H[=o]-nen teaches that the solution of abstract questions and doctrinal controversies is not needed as means of grace to promote the work of salvation. Whether the priests and their followers were learned and devout, or the contrary, mattered little as regards the final result, as all that is necessary is the continual repetition of the prayer to Amida.

It may be added that his followers practise the master's precepts with emphasis. Their incessant pounding upon wooden fish-drums and bladder-shaped bells during their public exercises, is as noisy as a frontier camp-meeting. The rosary is a notable feature in the private devotions of the Buddhists, but the J[=o]-d[=o] sect makes especial use of the double rosary, which was invented with the idea of being manipulated by the left hand only; this gave freedom to the right hand, "facilitating a happy combination of spiritual and secular duty." At funerals of believers a particular ceremony was exclusively practised by this sect, at which the friends of the deceased sat in a circle facing the priest, making as many repetitions as possible.[7]

In Mohammedan countries, blind men, who cannot look down into the surrounding gardens or house tops at the pretty women in or on them, but who have clear and penetrating voices, are often chosen us muezzins to utter the call to prayer from the minarets. On much the same principle, in Old Japan, J[=o]-d[=o] priests, blind to metaphysics, but handsome, elegantly dressed and with fine delivery, went about the streets singing and intoning prayers, rich presents being made to them, especially by the ladies. The J[=o]-d[=o] people cultivate art and aesthetic ornamentation to a notable degree. They also understand the art of fictitious and sensational miracle-mongering. It is said that Zen-d[=o], the famous Chinese founder of this Chinese sect, when writing his commentary, prayed for a wonderful exhibition of supernatural power. Thereupon, a being arrayed as a priest of dignified presence gave him instruction on the division of the text in his first volume. Hence Zen-d[=o] treats his own work as if it were the work of Buddha, and says that no one is allowed either to add or to take away even a word or sentence of the book.

The Pure Land is the western world where Amida lives. It is perfectly pure and free from faults. Those who wish to go thither will certainly be re-born there, but otherwise they will not. This world, on the contrary, is the effect of the action of all beings, so that even those who do not wish to be born here are nevertheless obliged to come. This world is called the Path of Pain, because it is full of all sorts of pains, such as birth, old age, disease, death, etc. This is therefore a world not to be attached to, but to be estranged and separated from. One who is disgusted with this world, and who is filled with desire for that world, will after death be born there. Not to doubt about these words of Buddha, even in the slightest degree, is called deep faith; but if one entertains the least doubts he will not be born there. Hence the saying: "In the great sea of the law of Buddha, faith is the only means to enter."

Salvation Through the Merits of Another.

In this absolute trust in the all-saving power of Amida as compared with the ways promulgated before, we see the emergence of the Buddhist doctrine of justification by faith, the simplification of theology, and a revolt against Buddhist scholasticism. The Japanese technical term, "_tariki_," or relying upon the strength of another, renouncing all idea of _ji-riki_ or self-power,[8] is the substance of the J[=o]-d[=o] doctrine; but the expanded term _ta-riki chin no ji-riki_, or "self-effort depending on another," while expressing the whole dogma, is rather scornfully applied to the J[=o]-d[=o]ists by the men of the Shin sect. The invocation of Amida is a meritorious act of the believer, much repetition being the substance of this combination of personal and vicarious work.

H[=o]-nen, after making his discovery, believing it possible for all mankind eventually to attain to perfect Buddhaship, left, as we have seen, the Ten-dai sect, which represented particularism and laid emphasis on the idea of the elect. H[=o]-nen taught Buddhist universalism. Belief and repetition of prayer secure birth into the Pure Land after the death of the body, and then the soul moves onward toward the perfection of Buddha-hood.

The Japanese were delighted to have among them a genius who could thus Japanize Buddhism, and J[=o]-d[=o] doctrine went forth conquering and to conquer. From the twelfth century, the tendency of Japanese Buddhism is in the direction of universalism and democracy. In later developments of J[=o]-d[=o], the pantheistic tendencies are emphasized and the syncretistic powers are enlarged. While mysticism is a striking feature of the sect and the attainment of truth is by the grace of Amida, yet the native Kami of Japan are logically accepted as avatars of Buddha. History had little or no rights in the case; philosophy was dictator, and that philosophy was H[=o]-nen's. Those later Chinese deities made by personifying attributes or abstract ideas, which sprang up after the introduction of Buddhism into China, are also welcomed into the temples of this sect. That the common people really believe that they themselves may attain Buddha-hood at death, and enter the Pure Land, is shown in the fact that their ordinary expression for the dead saint is Hotoke--a general term for all the gods that were once human. Some popular proverbs indicate this in a form that easily lends itself to irreverence and merriment.

The whole tendency of Japanese Buddhism and its full momentum were now toward the development of doctrine even to startling proportions. Instead of the ancient path of asceticism and virtue with agnosticism and atheism, we see the means of salvation put now, and perhaps too easily, within the control of all. The pathway to Paradise was made not only exceedingly plain, but also extremely easy, perhaps even ridiculously so; while the door was open for an outburst of new and local doctrines unknown to India, or even to China. The rampant vigor with which Japanese Buddhism began to absorb everything in heaven, earth and sea, which it could make a worshipable object or cause to stand as a Kami or deity to the mind, will be seen as we proceed. The native proverb, instead of being an irreverent joke, stands for an actual truth--"Even a sardine's head may become an object of worship."

"Reformed" Buddhism.

We now look at what foreigners call "Reformed" Buddhism, which some even imagine has been borrowed from Protestant Christianity--notwithstanding that it is centuries older than the Reformation in Europe.

The Shin Shu or True Sect, though really founded on the J[=o]-d[=o] doctrines, is separate from the sect of the Pure Land. Yet, besides being called the Shin Shu, it is also spoken of as the J[=o]-d[=o] Shin Shu or the True Sect of the Pure Land. It is the extreme form of the Protestantism of Buddhism. It lays emphasis on the idea of salvation wholly through the merits of another, but it also paints in richer tints the sensuous delights of the Western Paradise. As the term Pure Land is antithetical to that of the Holy Path, so the word Shin, or True, expresses the contrary of what are termed the "temporary expedients."

While some say that we should practise good works, bring our stock of merits to maturity, and be born in the Pure Land, others say that we need only repeat the name of Amida in order to be born in the Pure Land, by the merit produced from such repetition. These doctrines concerning repetitions, however, are all considered but "temporary expedients." So also is the rigid classification, so prominent in "the old sects," of all beings or pupils into three grades. As in Islam or Calvinism, all believers stand on a level. To Shin-ran the Radical, the practices even of J[=o]-d[=o] seemed complicated and difficult, and all that appeared necessary to him was faith in the desire of Amida to bless and save. To Shinran,[9] faith was the sole saving act.

To rely upon the power of the Original Prayer of Amitabha Buddha with the whole heart and give up all idea of _ji-riki_ or self-power, is called the truth. This truth is the doctrine of this sect of Shin.[10] In a word, not synergism, not faith _and_ works, but faith only is the teaching of Shin Shu.

Shinran, the founder of this sect in Japan, was born A.D. 1173 and died in the year 1262. He was very naturally one who had been first educated in the J[=o]-d[=o] sect, then the ruling one at the imperial court in Ki[=o]to. Shall we call him a Japanese Luther, because of his insistence on salvation by faith only? He is popularly believed to have been descended from one of the Shint[=o] gods, being on his father's side the twenty-first in the line of generation. On his mother's side he was of the lineage of the Minamoto or Genji, a clan sprung from Mikados and famous during centuries for its victorious warriors. H[=o]-nen was his teacher, and like his teacher, Shinran studied at the great monastery near Ki[=o]to, learning first the doctrine of the Tendai, and then, at the age of twenty-nine, receiving from H[=o]-nen the tenets of the J[=o]-d[=o] sect. Shortly after, at thirty years of age, he began to promulgate his doctrines. Then he took a step as new to Buddhism, as was Luther's union with Katharine von Bora, to the ecclesiasticism of his time. He married a lady of the imperial court, named Tamayori, who was the daughter of the Kuambaku or premier.

Shinran thus taught by example, if not formally and by written precept, that marriage was honorable, and that celibacy was an invention of the priests not warranted by primitive Buddhism. Penance, fasting, prescribed diet, pilgrimages, isolation from society whether as hermits or in the cloister, and generally amulets and charms, are all tabooed by this sect. Monasteries imposing life-vows are unknown within its pale. Family life takes the place of monkish seclusion. Devout prayer, purity, earnestness of life and trust in Buddha himself as the only worker of perfect righteousness, are insisted upon. Morality is taught to be more important than orthodoxy.

In practice, the Shin sect even more than the J[=o]-d[=o], teaches that it is faith in Buddha, which accomplishes the salvation of the believer. Instead of waiting for death in order to come under the protection of Amida, the faithful soul is at once received into the care of the Boundlessly Compassionate. In a word, the Shin sect believes in instantaneous conversion and sanctification. Between the Roman and the Reformed soteriology of Christendom, was Melancthonism or the co[=o]perate union of the divine and the human will. So, the old Buddhism prior to Shinran taught a phase of synergism, or the union of faith and works. Shinran, in his "Reformed" Buddhism, taught the simplicity of faith.

So also _in_ regard to the sacred writings, Shinran opposed the San-ron school and the three-grade idea. The scriptures of other sects are in Sanskrit and Chinese, which only the learned are able to read. The special writings of Shinran are in the vernacular. Three of the sutras, also, have been translated into Japanese and expressed in the kana script. Singleness of purpose characterised this sect, which was often called Monto, or followers of the gate, in reference to its unity of organization, and the opening of the way to all by Shinran and the doctrine taught by him. Yet, lest the gate might seem too broad, the Shin teachers insist that morality is as important as faith, and indeed the proof of it. The high priests of Shin Shu have ever held a high position and wielded vast influence in the religious development of the