consequence, those passions and evil Karma of ours all disappearing, we live already in the condition of the steadfast, who do not return [to revolve in the cycle of Birth and Death]."--Renny[=o] of the Shin sect, 1473.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."--John.

"The Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."--James.

CHAPTER IX - THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

The Western Paradise.

We cannot take space to show how, or how much, or whether at all, Buddhism was affected by Christianity, though it probably was. Suffice it to say that the J[=o]-d[=o] Shu, or Sect of the Pure Land, was the first of the many denominations in Buddhism which definitely and clearly set forth that especial peculiarity of Northern Buddhism, the Western Paradise. The school of thought which issued in J[=o]-d[=o] Shu was founded by the Hindoo, Memio. In A.D. 252 an Indian scholar, learned in the Tripitaka, came to China, and translated one of the great sutras, called Amitayus. This sutra gives a history of Tathagata Amitabha,[1] from the first spiritual impulses which led him to the attainment of Buddha-hood in remote Kalpas down to the present time, when he dwells in the Western World, called the Happy, where he receives all living beings from every direction, helping them to turn away from confusion and to become enlightened.[2] The apocalyptic twentieth chapter of the Hokke Ki[=o] is a glorification of the transcendent power of the Tathagatas, expressed in flamboyant oriental rhetoric.

We have before called attention to the fact that, with the multiplication of sutras or the Sacred Canon and the vast increase of the apparatus of Buddhism as well as of the hardships of brain and body to be undergone in order to be a Buddhist, it was absolutely necessary that some labor-saving system should be devised by which the burden could be borne. Now, as a matter of fact, all sects claim to found their doctrine on Buddha or his work. According to the teaching of certain sects, the means of salvation are to be found in the study of the whole canon, and in the practice of asceticism and meditation. On the contrary, the new lights of Buddhism who came as missionaries into China, protested against this expenditure of so much mental and physical energy. One of the first Chinese propagators of the J[=o]-d[=o] doctrine declared that it was impossible, owing to the decay of religion in his own age, for anyone to be saved in this way by his own efforts. Hence, instead of the noble eight-fold path of primitive Buddhism, or of the complicated system of the later Buddhistic Phariseeism of India, he substituted for the difficult road to Nirvana, a simple faith in the all-saving power of Amida. In one of the sutras it is taught, that if a man keeps in his memory the name of Amida one day, or seven days, the Buddha together with Buddhas elect, will meet him at the moment of his death, in order to let him be born in the Pure Land, and that this matter has been equally approved by all other Buddhas of ten different directions.

One of the sutras, translated in China during the fifth century, contains the teaching of Buddha, which he delivered to the wife of the King of Magudha, who on account of the wickedness of her son was feeling weary of this world. He showed her how she might be born into the Pure Land. Three paths of good actions were pointed out. Toward the end of the particular sutra which he advised her to read and recite, Buddha says: "Let not one's voice cease, but ten times complete the thought, and repeat the formula, of the adoration of Amida." "This practice," adds the Japanese exegete and historian, "is the most excellent of all."

How well this latter teaching is practised may be demonstrated when one goes into a Buddhist temple of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect in Japan, and hears the constant refrain,--murmured by the score or more of listeners to the sermon, or swelling like the roar of the ocean's waves, on festival days, when thousands sit on the mats beneath the fretted roof to enjoy the exposition of doctrine--"Namu Amida Butsu"--"Glory to the Eternal Buddha!"[3]

The apostolical succession or transmission through the patriarchs and apostles of India and China, is well known and clearly stated, withal duly accredited and embellished with signs and wonders, in the historical literature of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect. In Buddhism, as in Christianity, the questions relating to True Churchism, High Churchism, the succession of the apostles, teachers and rulers, and the validity of this or that method of ordination, form a large part of the literature of controversy. Nevertheless, as in the case of many a Christian sect which calls itself the only true church, the date of the organization of J[=o]-d[=o] was centuries later than that of the Founder and apostles of the original faith. Five hundred years after Zen-d[=o] (A.D. 600-650), the great propagator of the J[=o]-d[=o] philosophy, H[=o]-nen, the founder of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect, was born; and this phase of organized Buddhism, like that of Shin Shu and Nichirer Shu, may be classed under the head of Eastern or Japanese Buddhism.

When only nine years of age, the boy afterward called H[=o]-nen, was converted by his father's dying words. He went to school in his native province, but his priest-teacher foreseeing his greatness, sent him to the monastery of Hiyeizan, near Ki[=o]to. The boy's letter of introduction contained only these words: "I send you an image of the Bodhisattva, (Mon-ju) Manjusri." The boy shaved his head and received the precepts of the Ten-dai sect, but in his eighteenth year, waiving the prospect of obtaining the headship of the great denomination, he built a hut in the Black Ravine and there five times read through the five thousand volumes[4] of the Tripitaka. He did this for the purpose of finding out, for the ordinary and ignorant people of the present day, how to escape from misery. He studied Zen-d[=o]'s commentary, and repeated his examination eight times. At last, he noticed a passage in it beginning with the words, "Chiefly remember or repeat the name of Amida with a whole and undivided heart." Then he at once understood the thought of Zen-d[=o], who taught in his work that whoever at any time practises to remember Buddha, or calls his name even but once, will gain the right effect of going to be born in the Pure Land after death. This Japanese student then abandoned all sorts of practices which he had hitherto followed for years, and began to repeat the name of Amida Buddha sixty thousand times a day. This event occurred in A.D. 1175.

H[=o]-nen, Founder of the Pure Land Sect.

This path-finder to the Pure Land, who developed a special doctrine of salvation, is best known by his posthumous title of H[=o]-nen. During his lifetime he was very famous and became the spiritual preceptor of three Mikados. After his death his biography was compiled in forty-eight volumes by imperial order, and later, three other emperors copied or republished it. In the history of Japan this sect has been one of the most influential, especially with the imperial and sh[=o]gunal families. In Ki[=o]to the magnificent temples and monasteries of Chi[=o]n-in, and in T[=o]ki[=o] Z[=o]-j[=o]-ji, are the chief seats of the two principal divisions of this sect. The gorgeous mausoleums,--well known to every foreign tourist,--at Shiba and Uyeno in T[=o]ki[=o], and the clustered and matchless splendors of Nikk[=o], belong to this sect, which has been under the patronage of the illustrious line of the Tokugawa,[5] while its temples and shrines are numbered by many thousands.

The doctrine of the J[=o]-d[=o], or the Pure Land Sect, is easily discerned. One of Buddha's disciples said, that in the teachings of the Master there are two divisions or vehicles. In the Maha-yana also there are two gates; the Holy path, and the Pure Land. The Smaller Vehicle is the doctrine by which the immediate disciples of Buddha and those for five hundred years succeeding, practised the various virtues and discipline. The gateway of the Maha-yana is also the doctrine, by which in addition to the trainings mentioned, there are also understood the three virtues of spiritual body, wisdom and deliverance. The man who is able successfully to complete this course of discipline and practice is no ordinary person, but is supposed to possess merit produced from good actions performed in a former state of existence. The doctrine by which man may do so, is called the gate of the Holy Path.

During the fifteen hundred years after Buddha there were from time to time, such personages in the world, who attained the end of the Holy Path; but in these latter days people are more insincere, covetous and contentious, and the discipline is too hard for degenerate times and men. The three trainings already spoken of are the correct causes of deliverance; but if people think them as useless as last year's almanac, when can they complete their deliverance? H[=o]-nen, deeply meditating on this, shut up the gate of the Holy Path and opened that of the Pure Land; for in the former the effective deliverance is expected in this world by the three trainings of morality, thought and learning, but in the latter the great fruit of going to be born in the Pure Land after death, is expected through the sole practice of repeating Buddha's name.

Moreover, it is not easy to accomplish the cause and effect of the Holy Path, but both those of the doctrine of the Pure Land are very easy to be completed. The difference is like that between travelling by land and travelling by water.[6] The doctrines preached by the Buddha are eighty-four thousand in number; that is to say, he taught one kind of people one system, that of the Holy Path, and another kind that of the Pure Land. The Pure Land doctrine of H[=o]-nen was derived from the sutra preached by the great teacher Shaka.

This simple doctrine of "land travel to Paradise" was one which the people of Japan could easily understand, and it became amazingly popular. Salvation along this route is a case of being "carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others sought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas."

Largely through the influence of J[=o]-d[=o] Shu and of those sects most closely allied to it, the technical terms, peculiar phraseology and vocabulary of Buddhism became part of the daily speech of the Japanese. When one studies their language he finds that it is a complicated organism, including within itself several distinct systems. Just as the human body harmonizes within itself such vastly differing organized functions as the osseous, digestive, respiratory, etc., so, embedded in what is called the Japanese language, there are, also, a Chinese vocabulary, a polite vernacular, one system of expression for superiors, another for inferiors, etc. Last of all, there is, besides a peculiar system of pronunciation taught by the priests, a Buddhist language, which suggests a firmament of starry and a prairie of flowery metaphors, with intermediate deeps of space full of figurative expressions.

In our own mother tongue we have something similar. The dialect of Canaan, the importations of Judaism, the irruptions of Hebraic idioms, phrases and names into Puritanism, and the ejaculations of the camp-meeting, which vein and color our English speech, may give some idea of the variegated strains which make up the Japanese language. Further, the peculiar nomenclature of the Fifth Monarchy men, is fully paralleled in the personal names of priests and even of laymen in Japan.

Characteristics of the J[=o]-d[=o] Sect.