Chapter 7

RIYŌBU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM, PAGE 189

The experience of two centuries and a half of Buddhism in Japan.--Necessity of using more powerful means for the conversion of the Japanese.--Popular customs nearly ineradicable.--Analogy from European history.--Syncretism in Christian history.--In the Arabian Nights.--How far is the process of Syncretism honest?--Examples not to be recommended for imitation.--The problem of reconciling the Kami and the Buddhas.--Northern Buddhism ready for the task.--The Tantra or Yoga-chara system.--Art and its influence on the imagination.--The sketch replaced by the illumination and monochrome by colors.--Japanese art.--Mixed Buddhism rather than mixed Shintō.--Kōbō the wonder-worker who made all Japanese history a transfiguration of Buddhism.--Legends about his extraordinary abilities and industry.--His life, and studies in China.--The kata-kana syllabary.--Kōbōo's revelation from the Shintō goddess Toyo-Uké-Bimé.--The gods of Japan were avatars of Buddha.--Kōbō's plan of propaganda.--Details of the scheme.--A clearing-house of gods and Buddhas.--Relative rise and fall of the native and the foreign deities.--Legend of Daruma. "Riyōbu Shintō."--Impulse to art and art industry.--The Kami no Michi falls into shadow.--Which religion suffered most?--Phenomenally the victory belonged to Buddhism.--The leavening power was that of Shintō.--Buddhism's fresh chapter of decay.--Influence of Riyōbu upon the Chinese ethical system in Japan.--Influence on the Mikado.--Abdication all along the lines of Japanese life.--Ultimate paralysis of the national intellect.--Comparison with Chinese Buddhism.--Miracle-mongering.--No self-reforming power in Buddhism.--The Seven Happy Gods of Fortune.--Pantheism's destruction of boundaries.--The author's study of the popular processions in Japan.--Masaka Do.--Swamping of history in legend.--The jewel in the lotus.