p. 111]

[paragraph continues] God's own Presence, O'er His ransomed People shed"); and they are continually under the protection of all "gods, Buddhas, and Bodhisattvas," the beings who hold in the Buddhist mind a place analogous to that occupied in the Christian system by ministering angels forth sent to minister to the heirs of salvation. The consequence of the clear light in which they dwell is that they are able to estimate rightly the importance of human virtue, that they set their minds to becoming active promoters of the peaceful welfare of society, rightly deeming that social duties are so important and weighty in their nature that the believer cannot afford to neglect them. This state of mind is that which is known in the Shinshu theology as Zokutaimon--the frame of mind which enables a man to discharge his duty towards his neighbour.

In the succeeding paragraph ( section 72) we are brought to the question of works done before justification. The Zokutaimon, we are asked, is it something that is obligatory upon a man before he receives the justifying faith in Amida, or is it merely something to be done after justification?

The author begins with a somewhat suggestive expression. Shin wo ete hajimete Shinshu no UTSUWA to naru no desu. " It is not until a man has received faith that he becomes a VESSEL, of the Shinshu." There is a sort of Pauline echo about the phrase which is not without significance. [**] Before

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the acceptance of faith a man cannot be said to be Shinshugyoja, a practising believer of the Shinshu Faith. [**] The Zokutaimon of the Shinshu Faith is therefore, properly speaking, an obligation which does not come into full force until a man has definitely accepted the Faith in Amida as laid down in the Shintaimon portion of the Shinshu creed.

Still, we are told, there are men who are within (kamei # suru) the fold (hani #) of the Shinshu, who have not yet made a personal acceptance of the faith upon which the Shinshu system is based, just as there are amongst ourselves persons who by Infant Baptism have entered into the congregation of Christ's Church without any very definite heart-acceptance of their Christian privilege. For such persons, because they belong to the Shinshu, it is more than expedient that they should understand and practise the religious obligations of life. It is a most important religious principle that, so long as men have to be in the world, they should do their duties as citizens of the world, and these duties ought not to be shirked as indifferent, even though a man have not yet received the grace of a Saving Faith. (Koto ni seken futsu no seikwatsu ni majiwarite tsutawaru shufu # de aru kara, nao nao mishin no aida wa do de mo yoi to iu wake de wa arimasenu.)

The next paragraph ( section 73) treats of the authorities that may be quoted for this view of the Zokutaimon. It need not delay us here, it is fully treated of

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in Shinshu Seikun, and seems to have only an academic interest.

In section 78, the question is asked, if we may look upon the duties of the Zokutaimon as being natural obligations, or merely as voluntary duties, binding upon such men only as have made some sort of profession of religion. And to this the answer is, that whilst certain of the duties in this section are indeed nothing but natural duties, incumbent on all men as members of human society, there are certain others which concern believers only. These may be summed up in the one word ho-on, #, a phrase to be more fully discussed in our next chapter. [**]

This section of the Catechism, (for Mr. Nishimoto now goes off into a consideration of the ho on,) closes with a warning against spiritual pride. ( section 75).

It is customary, in some sects of Buddhism, to give to men who have a peculiar reputation for sanctity, certain distinguishing titles such as "living Buddha," &c, &c. Mr. Nishimoto has already in section 70 given us some of these distinguishing names and titles of honour. Here he gives us two more, Shojoju, and Zennin, [*+] "righteous man," and again

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reiterates the warning against presumption or pride.

We must not expect, we are told, that the acceptance of Faith will work any outward change in us, either in our body, or in our life. Still there will be a change. When we have made the surrender of Faith, a living Fire has been kindled in our hearts, and the flames of Faith within will show themselves in the smoke of Conduct without (shin-kwa uchi ni areba, gyo-en hoka ni arawaru). We live in Amida's light as in an Ocean, and Amida's light dwells in us, and the consequence of this interpenetration, an idea not unknown to the Christian, is that, whether we try to be such or not, we are lights shining in the world (shizen to tokko no kagayaki ga gozaimasu. cf. Phil ii. 15). As men, living among men, we have a variety of duties to perform, and are brought into multitudinous relationships with our fellow creatures, which we cannot shirk or escape from. But these responsibilities are not peculiar to ourselves. We share them with all our fellow-men, and this thought should keep us humble.

At the same time, it should be added, for our encouragement, when we look at the inner man of him that has accepted the principle of Faith, we find there a happiness and a peace, such as one who has not yet believed cannot possibly understand. That internal happiness and peace will necessarily show itself in the quiet, peaceful strength that will characterize our daily lives. [**]

Footnotes

^109:* Gratia actualis consistit in immediata mentis illustratione atque inspiratione voluntatis immediata. Hurter, Theologiae Dogmaticae Compendium vol. iii p. 11.

^110:* There are some good actions which are not done in obedience to the dictates of God's grace. Some are done from pride, others from a desire to stand well in the sight of men. Such actions are only apparently good, and of these we can say that they have in them the "nature of sin." But I am not talking of these. I am thinking of the honestly good actions of men who have not yet attained to "justification" by faith in the One Saviour.

^111:* The Japanese word utsuwa is the equivalent of the Greek word skeyos and is used in the Japanese versions of Rom ix. 22, both in the Protestant version and in that used in the Greek Church. I have not yet seen the new translation (now in print) of the Roman Catholics.

^112:* One frequently hears among Roman Catholics phrases like, 'il est catholique mais il ne pratique pas': i.e. he is not a gyoja.

^113:* I may, however, briefly state here that the obvious Greek translation for ho on is Eucharistia, and that the attitude of the Shinshu mind after having made the act of Faith, may be most fitly described in the words of St Paul, Eph. v. 20.

^113:+ But see the quotation from Nanjo given in the note at the end of Chapt. vii. One of these titles, Daitoku (#) "great virtue," though not mentioned by Mr. Nishimoto, is historically interesting. One of the Tang Emperors, Taitsung, in 972, appointed ten Daitoku to superintend all the clergy of all sorts in his capital. Some of the Daitoku were undoubtedly Buddhists, but the title is also given to Olopen, the leader of the Nestorians, on the memorial erected a year or two later.

^114:* In the light of the historical discussion to be found in the Appendix, it is possible that Shintaimon and Zokutaimon may represent the distinction made between the "Perfect" and the "Hearers" in Manichaeism.




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CHAPTER XV.



Ho-on (#).

( section 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83)

The word Ho on is not one that is absolutely peculiar to the Shinshu Body. But it is one that, taken into the Shinshu system of theology, has acquired an entirely fresh import and significance. In other sects of Japanese Buddhism, religious rites and observances are practised for the sake of the benefit accruing to the worshipper therefrom. Thus, the Shingon or Tendai devotee recites mantras and darani, or goes through prescribed manual acts, in order, by some theurgic process, to compel the Deity to do that which he; the worshipper, happens to desire. Thus, the disciple of the Zen sits absorbed in contemplation, waiting for the moment when the Divine Light shall break into his soul, and the Divine Voice speak to his conscience, with an illuminative power that defies description, and in words that cannot be uttered or pronounced. Thus, even the pious believer of the Jodo sect recites his Nembutsu with fervent zeal, believing that, with every repetition of the Sacred Name, and every moving of the beads of his rosary, he is adding to his own stock of merit, and making his own calling and election sure. But, for the Shinshu believer, church-going and religious observances assume a different aspect. There is no question of acquiring God's favour or obtaining a benefit. Everything bas been already obtained that the soul can possibly wish for. It only remains to give "thanks to God for

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his inestimable gift," and the more the value of that great gift is appreciated at its proper worth, the more fervent and the more constant will be the expression of the believer's gratitude.

Hence it is that the whole sum of the religious observances of the Shinshu believer after his "conversion" may be expressed in the one word ho-on--"the giving of thanks" always, and in all things,--a kind of never failing Eucharist.

And yet ho-on practices, though not observed for the purpose of acquiring merit, but merely as an expression of gratitude for mercies received, are not wholly without a certain effect on the heart and soul of him that practises them.

I have already spoken of the three constituent parts of Karma, the in, and the en, and the kwa. The in (#), or primary cause of man's salvation, is the Desire and Will of God, who willeth to have all men saved and brought to the knowledge of Himself. This faith, given by Amida-God, is the seed of the new Life implanted in our hearts. When the believer understands that he is the heir (and the use of the expression sozoku suru, "to inherit," in section76 of the Shinshu Hyakuwa is again significant) of Amida's promises, the "seed" is planted in his heart, as the in, or primary cause. The seed is watered and fertilized, kept from withering, decay, or death, encouraged to grow and put forth leaves and branches, by the en (#), the secondary cause, the "eucharists," (if I may use the term with all holy reverence) which his thankful heart is continually offering, and the in and the en, working together, have their fruit (kwa #) in holiness of life. It seems to me that, taking

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the Shinshu Hyakuwa for my text, I have been able, without twisting its statements into anything that a Shinshuist theologian would dispute, to draw out, in logical sequence, a fair summary of the doctrine of Sacramental Grace.

Again, if the Divine Will (or hongwan), implanted in our hearts, is the in, and if the "eucharists" we offer are the en, we shall, according to the Shinshu ideas, find the kwa, or fruit, in the believer's conduct on this earth and in this transitory life. Paradise, Salvation, Nirvana,--all these things are not the fruits that come from the religious observances of the believer. They are not fruits at all, they are part and parcel of that inestimable, free gift, which Amida-God, the God who for us men became man, has freely bestowed on us. They are included in the "all things" which, according to St. Paul, are the necessary accompaniments of that gift of His Son, which God made about the time when both Christianity and the Mahayana sprang into existence.

If the seed is in our hearts, if the sun and rain of religious practices make it grow, the only place in which the fruit can show itself is on the tree, i.e. in this world, in our conduct and behaviour as citizens of the earthly, and human, state and society. Hence, to the Shinshu believer, the peculiar importance of the zoku taimon ( section71, zokutaimon no hataraki wa ho-on no hoka wa nai no de animasu).

The zokutaimon of the believer is thus concerned with the same objects and the same duties as the daily conduct, or zokutaimon, of the man that has no religion, yet the two can never be quite the same thing, inasmuch as they are done from absolutely

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contradictory motives. Ho-on to wa donata ni taishite nasu no de arimasu ka? To whom should our ho-on, the offering of our thankful lives, be directed? St. Paul would have had no hesitation as to the proper answer to give to this question. "Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God," would have been his answer. The Shinshuist's reply is very similar ( section 77). Our ho-on is to be directed to Amida Nyorai, from whom we have received all things. It is with the Nembutsu, the formula of praise, on our lips or in our hearts, that we go about our daily occupations (Nyorai no go-on wo kansha suru, seishin de Nembutsu tonaetsutsu dose kagyo wo itonamu no de arimasu). The motive sanctifies the action, and it is this motive that differentiates toto coelo the life of the man of the world from that of him who has been "saved by His Grace."

Ho on is expressed in many ways. It is not simply a matter of reciting the Nembutsu. We must consider that all "wholesome practices" [**] form part of the life of the "thankful," and that the doing of them is a part of the burden of duty laid upon us by the Nyorai himself ( section 78). Again, the practice of ho-on serves for the advancement of religion in others. We shall all remember the passage in St. Paul (1. Cor. xiv. 16) where the Apostle is discussing the advisability of encouraging the public practice of speaking with tongues, and asks how, if a man pray in a "tongue," the unlearned or ignorant brother shall be able to say "Amen" to his giving

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of thanks. A similar idea seems to underlie the thought expressed in section 99 of the Shinshu Hyakuwa. When the believer, we are told, recites his Nembutsu aloud, the standers-by, who chance to hear him, cannot fail to be edified. It may happen that the words of his giving of thanks fall on soil ready prepared, hearts in which the seed of Faith (in) has been planted, watered, and fertilized. Such hearts are good soil, and the words of the believer's thanksgiving, falling like the latter rain, act as the final en, and bring the Faith to maturity. [**] Or it may fall upon hearts less advanced in Faith. Neither so will its effect be lost; for the Faith of the Shinshu believer is that no single one of the oft-repeated invocations can possibly fail to do some good in the world. "Thus, directly and indirectly, the Nembutsu is a true Giving of Thanks, for it helps. on the Law of Buddha." [*+]

But, we may say, it is all very well to construct a ho-on out of the Nembutsu and other holy rites. How is it, however, possible to treat worldly and mundane occurrences as 'acts of thanksgiving'? To which it may be answered ( section 80), that, if we learn to treat all our actions, after we have accepted Faith, as being so many acts of thanksgiving, we

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shall gradually come to lose all sense of self, whether it be our own profit, or the satisfaction of our desires. This 'denial of self ' (for that is what it amounts to) makes us ready to endure all sufferings and pain, kills our pride, and makes us feel that our whole duty lies in being thankful. When we reach this frame of mind all our actions become true and straight (shinsei #), and naturally tend to the advancement of religion.

We now come to a paragraph of which I only write with the utmost reluctance. It is always painful to find fault, more especially so when one has to point out the shortcomings of a rival religion, which is accepted honestly and in good faith by thousands of good men. I hope that all that I have hitherto said of the Shinshu Creed will save me now from the charge of captious fault-finding.

If a man consecrates his whole daily life as a thank-offering for Amida's mercies, in what light are we to consider the lies and sharp practices which form an inseparable portion of that daily life [**]?

We are told in reply that lies and sharp practices are not, in themselves, "thank-offerings." But when a man is very zealous for the propagation of his religion, and offers his whole life, lies, sharp-practices, and all, to that end, the whole offering is acceptable, and lies and sharp practices, seeing that

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they become aids to the propagation of the Faith, become parts of an acceptable offering, and are thus accepted.

Truly, an offering of leavened bread! After that one ceases to wonder that the Japanese merchant gets the reputation of being occasionally "slim," There is no need to discuss this teaching. It bears its own reprobation on its face.

But one can see from this paragraph, where the Christian, with an almost identical creed, but one based on a sure rock of historical fact, and with a consequently more robust faith, and a morality which need fear nothing, will find his message to deliver to the Shinshu. One can see, too, where the conversion of the Shinshu must begin. It is a case for "purging out the leaven," and when the purging has been done, one of the great obstacles in the way of the recognition of Christ will have been removed. There are always some, however, who will not come to the Light, "lest their deeds should be reproved."

Footnotes

^118:* kikyo dosa.

^119:* Shinja no tonaeru Nembutsu wa, to no mishin no mono go kikimashite, nochi innen jukusuru toki wa, kore no yorite shin (#) wo emasu. Mi-juku no mono mo mata shinjin no en wo musubimasu kara shizen to Nyorai no rishoke-yaku wo tasukuru ko (#) ga aru koto ni narimasu.

^119:+ Chokusetsu kansetsu tomo ni Buddha no mi-nori no kasei wo itashimasu yue ho-on ni narimasu. With the verb kasei suru, (#) it is interesting to compare the Pauline expression, "we are fellow-workers with God."

^120:* I quote the whole of section 81. Seken no koto wo uso ya kakehiki ga nakereba nurimasenu. Sore de mo ho-on ni narimasuka? Uso ya kakehiki ga ho-on ni naru de wa arimasenu. Uso ya kakehiki wo majiete seken no koto wo itashi, dose no michi wo kokoro yoku hagemite wa, Buppo no tetsudai wo shite to omoute tsutomemasu kara, sore ga mina ho-on to naru no de arimasu.




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CHAPTER XVI



Sozoku.



(#)

( section section 83-85)

It is necessary that the Faith in Amida once implanted in the heart should be kept alive. Man's heart is changeable and fickle, but there are means whereby the Faith may be prevented from decaying within us.

The Shinshu enumerates five such means (go sho gyo #).

These are,

1. The Recitation of the Nembutsu,

2. The Reading of the Scriptures (dokukyo),

3. The cultivation of the feeling of joy which comes from allowing the imagination to dwell upon the bliss of Paradise,

4. The worship and adoration of the images and pictures of Amida,

5. The consorting with like-minded believers, and speaking of the praises of Amida.

The Shinshuists are said to feel very strongly about the last of these "means of grace." More than all other Buddhists, they are said to object to mixed marriages with those who do not belong to the "household" of the Shinshu.




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CHAPTER XVII



Keijin.



(#)

( section 86-87)

The paragraph in the Catechism, on which this chapter is based, discusses the attitude of the Shinshu believer towards other forms of faith, and especially of Buddhist faith. The word Keijin does not occur in Shinshu Hyakuwa, but is a term employed in other Shinshu books to denote that reverence or respect which we should show towards all things connected with any religion, even though it be one of which we ourselves do not approve. It is a common feeling among Japanese that the Westerner is lacking in Keijin, and on one or two occasions, when I have received permission to attend and watch a service in a Buddhist Temple, I have been warned beforehand of the duty of behaving with outward respect during the solemnities and in the Temple.

The author of Shinshu Hyakuwa does, however, treat of Keijin. He says that for the Shinshu believer there is no need to offer worship to any other Being besides Amida. The other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, whom the other sects of Buddhism worship, nay, even the gods of Japan and India, outside of Buddhism, must only be considered as so many partial and fragmentwise manifestations of Amida Himself, and the worship, therefore, which the Shinshu offers to Amida, must be considered as

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including that which is supposed to be due to every other Being that is set up as claiming the worship of man. [**]

But when a Shinshuist goes to places of worship belonging to other sects and religions, he must treat the worship he finds there with respect and reverence, and he must not think that, by bowing before the image of Kwannon, or Fudo, or Benten, he is taking away from the honour due to Amida alone. [*+]

In Shinshu Seikun, Keijin forms a portion of the chapter on human life.

Human life may be viewed from four aspects.

I. The relations between Religion (Buppo #) and the State Law (Se-Ho #), sometimes also called O Ho (the Law of the King #). The two are compared to the two wheels of a cart, or the two wings of a bird. Progress is impossible without the equal use of both. The King's Law is to be received with respect, like the present from a

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superior, which the recipient takes in both hands, and reverentially lifts to his forehead. The Religious Law is to be taken within, and received into the secret palace, where the monarch sits enthroned. (Oho wa hitai ni ate yo, Buppo wa naishin ni fukaku takuwae). The Religious Law is compared to the house-master (Aruji), who sits at home and manages his own house: the King's Law is the honoured guest (Kyakaijin), who seeks admission to the mansion, and is treated with consideration. The visitors are not always alike in appearance and character (some birds have long legs and some short); but the householder receives them all alike. The Religious Law is always the same. It is based on the gokai, [**] the five commandments of Buddhism, which correspond to the well-known five principles of Confucianism jin, gi, rei, chi, shin [*+]. It adapts itself to the various circumstances of human life. Its presence in a man may be known by his observance of the King's Law.

II. The second part concerns itself with the care we should have whilst in the world. (Shose no yojin) [*++]. We live in the world, of human beings, we must have sympathy and long-suffering; else human intercourse becomes impossible. But sympathy and long-suffering are not the only essentials of human life. Man, it is known, differs from the animals in the faculties he possesses of preparing comforts for himself. He cooks his food, he fashions his clothes

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he builds himself shelters. These faculties give him many advantages, but they also expose him to the temptation of covetousness, the desire of having, the pride of life. The pride of life leads to envy, jealousy, sorrow, and, above all, to the loss of inward peace. If we would preserve our inward peace, and maintain the harmony of social life, we must practice yojin, circumspection, and self-denial. We must be ready to sacrifice our own will to that of others.

III. This will best be done by the practice of the way of man (hito no michi). This way has been clearly expounded in the Sutras on which the Shinshu base their doctrines. It has also been treated of, with more telling effect, by the great Rennyo Shonin, in his work entitled Jiki shinshu (#) which is recommended to Shinshu believers for their devotional reading. It tells the reader how he can serve his master, how he can be dutiful to his parents, how he should associate with his friends, and how he should cultivate peace of mind.

IV. In this way we are brought to Keijin. We should not despise, or treat with irreverence, the Worship of any gods, Buddhas, or Spirits. Nor. should we consider that respect paid to them in any way interferes with the sole devotion which we give to Amida.

For (a) it must be the wish of all other Buddhas that worship should be given to Amida alone. These Buddhas may, therefore, be considered as themselves transferring to Amida the worship which ignorant worshippers offer to them. But no instructed Shinshuist, knowing that he can have direct access to

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[paragraph continues] Amida, would feel it his duty to offer a round-about worship to other, subordinate, Buddhas.

And (b) we may consider that many of the gods whom various nations worship are themselves but temporary or partial manifestations of Amida (bunshin #). In such a case, the same rule will serve to guide us as in the case of the worship offered to the Buddhas.

But (c) many of the so-called gods are evil spirits whom men seek to propitiate by the offering of worship. The Shinshuist need have no fear of them; he is under the protection of Amida, and is therefore safe.

The chapter then goes on to consider the prayers that men will offer to gods and Buddhas when misfortunes befall them. Such prayers must be considered as contrary to Keijin, for they are, in a sense, dishonouring to the gods to whom they are addressed. For misfortunes come to us as warnings with remedial intent, and the true believer will use; them as such. Instead of asking to be delivered, he will probe his own heart to its depth, find the root of bitterness and eradicate it. Then the misfortune will disappear of itself.

Another way in which true Keijin may be shown is in the choice of our associates. "By imitating a thief, and playing at thieving, a man becomes a thief ...... by imitating a righteous man, a man will learn to be righteous." There can be no greater contumely offered to Amida than the wilful exposing of ourselves to the danger of breaking his laws.

Again, Keijin prompts us to be modest. Haji wo shiranu wa chikusho ni onaji. "He who knows

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not modesty differs not from a beast." The believer will always be properly clothed: if he is a monk., he will be careful to wear his kesa (stole) properly. Layman or cleric, he will be respectful in a place of worship, and will no more dream of irreverence in the presence of San-kai mu-ni-no Nyorai, "the Nyorai besides whom there is none other in the Three Worlds," than he would think of treating with disrespect some great earthly magnate. This respect and reverence he will also show towards idols, flowers, incense-burners, and all other accessories of worship. For though these things are nothing in themselves (mokuzo moto no ki no hashi, ezo wa kore moto no hakushi, "the idol was originally only a piece of wood, the picture nothing but a sheet of white paper"), yet they are symbols of worship, and the man that has in him no capacity for worship is ho better than the brute beast. The power of worship is one of the distinguishing faculties of man.

But Keijin will especially show itself in our behaviour under sorrow and bereavement. The separation from those we love is the most painful ordeal we have to face. If we have Keijin, we shall not affront the deity by vain regrets and idle reproaches. We shall turn our eye to the Paradise of Bliss, and show our respect for the Higher Powers by a resignation of ourselves to their decrees.

I may add that most of the contents of this chapter of Shinshu Seikun are taken from the writings of Rennyo Shonin, and date, therefore, from a period anterior to the advent of Christian missionaries in Japan.

Footnotes

^124:* This is true as a general rule. I have noticed one exception in Shinshu practice. At a Shinshu funeral, of which I shall give an account later on, there is an invocation of "all the Buddhas," an invocation which, according to the strict interpretation of the Shinshu doctrine, must be unnecessary.

^124:+ It was doubtless Keijin that prompted a Buddhist priest to offer hospitality to the newly landed Jesuit missionaries in the sixteenth century, with permission to use his temple for the preaching of Christianity. When the Jesuits later on developed iconoclastic tendencies, and encouraged their converts to tear down Buddhist temples, it was a painful breach of the law of Keijin. It must be said, however, in justification of the Jesuits, that the destruction of Buddhist temples was not their work but that of their daimyo converts, and that Hideyoshi and other non-Christian Japanese were very ruthless iconoclasts when it suited their purpose. There is reason to believe that, in the 7th and 8th centuries, Christianity was looked upon merely as a variant form of Buddhism.

^125:* #.

^125:+ #.

^125:++ #.




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CHAPTER XVIII



The Shinshu on Faith-healing.

( section section 88. 89.)

In other sects of Buddhism, much use is made of spells, incantations, and prayers, as means of obtaining from the celestial powers the fulfilment of our desires; also of auguries and divination, by which the Will of Heaven may be revealed to us for our guidance. Thus in the great Temple of Kwannon at Asakusa, in Tokyo, much use is made of the supposed potent efficacy of Binzuru Sama, the weak-hearted but kindly disciple of Sakyamuni, who having once, after his admission to the order, looked upon a woman to love her, was forever excluded from access to the holy Place; though his lacquered image, standing outside upon the veranda, has been rubbed smooth by the devotion of the ignorant. There is a side shrine to which girls go to pray for husbands, and young matrons for children. These belong to the Tendai Sect: the Shingon believer in these parts has his wonder-working Shrine at Kawasaki, where Kobo Daishi, worshipped as an Incarnation of Vairocana, enjoys wide reputation as yamai-yoke-no taishi, the "Great Teacher that heals diseases." There is a shrine at Kamakura, under the auspices of the Zen sect, sacred to Kishimojin (in Sanskrit Hariti), which at certain seasons does a great trade in supplying streams of pilgrims with charms supposed to be extremely potent. The same deity is worshipped by the followers of Nichiren,

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and a few miles out of Tokyo, in the village of Nakayama, there is a Nichiren Temple where a regular practice obtains of driving out devils by means of a treatment apparently composed in equal parts of incantations, drum-beating, and douches of cold December water from the well. There is also in the Life of Nichiren a well known story, which reads almost like a chapter from the Old Testament, of a contest, between Nichiren and his theological opponents, as to which should call down rain from heaven to assuage the drought and famine that were then destroying the land. There is no need to multiply instances: that Buddhists are addicted to incantations is a fact which scarcely needs demonstration.

Of all this the Shinshu knows nothing. "We hold," says the Shinshu Hyakuwa ( section 88) "that the happiness or the reverse of a man's life, his honour or his shame, is entirely and solely the inevitable result of a Man's own actions, and of his own merits in the past or in the present life, and that no prayer or incantation is of avail to change a man's temporal lot until all the law of Karma has been fulfilled. We teach that when a man understands where the true cause of misfortune is to be found, and sets himself resolutely to work to amend his life, and to strengthen that resolution which can alone give him the victory, then the misfortune which clouds his life will of itself disappear. Further, if a calamity be so great that it seems to require a charm or incantation to drive it away, we must remember that the Great Vow of Amida is more powerful than any incantation or charm, and we cannot possibly do better

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than cast our care upon Amida and go quietly on with our lives."

So the Shinshuist discards all spells and incantations, wears no amulets or charms, and even abstains from all prayers which are not included in the term mina Butsuriki ni makaseru (lit. to commit all to the power of the Buddha), which I have ventured to translate by the term, "casting all our care upon Him."

And what a vast province of the Kingdom of Prayer is included in the phrase mina Butsu-riki ni makaseru! "A man who is religious," says Newman, "is religious, morning, noon, and night; his religion is a certain character, a mould in which his thoughts, words, and actions are cast, all forming parts of one and the sane whole. He sees God in all things; every course of action he directs towards those spiritual objects which God has revealed to him; every occurrence of the day, every person met with, all news which he hears; he measures by the standard of God's will ... To be religious is, in other words, to have the habit of prayer, or to pray always ... we place God's presence and will before us, and so consistently act with a reference to Him, that all that we do becomes one body and course of obedience." [**] Substitute the Name Amida for God, and you have what the Amidaist understands, and (as far as his lights go) practises, by the term mina Butsuriki-ni makaseru.

But if prosperity and adversity, sickness and health, are Karma of our own actions in the

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past, and if we are in all things to commit ourselves to the power of Amida, in what light are we to look upon medical aid (yobo, #) in case of sickness? There were "Christian Scientists" in Buddhism long before the formal advent of Christianity into Japan, and Rennyo Shonin discussed the question in the fifteenth century. Jisetsu to-rai (#), "his hour has come," was the cant phrase used by these "peculiar people," when their friends were stricken with sickness. The phrase in their lips was intended as a justification for not summoning the doctor. "Jisetsu to-rai, indeed!" exclaims Rennyo. "If you have taken every possible means to save your friend's life, and all has been in vain, then you may say Jisetsu to-rai, but not otherwise." Our hour must come of itself: it must not be invited or dragged on by our own carelessness ( section 90).

The next paragraph ( section 91) discusses the term aku-nin-sho-ki, to which I have already had occasion to refer. The term means 'a bad man with a straight or correct faith.' It apparently came into use in the early days of Shinshuism, was early misunderstood, and led to one of the most serious troubles that the sect has experienced. It was interpreted to mean that a man might be as bad as he pleased, provided that he had a correct faith in the mercies of Amida, and this misinterpretation was very soon used as a "cloke of maliciousness."

Our author is at pains to explain the true meaning. The vast proportion of men, he tells us, are aku-nin "evil men" (are we not taught to call ourselves miserable sinners?), but there are none so evil that they may not be saved by obedience to

[p. 133]

the teachings of the "true faith" or sho-ki. The phrase therefore, properly considered, is the glory, and not the shame, of the Shinshu. It means that the Shinshu has come to preach a Gospel to the outcast, the criminal, the evil liver. It has come to call "sinners to repentance." And this, we may notice, is an honour which it shares with the Christian Gospel. [**]

Footnotes

^131:* Newman, Parochial Sermons. Vol. VII. p. 205.

^133:* The phrase Jisetsutorai is especially interesting for the light it throws on the historical connection between the Shinshu and Manichaeism. See Appendix II.




[p. 134]



CHAPTER XIX.



The Care of the Dead.

(A Shinshu Funeral.)

In the older Jodo Sect, there is a pretty custom connected with the death of a believer. A picture of Amida is hung on the wall near the head of the sick bed, and a silken or other cord, fastened at the one end to the picture, is fastened at the other to the wrist of the dying man. It is a vivid representation of a celebrated chapter in the Hokekyo, in which the glorified S'akyamuni, whom the Amidaist sects identify with Amida, is represented as throwing a rope (the merits of His Great Vow) into the midst of a burning house (this transitory life), in order that its frail and erring occupants may lay hold of it by faith, and be thus drawn out of the midst of the conflagration to the safe refuge of the Garden outside. The ceremony is, therefore, a symbolic expression of the belief of the Jodo disciples, that it is this salvation that is put into operation at the moment of the believer's death.

In the Shinshu, the ceremony would be meaningless, for it is the firm conviction of the disciple of Shinran that the Rope of Salvation was thrown to him long ago, that he seized it at the moment when he fixed his faith on Amida, and that the only thing that remains for the dying man to do is to await death with thankfulness, and a with sure and certain hope.

Perhaps the best way to set forth the beliefs and practices of the Shinshu with regard to the solemn

[p. 135]

question of death will be to describe an actual Shinshu funeral. Such a description has been furnished me by my friend, Mr. K. Tachibana, himself a priest of the Soto Sect. It is taken from an account which appeared in the Magazine called Fuzoku Gappo at the time of the obsequies of Kosho, 21st Abbot of the Eastern Hongwanji, at Kyoto, who died on the 15th January 1894.

Three days after death, on the morning of the 18th, the corpse, arrayed in ecclesiastical vestments of a goko [**] colour, was placed in a sitting posture on a Kyokuroku, or camp-chair, in one of the official rooms of his private residence. Devout laymen were constantly in attendance, and at intervals, as groups of mourners passed through to pay their last respects to the deceased prelate, the light curtain of split bamboo was silently raised, so that they might gaze freely upon the dead, the face, however, being veiled so that only the eyes were visible. [*+]

On the evening of the following day the corpse was washed (for the second time), [*++] put into a coffin, and removed to the Head Temple, where a special mortuary chapel had been fitted up, with a picture of Amida hanging in a conspicuous place behind the coffin. Here it was kept for ten days, constantly attended by priests in minor orders, who silently burned incense before it every ten minutes, and watched by relatives and friends, by the ladies of

[p. 136]

the late Abbot's household, and by representatives of Imperial personages, etc.

On the evening of the 29th, after a short ceremony, the corpse was removed from the mortuary chapel to the great Halls of the Temple, first to the Daishido, or Hall Sacred to Shinran, and then to the Amidado, or Hall of Amida, where it was exposed to the inspection of the Faithful, in general, being visited by thousands of pilgrims from every part of the country, who had flocked to Kyoto for the occasion.

It was then removed to a place called Uchino, for the funeral service proper. Uchino was in former times the place of cremation, but the growth of the city has made it an undesirable spot for the purpose. The cremation therefore took place elsewhere.

The service at Uchino, which began as soon as the whole congregation had taken their places (only near relatives, priests of high rank, and the representatives of Imperial Princes and the Nobility being admitted), was a comparatively simple one.

It began with the solemn Fourfold Invitation. "With reverence we invite the Buddhas of the Ten Directions (i.e. all the Buddhas) to come down upon the Sacred Altar. There is joy in the scattering of Flowers."

"With reverence we invite the Nyorai S'akyamuni to come down on this Sacred Altar. There is joy in the Scattering of Flowers."

"With reverence we invite the Nyorai Amitabha to come down on this Sacred Altar. There is joy in the Scattering of Flowers."

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"With reverence we invite Kwannon and Seishi, and the other holy Bodhisattvas, to come down on this Sacred Altar. There is joy in the Scattering of Flowers."

It will be seen that there is in this Fourfold Invocation a pretty exact picture of the theological position of Shinshuism. It begins with a sort of polytheism. There have been "lords many and gods many"--there are Buddhas in all the Ten Quarters of the Universe, through whom the Saving Way has been made known since ages of immeasurable remoteness. (The names of some amongst them are to be found in the Sukhavati Vyuhas and other Sutras revered by the Sect.) Amongst all these Buddhas one has been preeminent, the only one for whom a claim to historicity has been set up, the. Buddha S'akyamuni. S'akyamuni, according to the Shinshu, not only teaches. the same broad way of salvation as did the rest, but he goes a step further, and bears witness to another Buddha--the Eternal Fount and Source of all Buddhaship--the Buddha Amitabha. And Amitabha is invoked in His threefold aspect, in the glory of his past, the glory which is His in the Dharmakaya, in the glory of His humiliation--the glory which He had when He became man; in the glory of His present, when, as Namu-Amida-Butsu, He sits as king of Paradise. And the Bodhisattvas, the ministers of Amida, are invoked, beginning with Kwannon and Seishi, and ending with the humblest of those in whom has dwelt the spirit of Amida. It is impossible, perhaps, to compress the Shinshu Faith into a shorter compass than this.

[p. 138]

After this followed the chanting of the Shoshinge which, as the reader is aware, gives the history of the transmission of the sect, the chanting of the Nembutsu-wasan, or hymn in praise of Amida, which summarizes the belief of the sect, and especially its belief in the efficacy of faith in Amida at the supreme moment of death, and finally, after many repetitions of the Nembutsu formula, the Eko, or prayer of transference.

Gwannishi kudoku Byodo se issai
Dohotsu bodaishin Ojoanrakukoku

"Let us pray that the merits (acquired by this our service) may be distributed equally among all Sentient Beings, that they may all alike conceive in themselves the desire for Bodhi, and may ascend and be reborn in the Land of Peace and Comfort."

With those Words ended the service in the Uchino ground. It is a distinguishing feature of the Shinshu funeral rites that they contain no indo, or 'guiding words' addressed to the deceased, to instruct him, in case he should be ignorant, how to behave himself, what to believe, and what to practice, in order to secure a safe passage through the realms of darkness. The firm belief of the Shinshuist that Amida has got sure hold of him, and that He will guide him safely to the mansion that He has prepared, makes the indo a needless and meaningless form of words.

There was, however, one piece of ritual, in the funeral I am describing, peculiar to such rites when celebrated at Uchino,--a symbolical cremation, the

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burning of a bundle of straw in memory of the fact that Uchino had once been a crematory. When this was done, the coffin was removed to the crematory at Kwazan-in, accompanied by the strains of the Shoshinge, and the smoke of incense.

None but the successor of the deceased Abbot, a few near relatives, and ancient retainers, were admitted to the crematorium, and the fire was kindled by the new Abbot himself. Presently the smoke was seen issuing from the building.

Jhayati! Jhapeti! "He burns and causes to burn." The words used in this phrase are interesting, as giving Pali forms instead of Sanskrit, thus pointing to a Buddhism of Magadhan origin, by the side of that which came via Central Asia and China. [**] After the cremation, the ashes were carried back to Uchino, secretly and under guard, a custom observed in the Shinshu ever since the fifteenth century, when, on the death of Rennyo Shonin, the jealous Tendai monks attempted to waylay the procession that was carrying back the hallowed bones, and to scatter the precious relics to the winds.

The next morning, with incense, Shoshinge, and Nembutsu, the ashes were again removed from Uchino to the Chuindo Hall of the Hongwanji, where they remained beneath an Altar until the 49th day after death, when they were finally placed in their permanent resting place. The 49th day is, in

[p. 140]

[paragraph continues] Buddhist belief, a very critical day in the history of the soul after death. [**] On that day its future destiny is decided, and it goes from the intermediate state into its proper place in . the world to come. A Buddhist, who was much interested in Christianity, once pointed out to me the similarity between his beliefs, and the period recorded to have elapsed between Easter and Pentecost. "It was on the fortieth day after death," he said, "that Christ ascended into the Heavens, but it cannot have been till the forty-ninth that He definitely took his seat at the 'right hand' of His Father. And the very next day after He had come into His Kingdom He sent down the Holy Spirit!"

Footnotes

^135:* Go is the honorific, Ko (#) is incense.--"Incense colour" is a sort of grey, smoky, colour.

^135:+ It is universal in the funerals of clerics, thus to expose the corpse in a sitting posture. This is not done for laymen.

^135:++ The first washing of the corpse (for laymen; the only took place a few hours after death.

^139:* Jhayati, Jhapeti are not words peculiar to Shinshu. They are used in all sects. Of Pali words surviving in Japan we may instance dabi a cremation. Some words survive in two forms: e. g. biku, which is Pali, bishu which is the Sanskrit bhikshu, "a monk." Also abidon = the Pali abhidamma, and abidatsuma = Skt abhidharma.

^140:* section 94.




[p. 141]



CHAPTER XX.



The Care of the Dead.



(ii) Days of Mourning &c.

( section section 91-95).

There are certain festivals in Japanese Buddhism connected with the dead in general.

I. Higan. Periods of seven days at the spring and autumn Equinoxes, devoted to special worship in connection with the departed. The word Higan means the "opposite shore." At the Equinox the sun, as it were, crosses from one shore to the other. The "opposite shore" is a natural figure of death, and the Buddhist, like the Christian, would say that

"Part of the host have crossed the flood,
And part are crossing now."

In other sects, prayers are made at these seasons for the souls of the departed, and offerings presented for their repose. The Shinshuist observes the same ceremonial, but he calls his Higan devotions a sambutsu-e, or meeting for the praise of Buddha; for he cannot be sorry for those that are in the good keeping of Amida, nor pray for the repose of those whose eternal happiness he believes to be secured for ever.

II. Urabon or the Bon Festival is the All Souls' Day of Japan, coming in the middle of the seventh month. At the Bon Festival it is believed

[p. 142]

that the spirits of the dead return to the homes of their earthly life, and lamps are lighted to show them on their way, food prepared for their refreshment, and evergreen sheds for them to rest in. O Bon is the harvest time of the country priest, who looks to its rewards and emoluments far more keenly than any Christian parson looks to his Easter offerings; but the return of the spirits of the departed is not always a subject of joyful contemplation to the layman of indifferent holiness. There is a terror of 'spooks' in all countries, and revenants are not always welcomed. I have known country people positively refuse, at Bon-time, to open their doors to speak to belated travellers who were asking for direction. How were they to know that the voices outside the door did not come from spirits of undesirable and unwelcome relatives, who had gone over to the majority and were now visiting their ancient homes?

But the Shinshuist does not allow himself to dwell on the gloomy side of things. His Urabon is called Kwaukie, 'feast of rejoicing'; for, again, there is no need for him to be anxious as to the frame of mind in which his dear ones will return to visit their ancestral homes. His dear ones are safe in Paradise, sitting on lotus leaves, and listening to the sermons of Father Amida.

III. Eitai shido, a term used in other sects for the masses said at stated intervals for the souls of the dead long since departed, is changed in the Shinshu to sosen shaon, gratitude for the deceased ancestors. It is with the Shinshu almost as it is with the English Churchman when he "blesses

[p. 143]

[paragraph continues] God's Holy Name for all His servants departed this life in God's faith and fear." There is no public prayer, but there is grateful .

The same principle holds good in the case of the particular dead, as in that of the dead in general.

IV. The kijitsu and saijitsu, anniversaries, and memorial days, for parents, wife, or children, are changed from days of prayer and intercession to days of praise and thanksgiving, and if the Shinshuist celebrates these days with the same dignity and pomp that is observed in other bodies, his motives are not the same. He has no intention to benefit the dead by what he does: he looks to the benefit to the worshipper himself, to the good the service will do to the non-believer ( section 92). That the souls of the dead may be benefited by these services is not denied. Only, the main object is to benefit the living rather than the dead ( section 93), and the benefit to the dead seems to be connected more especially with those forty nine days before mentioned during which the soul lingers in the intermediate state (chu-u) before entering definitely into its proper sphere, be it good or bad ( section 94).

All these things the Shinshu observes, and yet in every one of them it has modified the accepted Buddhist tradition in favour of one which is essentially its own. The same may be said of the indo ceremony to which I have already alluded, and to the practice of giving a homyo or kaimyo (posthumous names) to the deceased. The former is considered by the Shinshu as being given to the soul after death by Amida himself, who comes and takes it by the hand to Paradise: the latter is given by

[p. 144]

the priests at the time of the funeral ceremonies, as a sign, like the symbolical head-shaving of a deceased layman, that the departed So-and-So, has now definitely entered into religion (buppo), and left the ranks of the laity. There is a striking resemblance here to the New Name which, in the Apocalypse, is said to be given to him that is faithful.




[p. 145]



CHAPTER XXI.



Morning and Evening Prayers.

There are in Shinshuism two kinds of places of worship, ji-in and zaike. The first is a large temple served by numerous priests, and exhibiting as it were a model of contiguous worship for the sect. The second is the house in which a priest and his family dwell, together with a small semi-private chapel attached to it. To take an example from Tokyo: we have here two Hongwanji Temples. (ji-in), the one at Asakusa, the other at Tsukiji. These two big Temples are served by a large number of resident clergy, who take their turns in the ministration, and live in a sort of 'cathedral close' near by the large Temple. Each of these houses has its own private sanctuary, which it is the occupant's duty to serve, whenever his duty does not call him to take his turn at the ji-in. These Canons' residences are zaike, so are also many (or most) of the Shinshu parsonages which are to be found scattered about the country.

The worship of a ji-in is necessarily varied and elaborate, approximating more or less to what we might call a cathedral pattern. There is, however, a simple form of morning and evening prayer which is common to both ji-in and zaike. It consists of a recitation of the Shoshinge, together with six (sometimes only three) verses of a wasan hymn, and a certain number of Nembutsu ejaculations interspersed between each verse. To these may be added other

[p. 146]

hymns in honour of the Buddha, as also the reading of the Amida-Sutras and of Rennyo Shonin's Ofumi. It would be impossible to tabulate these daily services of which there are many minor local variations.

The Shinshu Hyakuwa mentions only the morning and evening service in temples and parsonages. But there are (and, in the days of faith now gone, there were many more) laymen's houses in which the Shoshinge and Wasan hymns are repeated morning and evening. This is very much more the case in the country, where life goes slowly and uneventfully along, than in the busy towns, and in the centres of the now fully awakened intellectual life of the country.




[p. 147]



CHAPTER XXII.



Fasts and Festivals.

( section 97)

The following fasts and festivals are observed in the Shinshu Sect.

Jan.

1-3



New Year's Celebrations.


"

25



Commemoration of Honen Shonin.


March





The Vernal Equinox (one week).


April

1



Birthday of Shinran Shonin.


May

1-10



Commemoration Zenchishiki.


July

14-16



The Bon Festival.


September





Autumnal Equinox (one week).


Nov.

21-28



Preaching Services in Commemoration of Shinran Shonin.


The various meinichi (commemorations) of Shotoku Taishi, of the seven Patriarchs, and of the patron zenchishiki of the Central Temple of each one of the various subsects.

The meinichi of other zenchishiki. In this respect the Calendar is continually changing, for as the years go by, and new zenchishiki are added to the roll of the Saints, some of the old ones are dropped out, or their festivals amalgamated with those of others. In this way thanksgivings are continually being offered for the lives of recent saints, while care is taken that the roll of saints actually mentioned by name shall not become wearisomely long. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, we may all learn

[p. 148]

something from this sensible practice. Nichiren (Seigoroku p. 191) accuses Honen and Zendo of conspiring to drive S'akyamuni out of the Buddhist Church by turning his festivals in the 4th and 12 months into festivals of Yakushi and of Namu-Amida Butsu, the glorified and triumphant Amida. This is still the case: the Birthday of S'akyamuni, which often falls during our Easter festivities, though, very devoutly kept by other Jodo Sects, is not kept officially by the Shinshu. No more are the Festivals in honour of S'akyamuni's Enlightenment and His Nirvana. Yakushi, the "master of medicines," who healed sickness, and had twelve Apostles, is not mentioned in Shinshu Theology. [**]

Footnotes

^148:* While the Eastern Hongwanji has adopted the new calendar in its table of Fasts and Festivals, the Western Hongwanji retains the old lunar reckoning. Thus the commemoration of Shinran Shonin falls in one case in our November, in the other, in our January. Next year (1911) will be the 650th anniversary of Shinran, and the 700th of that of Honen's death.




[p. 149]



CHAPTER XXIII.



Fasting.

(Shojin #)

( section 98)

The word shojin, though generally limited to fasting from meat, really has a much wider signification. It implies the purification of the soul from every impurity that may prove an obstacle in its path into the presence of the Unseen Deity.

The devout Shinshuist is taught, not merely to abstain at the proper seasons from meat, but to extend the scope of his fast by abstaining from fish, from wine, from tobacco, from pungent herbs, from all occasions that minister to sin. Shinshuism does not however fall into the Manichean error of considering these things bad in themselves. It merely rejects them, whenever, and so far as, they become ministers of temptation.

And if, human nature being what it is, the Shinshuist does not always rise to the high ideal thus set before him, we will not throw stones. We will think of our own shortcomings, and by our example help the Shinshuist to keep his own law better.

In section 99 we are warned that we cannot be saved by the observance of any ceremony. Ceremonies are to be observed, we are told, for the purpose of keeping our faith alive and warm, an effect which they undoubtedly produce if properly carried out. They

[p. 150]

are also valuable indices whereby we may know the state and progress of a man's faith. For, says our author, when we see a zaike, which is trim and nicely kept, with signs of prosperity, if not of wealth, we may conclude with justice that the "parsonage people" are industrious and diligent. Similarly, when we find a zaike in which the duties of the Faith are laid aside, or perfunctorily performed, we may safely conclude that the religion of that family is at a low ebb.




[p. 151]



CHAPTER XXIV.



Conclusion.

( section 100)

In the last paragraph of Shinshu Hyakuwa its author asks why it is that, in spite of the great and attractive mercies of Amida, Faith should be so rare and so feeble in this land of Japan.

He finds the answer, partly, in the material tendencies of the present day, and in the fact that the struggle for existence is now so severe that men find less and less time to spare for purposes of religion. The answer is a true one as far as it goes. There is a great deal of materialism in the world, and undoubtedly the love of many, as well as their faith, has waxed cold. But a busy man is not of necessity a materialist, and a Faith which can be focussed as it were, in a burning-glass, would seem to be just the faith for the busy merchant.

Another partial answer he finds in the comparative absence of good karma in the present day. There has been much evil in the past, hence, in the present, there are but few whose karma fits them to hear and receive the Gospel of Amida. Shinshuism is not the only form of Faith which is suffering from an evil karma in the present produced by sloth and indifference (to say the least of it) in the past. In the case of the Shinshu, I would also suggest that that unfortunate paragraph about uso and kakehiki must have something to do with the low estate

[p. 152]

in the present, and may have more to do, if lest uncorrected, with Shinshu decadence in the future.

There are three things, says the author, that even a Buddha cannot do.

When once the first step of a firm resolve to obtain Salvation has been taken, he cannot stop or change the process of Salvation which has thus begun. That is one thing that limits his power: he cannot run counter to himself.

Nor can he save a man against his will. He may plant the seed in the soil, but if the man neglect to water and fertilize it, the seed will produce nothing.

And he cannot exhaust the world of Sentient Beings. For, supposing all men now living to be saved, and to come no more into this world of condemnation, fruitful Nature would still teem with fresh generations springing out of her exhaustless womb. The world will always have in it a majority of unsaved persons. [**]

We have, therefore, says. our author, nothing to do but to wait for the swinging of the pendulum which shall once more make religion a matter of prime interest in Japan, at the present moment so frankly materialistic.

In the mean time, it will be a distinct gain if it should come to be realized that East and West have more in common than a few years ago we of Europe ever dreamed of, even in our wildest moments. It

[p. 153]

will be a real strength to humanity and to the feeling of brotherhood amongst men, when we can say that, though the terms in which our Faith is expressed are different, and though the courses of our spiritual training have hitherto lain far apart from one another, yet, underlying it all, there has been an almost identical Faith in the One Father and the One Saviour, and that the Law (of Buddha) is the School-master which is leading Japan and China to Christ. [**]

Footnotes

^152:* The three things that are impossible are this expressed:

1. Ketsujogo wo tenzuru koto atawadzu.

2. Mu-en no shujo wo dosuru koto atawadzu.

3. Shujokai wo tsukusu koto atawadzu.

^153:* I leave to the Appendix the discussion of what I may call the sources of Shinshu Theology.




[p. 154]



APPENDIX I.



KOMYOJI (#).

In the year 614 A.D. a boy was born in China. By what precise name his parents first knew him I do not know. Judging from the analogy of other men similarly situated, he had many names at different periods of his life. The name by which he was last known was Zendo (#), but that was almost certainly not the name of his childhood. His family name was Shu (#) and he was born in the district of Shishu (#).

When he was born the Sui [**] dynasty was tottering to its fall, and had in fact only four years more of life. Already, we may believe, was the Duke of Tang, on the extreme north-west boundaries of the Empire, conspiring with Turkish and other chieftains, and meditating that great coup d'etat, which put his

[p. 155]

master at his mercy, and seated himself firmly on the Celestial Throne, as the founder of a Dynasty, the most magnificent China had ever yet seen, and which was to continue for well-nigh three centuries. [**] The miseries of the people, heavily burdened and harrassed to support the luxurious and ostentatious extravagance of the Sui monarchs, tended to encourage his hopes, and with the practised eye of the statesman he could see that it only needed a strong man at the helm to make China a world-power with very widely extending influence. For the inland states on the Western frontiers were already looking to China for aid against the terror of the Arab, shortly to be kindled to victory by the enthusiasm of the new faith inspired by Mahomet, and only a few years were destined to elapse before Persia, at war with Constantinople, and overrun by the Arabs, should come to China in the vain hopes of an alliance against the new foe. [*+] To give another

[p. 156]

note of time, Shotoku Taishi, [**] the greatest of Japan's early statesmen, and as great in the religious world as he was in the political, was already busy with his celebrated reforms. The Constitution of the 17 Articles had already been in force some ten years when Zendo was born, the ruler of Japan had already given offence to the vainglorious Sovereign of the Sui by the letter in which the "Eastern Emperor" sent his greeting, as an equal in rank, to his brother the "Emperor of the West," and Korea, which had already done so much for Japan in the way of religious and civilizing influences, was giving Japanese statesmen a good deal of political anxiety. [*+]

[p. 157]

In matters of religion,. Confucianists and Taoists were apparently going on much as usual; but the Buddhist world, distracted partly by the immense volume and bulk of its own religious books, and partly by the multiplicity of the new ideas which the growing commercial activity of the people was importing from foreign countries, was in a state of apparently fermenting chaos. [**] Bodhidharma's attempts at reform (A.D. 520) [*+] were already a century old and his way had already lost some of its prestige: new sects, [*++] e.g. the Sanron, Jojitsu,

[p. 158]

and Tendai, were already in process of formation, if not actually formed, and Hiouen Thsang had already (A.D. 611) entered the order of monks, and was now preparing for the celebrated journey to India for the purpose of studying at first hand the doctrines of his faith.

Some reform was certainly needed. In the year 618, the Duke of Tang deposed his master, and took his seat on the Imperial throne as Kaotsu, the Founder of the Tang dynasty. One of the most striking incidents of his reign was the presentation of a petition to the throne against Buddhism, It was presented by leading men among the literati and Confucianists, and was strongly worded. [**] Kaotsu accepted the petition and acted upon it. He ordered a general dissolution and suppression of Buddhist monasteries and sent 100,000 monks and nuns back into lay life. It was probably a necessary measure. The monks were very numerous and very powerful, and they claimed exception from State control. Abuses of many kinds are apt to spring up in institutions the members of which claim not to be placed on the same footing with ordinary citizens.

Zendo entered the Buddhist order at a very early age. I cannot find whether it was before or after the suppression of the Monasteries by Kaotsu; but it was most probably before that event, and his teacher was a certain Shosho (#) of Misshu (#), a prominent person in the then newly-formed Sanron sect. This sect, which is also called the Ichi-dai-kyoshu, or "Sect of the Teachings of Buddha's

[p. 159]

whole life," made it a feature of its teachings that it professed to accept every one of the many thousand volumes of the Mahayana Canon, as of equal authority, without assigning to any single one a pre-eminent place among its compeers. It aimed at the most complete and glorious comprehensiveness (a comprehensiveness which, I fear, can only be attained by the sacrifice of the critical faculty). Zendo's Buddhist biographer [**] adds that he also studied the Vinaya discipline (a fact which may be taken as showing traces of a somewhat practical turn of mind), and notices further that, during these student days, he was continually restless, that he sighed for greater definiteness, and expressed a longing for that simpler doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Amida, which has always had its exponents in China as well as in Japan.

At last, weary of the confusion, he went into the Library, prayed for guidance, closed his eyes, and put out his hand for the book which was to simplify his Creed. The same story is told of others in .Chinese Buddhism: in Zendo's case, his hand fell upon the volume of the Kwangyo (the Amitayurdhyani Sutra), [*+] which relates how Sakyamuni

[p. 160]

comforted Queen Vaidehi in her distress by reminding her of the mercies of Amitabha, "who is ever near thee." Zendo read and received comfort; but he could not understand all he read, and where he was there was none to explain it.

But he heard that, south of the Yangtze, at Rozan (#), there were traditions and books which might explain what he wanted. It was here that Eon (#), who died A.D. 416, had worked for thirty years, and had founded, in connection with a body of friends known as the "eighteen sages of Rozan," a guild known as the White Lotus Society, which was the first association of Buddhist monks and laymen for the joint adoration of Amida Butsu. Zendo learned all that he could at Rozan, and then recommenced his travels, consulting as many religious teachers as he found likely to be able to give him helpful advice and

[p. 161]

counsel. What he learned from these teachers induced him to adopt a rule of life, known as han shu sammai (#), which reads almost like the stern rule of some Christian ascetic, still more so, perhaps, of that of some Manichean fanatic. Mi tsune ni butsu wo raishi, kuchi tsune ni butsu wo tonae, kokoro tsune ni butsu wo omou. "His body ceaselessly engaged in the worship of Buddha, his mouth ceaselessly engaged in the recital of Buddha's praises, his heart ceaselessly meditating Buddha." With this in mind he retired to the Temple of Goshinji (#) in Shunnan, where, amidst beautiful mountain scenery, and In the solitude of retirement, he "beat out his music." It is quite evident that this retirement, which lasted for some years, was of great value in the formation of his religious ideas. The name of the temple signifies, not inaptly, the "Temple for the Instruction of Truth." He remained here until his 29th year, returning to Singanfu in the year A.D. 643. [**]

[p. 162]

His stay however, was for a short time only. Ever since his first conversion to Amidaism in the library, he had evidently been searching for any traces he could find of Amida followers in China. He had been to Rozan to examine Eon's literary remains and to get into touch with the White Lotus . We may presume that the Goshinji to which he retired was a place at which he would find persons in sympathy with his religious sentiments. Now he heard that Doshaku (#), the monk who is reckoned as Zendo's predecessor in the list of Shinshu patriarchs, was teaching in the district of Shinyo (#, Chinyang in Kiangsi) and he set off at once to visit the aged man.

Doshaku, who is reckoned by the Jodo Buddhist as the fourth patriarch of the Amida Doctrines, and therefore as Zendo's immediate predecessor, was born in Heishu (#) in the year A.D. 553, and died in 636. He had experienced the persecution which the Buddhists had undergone during the reign of Wu-ti of the Chow (#) Dynasty [**] and he was one of the few brave ones who remained faithful in spite of the violence of the storm. His predecessor, the third patriarch, Donran, [*+] had taught

[p. 163]

with considerable effect in the district in which Doshaku was born, and though he had been dead twenty years when Doshaku came into the world, his influence was still felt in the neighbourhood. It was kneeling before the stone pillar erected to Donran's memory that Doshaku made his vow to propagate the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Amida. Doshaku was 48 years of age when he thus enrolled himself as a posthumous pupil of Donran's; but he is said to have developed the doctrine beyond what Donran had done. Donran had been drawn by the hope of eternal life, and it was this hope, set before him by the Indian monk Bodhiruci, that had made him burn his Taoist books of magic and set himself to the study of Amidaism. In Doshaku's hands the Amida doctrine had developed in the direction of personality. He taught (if we may believe his latest biographer, Mr. Tada) [**] that Amida must be considered to be a personal Being and not a mere abstract ideal, and the book which he placed in Zendo's hands was the larger Sukhavati Vyuha, the book which gives the account of Amida's

[p. 164]

life, of His Incarnation in the person of Hozo Biku, His labours undertaken for the Salvation of men, the successful accomplishment of His Great Vow, and His return to glory as King of His Western Paradise. This doctrine Zendo accepted and preached. He may be said to have carried the doctrine a stage further. The followers of Honen Shonin (otherwise known as Genku) form three communities, (i) the Shinshu, founded by Shinran, and (ii and iii) the two sub-sects of the older Jodo sect, the Chinsei-ha and the Seizan-ha. [**] The Chinsei-ha, agreeing in this respect with the Shinshu, differ from the Seizan-ha in the matter of reciting the Nembutsu. The latter community treat the Nembutsu as an act of adoration addressed to all the Buddhas, the Chinsei-ha and Shinshu treat it as addressed to Amida alone, as being the only Buddha, and the one to whom everything else is subordinate and subservient; and this practice, according to Murakami, [*+] is due to the teachings of Zendo. To Zendo, therefore, the doctrine of faith became a doctrine involving a belief in a single Being, without beginning of days or end of life, unbounded in every respect, who, for man's salvation, had become a man, had accomplished a scheme of salvation, and had returned to his original glory.

Zendo's biographers relate how, when the patriarch was on the way to visit Doshaku, his road

[p. 165]

lay through forests and mountains, so rough and impassable that, at last, worn out with fatigue, he had to lie down to rest in a cave. He was fainting with hunger and weariness, and it was two days before he could raise himself. Then it seemed to him that a voice sounded in his ears: "Pull yourself together, and struggle on: your difficulties will disappear." We may perhaps enquire what these difficulties were and how they disappeared.

Doshaku is said to have died in the year A.D. 637. The date cannot be implicitly trusted, for it is also said that Zendo was 29 years old when he visited Doshaku and accepted Amidaism, an impossible age if Zendo was born in A.D. 614. The explanation probably will be found in another statement to the effect that Doshaku died five years after the visit of Zendo. That would make Zendo 23 years old when he visited Doshaku, and we may easily believe that the conversion to Amidaism, as he came to learn it, may have been a slow process, not fully accomplished for several years. But, whichever way we look at it, the conversion of Zendo to the full faith in Amida must have taken place about the year A.D. 636 (if anything a little later than that year), and in, or near, the capital city of Singanfu. From that date and in that city, he began his preaching activity.

China under the Tang dynasty had many dealings with Central Asia. The ruling family, as Dukes of the dependent principality of Tang, had been much mixed up with Tartar and Turkish tribes, and it was apparently by their help that the family had been seated on the throne of China. From the

[p. 166]

moment, therefore, that the Dynasty was established, the new Empire became the cynosure of Central Asian eyes. [**] A Persian Mission was sent by Chosroes II, praying for an alliance, and in 621 the first Zoroastrian Temple was erected in Singanfu. The leader of this Mission seems to have been a Magian of the name of Holu ("le fils du feu," as P. Gaubil calls him) who was very active in stirring up China against the Mahometans. Of Manichaeans in China proper, there seems to be no mention for many years to come [*+] but in 636, almost synchronizing with the

[p. 167]

commencement of Zendo's preaching activity, arrived the Nestorian Mission under Olopen, which has left behind it an enduring memorial in stone. Is it possible that the "difficulties" with which Zendo was troubled, when he lay wearied in the cave on his way to Doshaku, were difficulties connected with the relations between the Buddhist Faith and the Faith which the Nestorians preached?

We can trace the development of Zendo's thought. Confused by the multiplexity of the popular Buddhism of his day, he turns to the scripture in which Sakyamuni is represented as comforting Vaidehi with the proximity and tender watchfulness of Amida. Then he goes south to Rozan, to the remnants of Eon and his White Lotus Guild, after which, in the solitude of the Goshinji Temple, he works out his problem. In the meantime he hears of Christianity (by no means an impossibility if we remember the story of the introduction of silkworms into Europe a century before). What is he to do or say? He goes to Doshaku to resolve his doubts, and Doshaku tells hire of "Eternal Life," and gives him the Sukhavati Vyuha, which tells of Amida as a Person, who came down upon Earth, who.

[p. 168]

opened the door of salvation, and has gone to, the place He has prepared for us. [**]

After 636, then, we find, in Singanfu, two men preaching almost similar doctrines, the one preaching them in connection with Christ, the other in

[p. 169]

connection with Amida. It is further said of Zendo's activity that he was constantly helped by a mysterious priest who came to visit him every evening and helped him with his commentaries (see Tada, Shoshingekowa, p. 359.) This mysterious collaborator may have been a Christian, and if so, the strange coincidences, the almost Pauline echoes, which are constantly to be found in Zendo's writings, would be amply accounted for. Nor is the supposition a baseless one; for we have one clear instance of such collaboration between a Buddhist and Nestorian about a century later, when the Nestorian priest King Tsing (or Adam, as he is called on the Singanfu monument) collaborated with the Indian monk Prajna in the translation of a book on the Six Cardinal Virtues (Shat Paramita Sutra). [**] The original was not in Sanskrit but in the Hu (#), i. e. the Persian, or more probably, the Uigur language. At any rate, not much came of this attempted collaboration, which probably caused much jealousy and opposition. It was after a while forbidden by. the Emperor Taitsung, who, in a published decree, ordered the Nestorian King Tsing to confine himself to the teachings of Mishiho, and to leave the followers of Sakyamuni to propagate the teachings of their master. [*+]

[p. 170]

The suggestion of opposition raised against such collaboration, on the part of friendly-disposed believers of the two religions, by more strait-laced partisans, brings me to another point of contact between Zendo and the Nestorians. It is said (my authority again is Mr. Tada) that great opposition was made against Zendo for his preaching. A butcher, whose customers had left him to turn Buddhists, tried to murder the persuasive [**] monk who injured his trade. And not only did persons of low degree set themselves against him. The literati persecuted him and his followers, as did also the priests of the other Buddhist sects. When the Emperor Kaotsung died in 684, the reins of Government fell into the hands of the Empress-Dowager Wu-hu, who was under the influence of a Buddhist monk named Hwai-yi, a monk of one of the sects opposed to Zendo's teaching, and Hwai-yi in 694 caused much popular discontent among the lower

[p. 171]

classes by burning a favourite Temple, which may have been Zendo's. For the common people heard Zendo gladly, and it was his preaching of a Gospel to the poor and outcast that annoyed the literati and the " Salvation-by-" Schools of Buddhists.

Strange to say, the Nestorians, well received and honourably treated by Taitsung and Kaotsung, fall into disgrace, and are persecuted, as soon as Kaotsung's death leaves the supreme power in the hands of the Empress-Dowager Wu-hu, and her adviser Hwai-yi. The persecution of the Nestorians is instigated by the sane people as that against the followers of "Zendo, and much the same pretexts are alleged. Moreover, the persecution of the two bodies goes on for the same time, and relief comes to them simultaneously. Of the Nestorians we read that Huantsung (723-756), succeeding Wu-hu, rebuilds the "Temple of Felicity," as the Nestorian Church is called, that Huantsung's succeessor, Sutsung (756-763), coming into a disordered inheritance recovers Singanfu which was in the hands of rebels, and erects "luminous" temples in various parts of his Empire, and finally that the Emperor Taitsung (763-780), the same who discouraged the collaboration of King Tsing and Prajna, not only celebrated the Bon Festival with the Buddhists in the 7th month, but kept Christmas in the 12th with the Nestorians, "burning incense" in a "luminous temple" with the "luminous multitude." As to Zendo's followers, we find them gathering round a teacher named Ekan, not very long after the master's death. Ninety years after that event, a monk named Hosso is mentioned as acquiring great

[p. 172]

fame, and in 793 Shoko makes Uryusan (#) the headquarters of the teachings promulgated by Zendo. But by that time the Emperor Taitsung was already dead (ob. 780), and the collaboration between Amidaist and Christian had already been prohibited.

When the Nestorian mission first arrived in China in A.D. 636. they procured from the Emperor Teitsung a decree authorizing the erection of a Tatsin (i.e. a Syrian) Temple. This name, however, may have led to confusion, for both Zoroastrians and Manichaeans might conceivably have claimed the title (loosely construed), and in fact, did so. When Huantsung, soon after 713, rebuilds the Nestorian Church, it is called a "Temple of Felicity." When Sutsung, in 756, recovers Singanfu, the Nestorian Churches are "luminous (#) temples," and this name has come to be identified with Nestorianism ever since, both in China and Japan.

When Zendo died, the Emperor Kaotsung (650-683) granted to the Temple in which he resided the honorific title of Komyoji (#), which is only another form of "luminous temple." The popular explanation of this name is obviously a fanciful one. Bright rays of light do not come out of the mouths of even the most eloquent preachers of any faith, nor do books, however holy and mouldy, glow with a phosphorescent light. Yet that was what Shoko is said to have seen issuing from the works of Zendo preserved in the library at the White Horse Monastery. [**] Kaotsung was an enlightened monarch, and

[p. 173]

if he gave the title of Komyoji, it must have been for the quality of the doctrine and not by reason of any doubtful miracle. But it is quite probable that "luminous temple" and Komyoji may have been used as alternative titles to describe the Faith in One Saviour as taught, both by the Nestorians and the children of Zendo, during the period of collaboration, and that later, when Taitsung ordered the two to keep apart, the name of Komyoji was taken by the Buddhist section of the "movement" as their own specific designation, the Manichaeans distinguishing their temple by the title Dai-un-komyoji.

This view receives considerable support form Japanese history. Shotoku Taishi, whom the Shinshu honor as the first of their Zenchishiki or Saints, died in 621, shortly after the commencement of the Tang dynasty. Buddhism was, therefore, in full swing in Japan when, in 636, the Nestorian Mission arrived at Singanfu, and Zendo began his preaching, and there were many Japanese students being sent yearly to China for purposes of study. [**] Not only so, but there were malty Chinese families residing in Japan and naturalized there (ayabito), and it has been noticed that most of Kotoku Tenno's Taikwa Reforms (A.D. 645-654) were worked out for him by these ayabito. [*+] The whole of the Nara period was an age in which Japan was peculiarly

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sensitive to Chinese influences, and especially to the influences of Chinese Buddhism.

This influence seems to have reached its maximum during the reign of Shomu Tenno (724-748) and his Consort Komyo Kogo (the very name, a posthumous one, is in itself significant. Shomu Tenno was a very zealous Buddhist. He founded hospitals and charitable institutions, and his Empress distinguished herself by personally undertaking the nursing of lepers [**]--a truly Christian work. Japan was in no position at the time to undertake hospital work unaided. Foreign doctors had to be employed, and the industry of Japanese students has recently shown us the presence in Japan, at the Court, of a Nestorian Christian (the Nestorian Christians were famous all over the East for their skill in medicine). [*+] Here,

[p. 175]

therefore, we have possibly, two instances of simultaneous collaboration, Buddhist and Christian uniting in the production of books in China, and in works of charity in Japan.

In 781, the Singanfu monument is erected, and, shortly before, or afterwards, the Chinese Emperor finds reason for prohibiting the collaboration. In 782 the Emperor Kwammu comes to the throne of Japan. The Buddhists have been giving themselves airs for some time, and the ambitious priest Dokyo, intriguing with the Empress Shotoku (765-769), has assumed the title of Ho O, or "religious emperor," a kind of pope! Kwammu determines to put an end to the political intrigues of the Nara clergy, removes his capital to Kyoto, and sends Kobo and Dengyo to China to investigate religion. They come

[p. 176]

back, the one with the Shingon, the other with the Tendai. Again it is significant that these sects, and especially the Tendai, which became practically the State religion of Japan for many centuries, were the very sects which had organized the persecution against Zendo, when he first began to preach his doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Amida.

But the light still shone, in spite of the opposition of the Tendai. Zendo's books came over to Japan, Mr. Tada tells us, at different times between 996 and 858, and several monks, such as Kuya and Eikwan, kept alive the faith in Amida, invoking His Name on Hieizan, or wandering, disguised as travelling priests or horse dealers (umakata), from province to province, preaching a simple faith to country peasants. [**] And finally, the great Honen (Genku), breaking with the Tendai, as so many others had

[p. 177]

done, in order to return to the teaching of Zendo, founds at Kurodani a temple, still known as Konkai Komyoji, "the Illustrious Temple of the Golden Precept," which is to this day one of the chief seats of the Chinsei sub-division of the Jodo Sect. And it is this Chinsei-ha which preserves Zendo's rule of making the Nembutsu an invocation of the Great Amida alone, to the exclusion of all the rest.

Footnotes

^154:* The Sui dynasty ruled in China from 589-659. A.D. They came to power at the close of a long period of division, the Empire having been previously divided into many small Kingdoms, with Chinese rulers south of the Yangtse, and Tartar or Turkish chieftains in the northern districts. Such were the Wei (Tartars), the Hsia (Hun), the Northern Yen (Tartar), the Western Liang (Turkish), and the Western Tsin (Tibetan). These smaller Kingdoms are of great importance in the History of Buddhism, for it was in them rather than in China proper that Buddhism flourished before the Tang period. The Sui family had but two Sovereigns, Wenti (589-606), who united China and carried the Chinese name far among the Turks in the N. and East, and Yangti (605-617), a man of violent temper, prone to debauchery and extravagance, who brought the Empire to the verge of ruin. He was overthrown by Li-yuan of the Tang family, who ascended the throne in A.D. 618, as Kaotsu.

^155:* It will be well to remember that under the earlier Tang Emperors, Chinese Viceroyalties extended as far as the frontiers of the Persian Empire, and that even monarchs like Siladitya Harsha of Kanauj acknowledged Chinese influence. It must also be remembered that Kaotsu suppressed Buddhist monasteries, sending 100,000 bonzes and nuns about their business, being stimulated thereto by petitions from Chinese literati. Buddhism had many enemies; e.g. in India, where Harsha's predecessor had likewise (in 601) dissolved the monasteries, and even uprooted the famous Bodhi-tree. V. A. Smith, Early History of India.

^155:+ It will be well to keep a few dates in mind. The first Persian Temple (whether Zoroastrian or Manichaean is not quite clear) was erected at Singanfu, in 621, three years after Kaotsu's accession. The Persian Empire, under Chosroes, II, was at the time at war with Rome (or rather Constantinople), a Persian army was on the Bosphorus. This war was a great strain on [p. 156] the Persian dominions, and there were other causes for anxiety. Mahomet, born 570, had announced himself as a prophet in 610, and the Hegira, from which all Mahometans date their years, took place in 672. Siladitya Harsha, whose Indian Empire extended over the whole basin of the Ganges, and who began as a warlike monarch, came to the throne A.D. 606. He, too, received an Embassy from the Persians, which he housed in a Monastery near Multan, and massacred after entertaining them liberally. This must have been before his conversion to Buddhism which seems to have been about 645. (V. A. Smith, Early History of India). The Persians were evidently looking everywhere for helpful allies.

^156:* Shotoku Taishi's political activity may be said to have begun with the battle of Shikisen in 587, when the Shinto supporters were crushed. He became Crown Prince in 593, proclaimed Buddhism in 595, promulgated his Constitution of 17 Articles in 604, rent his celebrated letter to the "Emperor of the West" (Yangti of Sui) in 609 and died in 621. With him may be said to end the Korean period of Japanese Buddhism.

^156:+ Korea, divided into several small states, was fluctuating in allegiance between China and Japan. Yangti of Sui sent an expedition to Korea (A.D. 615), and Shotoku was much concerned to preserve Japanese influence in the peninsula.

^157:* With a few exception, the early books translated by the Buddhist missionaries of the Han period (ended A.D. 220) and of the era of confusion which followed, were so badly done as to be practically unintelligible. Kumarajiva, a native of Kushe, with apparently both Chinese and Indian blood in his veins, arrived at Changan in A.D. 406, and inaugurated a new era of translation. Amongst the hooks of which he provided fresh translations were the Sukhavati Vyuhas and the Hokekyo. Kum. therefore marks a new period in the history of the Chinese Buddhism.

^157:+ Not even with Kumarajiva's efforts could Buddhism in China be brought into a satisfactory condition. Bodhidharma's efforts were devoted to introducing a form of Buddhism which should not depend upon books, but teach men by contemplation to get straight to the heart of Buddha.

^157:++ Hiouen Thsang, born A.D. 602, enters the Order 622; about the time of Kaotsu's edict against the monasteries: unable to satisfy his mind, starts for India 629, meets Silabhadra in India, and enters the Nalanda monastery in 638, returns to China 645, The Emperor Teitsung writes a preface for his translation in 648. Hiouen Thsang is regarded as the founder of the Hosso sect, and it shows how close was the connection Japan and China that the same sect appears in Japan 653, having been brought over by Dosho, a student under Hiouen Thsang. It is noteworthy that H. T. did not bring Amidaism of the Zendo type back from India. Perhaps he did not find it there.

^158:* Kaeuffer Geschichte Ostasiens. vol. ii, p 659.

^159:* Tada, Shoshingekowa, p. 347.

^159:+ The Kwangyo, which is the second longest of the three Jodo books, was not translated into Chinese until A.D. 424, its translator being Kalayasas a contemporary of Kumarajiva. The Larger Sukhavati Vyuha was translated as early as A.D. 147, by Anshikao and also by one of his companions, there being two later translations, one in 2?2 by Sanghavarman, and one of the Smaller Sukh. Vy. by Kumarajiva about 420. This would seem to point to the fact that Eon's teaching must have been based entirely on the earlier translations of the Larger Sukhavati Vyuha. Also, if Takakusu's date for Vasuhandhu is correct [p. 160] (A.D. 440), Eon cannot have used any of his books either Eon's spiritual father was Doan (d. 390), a native of Ch'angshan in Chekiang, who moved to Joyo (#) where he was besieged and taken prisoner by a King named Fu Ken (#) who ruled over one of the Central Asian principalities. During Man's life time, the Tsin Emperor Hiao-wu-ti was converted to Buddhism, chiefly owing to Tangut influences. Doan professed to have the aid of Pindola (Jap. Bindzuru), and was devoted to all the Buddhas, though perhaps especially to Amida, as, may be inferred from his nickname Miten no Doan. Eon, who followed him, seems to have been entirely devoted to Amida, as was also the Society which he founded and which, there is some reason to suppose, was Manichaean. In the life-time of Eon and Doan, began the streams of Chinese pilgrims to India, Fahian being the first. It is noteworthy that none of these pilgrims seem to have brought back anything definite about Amida from India. This is especially noticeable in the case of Hiouen , and it seems to point to the Central Asian origin of the Amida cult.

^161:* It is said of Eon that he was so strict in his observance of Buddhist discipline that when, on his deathbed, he was ordered to take honey, he first set his pupils to find out whether the Buddhist rule permitted it. While they were still examining, he died. Once he broke his rule of retirement by mistake, being so engrossed in conversation that he inadvertently went outside the bounds of his hermitage. This is a favourite theme for artists. It is interesting to remember that the Goths and other barbarians from Central Asia were at this time (circ. A.D. 575) invading the Roman Empire. There is a passage in the Byzantine historian Eunapius (Hist. p. 83) which represents them as bringing their Buddhist clergy with them and introducing them to the Roman authorities, because they had noticed that the Romans laid much stress on religion, and they wanted to show that they, too, had a religion of which they need not be ashamed. It is barely possible that these clergy may have been [p. 162] Arians: but the Goths were not concerted to Christianity by Ulphilas before A.D. 350, and it would scarcely be conceivable that twenty five years later the Arian clergy should be described as one of the "ancestral" institutions of the Goths. It is from about the middle of the 4th century that the Kaidan or grades of ministry, with ordinations, are said by Japanese writers to begin.

^162:* The Chow (circ. 560) were a northern Kingdom, a rival, of the Wei, whose territories and powers they gradually usurped.

^162:+ Donran died in 533. Like all the Amidaists, he was not a pure Chinaman, but a subject, of one of the small northern [p. 163] kingdoms. Wuti, of the Liang, circ. A.D. 528, was a great admirer of Donran's. It is interesting, to note that shortly, after Donran's death, within the life time both of Doshaku and Zendo, an attempt was made (the fore-runner of the Ryobu Shinto in Japan) to amalgamate Buddhism with Taoism. I quote it to show that this was an age of syncretic aspirations. Donran may almost have been a contemporary of . Some trace of the tendency to make common cause with Taoism may be perhaps found in the syllable Do (#) in the assumed names of Doan, or Doshaku. Donran was certainly a Taoist before becoming a Buddhist. The Do in Zendo's name is slightly different (#), as though to emphasize sane new principle that had come into his teaching.

^163:* Tada. Shoshinge Kowa. p. 349.

^164:* This is Mr. Murakami's division in Bukkyo Hyakkwa Hoten. But there are other disciples of Zendo in Japan, who do not trace their descent through Genku and Shinran, notably the Yudzunembutsu and Ji sects, concerning whom a note will be given later on in this chapter.

^164:+ Murakami. Bukkyo Hyakkwa Hoten, p. 493.

^166:* P. Gaubil. Mem. des Chinois. xv. p 399.

^166:+ Acc. to the authors of Mem. Conc. la Chine (See xvi, 227. also Kaeuffer. ii. 653) the first mention of Moni or Manichaean monks among the Tartar tribes occurs in 786. I am indebted to my friend Mr. S. Tachibana for the following data concerning the Manichaeans, which somewhat modify these statements. In the 5th. year of the Jokwan (Chih Kwan) period of the Tang dynasty, i. e. A.D. 632. a Manichaean named Boku-goka-roku, obtained from the Emperor Taitsung permission to erect a Tatsin Temple (Jap. Taishinji) at Singanfu. Tatsin was a generic name for Persia and Syria and the name Taishinji was at first applied indifferently to all temples, Christian, Manichaean, or Zoroastrian, devoted to the propagation of faiths cooling from those regions. In 734, the Emperor Hiuan Tsung ordered the destruction of all Manichaean Temples (probably of all Tatsin Temples), and forbade the promulgation of Manichaeanism. In 740, the same Emperor removed the prohibition and ordered that all Temples belonging to religions of Persian nationality should be called Taishinji, whether in the two capitals or in the neighbouring country districts. In the 3d year of Daiseki (Chin. Ta-li), i. e. 763, Taitsung authorized Persian subjects to erect Dai Un Komyoji (#) evidently as something distinct from the Taishinji, also as-distinct from Buddhism. Again in the 3d. year of the Emperor Wutsung, A.D. 843, all Manichaean Temples were closed; and many of their priests, nuns, and laity, put to death or sent into exile. In .the meantime the Komyo doctrine had reached Japan. It had been brought to China in the reign of the [p. 167] Empress Wu, in the 1st. year of Yen Tsai, in 694 by a Persian. of the name of Pu-ta-tan (#). The Empress Jito was then on the throne. She was a zealous Buddhist. In the year 692, she received from the Chinese Ambassador a statue of Amida, and copies of a Sutra called Kon Komyo Kyo, which she caused to be preached throughout her Empire. It is difficult not to connect this with the Faith that Zendo had preached. (Mr. Tachibana quotes from Bussotoki, fasc. 35-42. See also Haas; Annalen des Japanischen Buddhismus. p. 318 and Deveria in Journal Asiatique ix. x. p 445).

^168:* I would like to call attention to an excellent article entitled the "Mystery of Fulin" by Dr. Hirth, of Columbia which has just appeared in vol. xxx. pt 1 of the Journal of the Am. Oriental Society. Dr. Hirth has long maintained (and gives reasons for so doing) that this embassy came from the Patriarch of Antioch as head of the Nestorian Church. There is also a great deal of information in Mrs. Cordon's recent work on the Messiah, a book which, despite its superabundant mysticism, is full of valuable information and most suggestive in the many hints and indications it gives for further investigation and research. It is interesting to observe that Olopen and his missionaries emphasize the fact that they come, not from the King of Persia, or any political power, but from the Patriarch of Antioch, a purely spiritual personage with no political influence at all. Perhaps they did this on purpose to avoid being mixed up with Manichaeans and Zoroastrians, who were more closely connected with the Persian State. Dr. Grierson, in his article on Bhakti-marga, in vol. ii of Hasting's Encyclopaedia of Religions, shows us the same Olopen, three years later, in India, at the Court of Siladitya Marsha, where he is well received. This will show us how Nestorianism was at work, quietly and unobtrusively, in India as in China. We know that there were Christians in China before Olopen, for the Emperor Justinian (527-565) received a present of silkworms brought to him by monks who had been living for some years either in Singanfu or in Nanking. These missionaries can scarcely have been Nestorians, seeing that Justinian had a great dislike to that body of Christians. On the Singanfu monument, erected 781, Olopen is described as Daitoku (#). In the year 771, the Emperor Taitsung, appointed ten Daitoku, men of recognized virtue and merit. The erectors of the monument would scarcely have ventured to give Olopen this title unless it had been (posthumously perhaps) conferred on him by the Emperor. (See Murakami. op. cit. p. 804, & E. A. Packer, Notes on the Nestorians, J. R. A. S. North China Branch, vol. xxiv p. 297.)

^169:* It is to be found in the Buddhist Canon. See Nanjo's Catalogue. No. 1004

^169:+ Prof. Takakusu called attention to Prajna in his Translation of I-Tsing's Record of the Buddhist Religion Oxf. 1896. Mishiho is Messiah. Among the Jews in Kaifongfu, in Ronan, are preserved portions of the prophets Zechariah and Malachi. A phrase which Zendo uses mere than once is Fushi Sogo, "the turning of the hearts of parents and children to one [p. 170] another," a phrase which at once suggests Malachi to the mind. Zendo's phrase was later made the title of the well known Japanese Jodo book the Fushi Sogo. I am much indebted to Dr. Haas, of Heidelberg, for calling my attention to this matter.

^170:* Tada says that Zendo's preaching was so persuasive that many of his hearers committed suicide by burning themselves alive. Mr. T. rightly feels called upon to apologize for this; but no student of the Hokekyo will need to be reminded that to make a holocaust of oneself is set forth in the Hokekyo is the highest form of grateful adoration. But the word 'holocaust' is also a good Christian expression, spiritually interpreted, and I venture to suggest that the holocausts in Zendo's time may have been of this kind. I am encouraged to think this by the fact that in the short biography of Zendo which appears in Shin hu Seikun, the word nyujo (#) is used to describe the occurrence. Nyujo literally means "to enter into the state of determination," though Hepburn in his Dictionary, explains it as meaning voluntary suicide by fire.

^172:* See Nanjo, Short History of the XII. Buddhist sects, p. 107.

^173:* See Haas, op. cit. I am much indebted to this work. I have already shown, in notes on Hiouen Tsuang and the Manichees, how quickly Japan, at this particular period, was moved by any new religious movement in the capital of the Tangs.

^173:+ See Melanges Japonais. vol. iii. p. 287.

^174:* Murakami. op. cit. p. 145-6. A little point, worthy of remark, is the following. In 639, Olopen, having established his missionaries at Singanfu, goes on to India and visits the Court of Siladitya Harsha, at Kanauj. Shortly after this, we read of Harsha's zeal for works of charity, leper hospitals &c, institutions which Buddhism had scarcely known since the days of Asoka, but which have constantly been a conspicuous element in all Christian work. in Japan, what I may call the Komyo doctrines find their way into the country under Jito and Mommu (627-647). Here also they are followed by a period of enthusiasm for works of charity which continues for a while, until the tares spring up and choke the good seed, and the Tendai, the ancient enemies of Zendo get the upper hand.

^174:+ The following are the data known about the Nestorian Doctor, Rimitsu. In the year A.D. 739 there arrived from China a ship-load of distinguished persons. 1. Kibi Mabi who had been studying in China since 716, and who brought back with him the art of embroidery, the game of go, the biwa, and the Katakana alphabet. 2. Dosen, the founder is Japan of the Kegon (or Avatamsaka) sect. 3 A Brahmin priest, Bodhisena, from India. 4. A musician named Fat Triet (Buttetsu) from Cambodia, and 5, a Nestorian physician of Persian nationality named [p. 175] Rimitsu. The party were received on behalf of the Government by Gyogi, at Naniwa, and Gyogi was able to display his learning by conversing with the Indian Brahmin in Sanskrit. A month later, a member of the Japanese Embassy in China returned to Japan with 3 Chinese and another Persian. The whole party were taken to court and the Emperor conferred official rank upon them, especial mention being made of Ritoho, a Chinaman, and Rimitsu. In 736 Shomu was in the midst of his hospital schemes, and Rimitsu was evidently a distinguished physician. The Japanese must have been very different from what they are now if they neglected the opportunity of sucking his brains! Mr. Tachibana, who has furnished me with the materials for this note, bases his information on an article by Dr. Takakusu in Shigakuzasshi vol. iii. No. 7, and on Dr. Kume's History of the Nara Epoch. That Rimitsu was a Christian was shown some time ago by Mr. Saeki. He could not have been a Manichaean seeing that the M. discouraged doctors.

Gyogi Bosatsu was the spiritual director of Shomu and his Empress Komyo. He was an advocate of Komyo doctrines, very practical, very charitable. He was a syncretist, and first originated the Ryobu doctrine in Japan, stimulated thereto by the example of the Buddhists and Taoists in China.

^176:* It is said of Zendo that he and his disciples were much given to itinerant preaching. So were the Nestorians. The Greek merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, who was in India A.D. 535, mentions a Nestorian order of itinerant preachers named periodeutae or wanderers, who were busy in his days evangelizing in N. W. India Olopen himself may have been one: we find him in China and then in India. It is possible that Kuya, and Eikwan, may have been itinerant preachers after this type, having learned the value of it from Zendo. So also may have been the mysterious personage who in 1095, appeared to Ryonin, the founder of the Yudzunembutsu, and told him of the "One man that stood for all men, and the one religious act that embraced all others." Ippen, (1239-1289) the founder of the Ji Sect, wandered in his allegiance from the Tendai to the Seizanha of the Jodo, and finally founded a sect of his own. He was a great student of Zendo, both as a teacher and as an artist, and his sect was intended to be a reproduction of Zendo's teachings. His nickname Yugyo Shonin, "the itinerating preacher," and to this day, the heart of the Ji sect is supposed to be always travelling about the country preaching.




[p. 178]



APPENDIX II.



Manichaean influences in the Shinshu.

There are good grounds for affirming that Zendo was acquainted with Manichaeanism and that he borrowed some parts of his system, at least, from that religion.

(i) Zendo is said to have investigated the teachings of the White Lotus Society, which had been founded by Eon (Hui-yin) two and a half centuries before his time, i. e. about A.D. 380, and therefore prior to Vasubandhu's time (A.D. 450). The White Lotus Society is spoken of by Buddhists in Japan as having been the first beginning of the formal and organized worship of Amida (See. e. g. Murakami): but Deveria in Journal Asiatique, Ser. ix. vol. x. p. 461, quotes from a Chinese work to the effect that it was a form of Manichaeism. It is to be noticed, however, that Eon is not reckoned by the Shinshuists as one of the patriarchs of their faith.

(ii) The same author shows that Manichaean Temples are mentioned as existing in Singanfu in the years 510 (?), 621, 631, 760, being known successively as Tenji, Taishinji, and, finally, as Dai-un Komyoji. must therefore have been quite as prominently before Zendo's mind as Nestorianism, and the name of Komyoji seems almost conclusive proof of a Manichaean affiliation.

(iii) There are many points in Manichaeanism which are reproduced in Amidaism especially in. Zendo's activities; e. g. the dislike of marriage, the

[p. 179]

refusal to send for doctors (Cf. jisetsu torai), the vigorous abstinence from meat which Zendo preached; the belief that the devotee would cease from all further transmigrations, and go at death, straight to the paradise beyond, without needing to make supplication to Buddha. Also the belief that salvation has nothing to do with morals (akunin shoki), but only with faith.

On the other hand it must be observed:--

(a) That many of the above points are to be found in other sects of Japanese Buddhism. Besides the above, it may be observed that Nichiren (see Seigoroku. p. 64) mentions Mani by name as a great sage, that he speaks of those who invoke Mahes'vara (according to Deveria, a very Manichaean devotion) and classifies them as heretics equally with those who invoke Amida, though without identifying the two (see Seigoroku. pp. 97. 622); and finally that the prohibition of the seven pungent herbs (#), which is essentially Manichaean, is found is many sects. (See Bukkyo Kyomon Kaitoshu vol. iii. p. 239). There are also many sects in Japan which have adopted the dualistic Principle (#) of yo (#) and in (#) which is common both to Manichaeism and to its parent religion, Zoroastrianism.

And (b), whatever may be said of the other sects of Amidaism, it is clear that Shinshuism has discarded all or almost all the Manichaean elements mentioned above, and reformed itself in every instance in what may be termed a Christian direction. It allows marriage, it permits the eating of meat and of pungent herbs. It does not teach Dualism, unless it be that the distinction between

[p. 180]

[paragraph continues] Shinnyo and Mumyo (#) constitutes Dualism: it has scotched, though not killed, the akunin shoki theory, for which it has invented a new explanation, and no Shinshuist to day would hesitate about sending for a doctor if he were unwell. Honen (Genku) may have been a Manichaean. Shinran certainly was not. Between Honen and Shinran the lotus of Shinshuism, for some cause, known perhaps but not disclosed, pushed itself several feet higher up into the sunlight of Truth. Manichaean elements became less prominent and distinct, the resemblance to Christianity became more pronounced.

Shinran's name is concocted of syllables taken from the names of two of his illustrious predecessors, Genshin and Donran. It may be that he found in these two teachers the inspiration of those reforms which made his followers differ from those of his predecessor Honen. Future study may perhaps enable us to lay bare the real teachings of these two Sages of the Shinshu.




[p. 181]



APPENDIX III.



CAULAUCAU.

At the last moment before publication I have been fortunate enough to make a "find" which I hope will interest my readers, both in Japan and elsewhere. It bears out what I have said previously in a note about Abraxas, and forms another important link in the chain which connects the Mahayana with the Gnostic heresies of the New Testament times.

S. Irenaeus, in Book I chap. 24, speaking of the Gnostic Basilides, tells us that, besides Abraxas, he and his followers used a word Caulaucau, to denote, apparently, either God or the Universe--the two ideas were about the same to the Gnostic mind. Caulaucau is also mentioned by Epiphanius, Theodret, John of Damascus, and other Greek Fathers (for the exact references I will send my reader to the volume of Irenaeus in Migne's Patrologia), as a term connected not only with the heresy of Basilides but also with that of Nicolas of Antioch, who, having been one of the Seven Deacons, became the founder of a Gnostic sect. The word is explained as meaning "the World," "the Saviour," "a Prince." Epiphanius and others imply that it has no meaning in particular, that it was taken from the Hebrew text of Isaiah xxvii. 10, ("precept upon precept, line upon line") as being an imposing word to pronounce, and likely to impress ignorant converts to Gnosticism. Now, at a Japanese funeral (in the Jodo sect, certainly: I think, in all) a flat wooden post,

[p. 182]

known as a sotoba, is carried to the grave and erected there after the ceremony, remaining until the grave stone is ready to be put up. It bears the following inscriptions: on the one side, Om, written in debased Sanskrit: on the other, also in Sanskrit, the letters kha la ka va a. The letters are sometimes transposed: but appear generally in this order. They mean, I am told, (i) the five skandhas which constitute the mind, (ii) the five elements which constitute the Universe, (iii) mind itself, and, (iv) the Universe itself. The word is also said to be a variant form of Abarakakia, which is Abraxas.

I venture to think that kha la ka va a is the Gnostic Caulaucau, being identical with it in meaning and also in sound. (The Greek text gives the word with variants, as though the letters composing it were sometimes transposed, as in Japanese; thus Abraxas sometimes appears as Abrasax.)

Thus I think that I have now four links in the chain connecting the Japanese Mahayana with New Testament times and heresies. 1. Abraxas, 2. Caulaucau, 3. the evident resemblance between the thirteen Buddhas, guardians of the dead according to the Shingon and other sects, and the thirteen realms of the dead through which the soul is made to journey in the Gnostic book, Pistis Sophia, 4. the great similarity, amounting almost to identity of conception, between the Buddhist conception of Amida and the Christian conception of Christ, as explained in these pages, together with the fact that the two teachings make their public appearance in the world almost simultaneously.




[p. 1]



INDEX OF JAPANESE TERMS AND SENTENCES

Abidatsuma

Abidon

Akunin

Akunin shoki , , ,

Amida , , , , & passim

Amida-do

Amida doctrines

Amida Kyo

Amida Nyorai , , , ,

Amida Sects ,

Amida teachings

Anshin ,

Anshin ketsujoshokowa

Aruji

Asakusa ,

Ayabito

Biku

Binzuru ,

Bisshu

Biwa

Bon

Buddha no mi-na

Bukkoji

Bukkwa

Bukkyo Kakuha Koyo ,

Bukkyo Kyomon Kaitoshu

[p. 2]

Bunshin

Buppo ,

Bussotoki

Chinzei-ha ,

Chi-on-in

Chokusetsu kansetsu

Chosemujo no Hongwan

Chu-in-do

Chu-u

Dabi

Daijihi daichie

Daijihi-emman no Myo-ho-o

Daikwairakushin

Daimyo

Daishi-do

Daitoku ,

Dai Un Komyoji , ,

Darani

Denkyo

Doan

Dokukyo

Dokyo

Donran ,

Dosen

Doshaku , , ,

Doshin

Dosho

Echigo ,

[p. 3]

Echizen

Eitai shido

Ekan

Eko

En , , ,

Enkin kokon no shabetsu nashi

Enko no kebutsu

Eon , , ,

Fudo

Fujiwara family, the--,

Fujiwara Kamatari

Fujiwara Kanezane , , , ,

Fu Ken



Fushisogo , ,

Futaimon

Fuzokugaho

Gaki

Gakumonteki

Genku , , , & passim

Genshin , , ,

Go

Gochinyorai

Godaigo, the Emperor--

Gohorikawa, the Emperor--

Gokai

Gokoiro

Gokuchi

Gokuraku no aruji

Gondaijo

Goshinji , ,

Goshogyo

[p. 4]

Goshoji-ha

Goshu no aku

Gotoba, the Emperor--

Gutoku

Gwa

Gwannishikudoku

Gyoki

Hachigedatsu

Hachiman taro

Hajiwo shiranu wa

Hangen (correctly Han-en) is not the name of the head priest of Shorenin when Shinran joined the priesthood; but that of Shinran himself, the head priest then being Jichin

Han-i

Hanshu sammai

Heishu

Hichi

Hideyoshi

Higan

Higashiyama

Hino Arinori

Hitachi

Hito no michi

Hiyeizan , , ,

Ho

Hoben , ,

Hoben Hoshin ,

Hoben mon

Hokkekyo , , ,

Homyo

[p. 5]

Honen (-shonin) , , , , , & passim

Hongwan

Hongwanji , ,

Hontai

Honzan

Hoo

Hoon , , , ,

Hoon towa

Horikawa

Hoshin , ,

Hoshin

Hoshin Butsu

Hosho ,

Hosso ,

Hozo biku , , , ,

Ichibutsu no

Ichidaikyoshu

Ichinyo ,

Igyo

Ikkosanzon no Butsu

Ikkoshu

In , , , ,

In

Inada

Indo ,

In-i

Ippen

Ise

Isshin

Isshinden

Iware

[p. 6]

Izumoji-ha

Ji , ,

Jigoku

Ji-in

Jikishinshu

Jingireichishin

Jippo

Jiriki , ,

Jisetsu torai , ,

Jito, the Empress--,

Jitsudaijo

Jizo

Jodo , ,

Jodo mon ,

Jodo Sects , , , , ,

Jodo seikun

Jodo Shinshu

Jojitsu

Joyo

Jugiron

Juntoku, the Emperor--

Kaidan

Kaimyo

Kakehiki

Kakunyo ,

Kakushinni

Kamakura ,

Kamei

Kameyama, the Emperor--

Kamo river, the--

Karasumaru

Kase suru

[p. 7]

Katakana

Kawasaki

Kegon

Keijin , , ,

Keiro

Kenninji (read Enninji for Kenninji)

Kennyo

Kenshin Daishi ,

Kesa

Keshin , ,

Ketsujo

Ketsujo wo

Kibe ,

Kibe-ha

Kibi Mabi

Kijitsu

Kijun suru ,

Kikkojo ,

Kimyo no kokoro

Kinshokuji

Kishimojin

Kobo Daishi ,

Koe

Kogen

Koju

Komyoji , , ,

Komyo Kogo

Kon Komyo Kyo

Kosa

Kosho

Kosho

Koshoji ,

[p. 8]

Koso

Kotoku, the Emperor-- ,

Kotoni seken

Kume

Kumon shite orimasu

Kuonjitsujo Amida Hongwanji

Kurodani ,

Kuya , ,

Kwa ,

Kwa-i

Kwammu, the Emperor--



Kwango

Kwanki-e

Kwannon , , , , & passim

Kyakujin

Kyokuroku

Kyoto , , , ,

Kyushu

Matsudai

Matsuri

Meinichi

Mida

Mida Butsu wo

Mii

Miidera

Mina Butsuriki ni makaseru

Minamoto family, the--,

Minamoto Michichika

Minamoto Yoshichika ,

[p. 9]

Minamoto Yoshiiye ,

Misshu

Miten no Doan

Mitsune ni

Mokuzo moto no

Mommu, the Emperor--

Mongaku Shonin

Monto

Monto mono wo shirazu

Moshin

Muen no shujo

Mugeko-ha

Mukei

Mumyo

Murakami ,

Muryojukyo

Myogo , , ,

Myosho

Myoshu

Nagano

Nakatomi no Kamako

Nakayama

Namu Amida Butsu , , , , ,

Naniwa

Nara , , , ,

Negoro

Nembutsu , , , , , , , , , , ,

Nembutsu wasan

Nichiren , , , , ,

Nichiren Sect. ,

[p. 10]

Niigata

Nishimoto , , ,

Nison-bettai

Nison-itchi

Noritsuna

Nyorai

Nyorai no goon wo

Nyoshin

Nyujo

Obon

Oho

Oho wa

Ojin ,

Ojo , , , ,

Ojo-sokujobutsu

Omi ,

Otani

Otasuke

Rennyo (shonin) , , , , ,

Rennyo-shonin-no-Ofumi

Ri

Ributsu

Rimitsu ,

Ritoho

Rokkakudo ,

Rokujo Kurando

Ronin

Rozan

Ruten

[p. 11]

Ryobu

Ronin (shonin) ,

Saeki

Saijitsu

Saimei, the Emperor--

Sambutsu-e

Sammonto-ha

Sammyo

Samurai

San-akudo

Sangai-Muni-no-Nyorai

Sanron ,

Sanson itchi

Sanuki

Se-ho

Seigoroku ,

Seishi , , , ,

Seishoji-ha

Seizan-ha ,

Sejizaio-butsu

Seken no koto wa

Senjakushu

Senshoji-ha

Senshuji (correctly pronounced Senjuji)

Shakku

Shakunyo

Shibuya

[p. 12]

Shigakuzasshi

Shikisen

Shimbutsu

Shimotsuke ,

Shin

Shin

Shin

Shin-e

Shingon , , , ,

Shinja no tonaeru

Shinjin , ,

Shinjin-Kwangi

Shinjin wo etaru

Shinjitsumon

Shinkwa

Shinnyo , ,

Shinnyo Hosho

Shinran (--shonin), , , , , , and passim

Shinran Shonin Goichidaiki

Shinsei

Shinshu , , , , , , , , and passim

Shinshugyoja

Shinshu Hyakkwa Hoten

Shinshu Hyakuwa , , , , and passim

Shinshuist , , , , , and passim

Shinshu Kyoyosho

Shintai , ,

[p. 13]

Shintaimon , ,

Shinto

Shin wo

Shinyo

Shin zuru

Shirakawa, the Emperor--

Shizento

Shoan

Shodo ,

Shodomon ,

Shogaku

Shojin

Shojoju ,

Shoki

Shoko

Shomu Tenno ,

Shonagon

Shoren-in

Shoseiji-ha

Shosei no yojin

Shoshinge , , , , , , ,

Shoshinge-kowan

Shotoku (--taishi) , , , , , , , ,

Shotoku, the Empress--

Shujokai wo

Shukyoka

Shukyoteki

Shura

Soga

Sozoku

Sogoku suru

Sue-no-yo

[p. 14]

Tachibana , , ,

Tada , ,

Taikwa ,

Taira family, the--, ,

Taira Masanori

Tainjikwa

Taireki

Taishinji ,

Takakura, the Emperor--

Takakusu , ,

Takata ,

Tamahi-no-miya , ,

Tanomu ,

Tariki , , , ,

Tariki Hongwan

Tenchi, the Emperor--

Tendai , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tenji

Tettei suru

Tokugawa Iyeyasu

Tosa

Tsu

Tsuchimikado

Tsukiji

Tsukushi

Uchino

Ukegataki

Umakata

Urabon ,

Uryuzan

Uso

Utsuwa

[p. 15]

Uyeno

Wasan ,

Yakushi

Yamaiyoke no Kami

Yamashina

Yamashiro ,

Yeto Daishi

Yo

Yobo

Yojin

Yokogawa

Yudzunembutsu , , ,

Yugyo shonin

Zaike ,

Zenchishiki , , ,

Zendo , , , , , , , , , , ,

Zennin

Zennyo

Zenran ,

Zenshin

Zenshu ,

Zettaisha

Zokutai , ,

Zokutaimon , , , , , , ,

Zokutamon no