The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji

As to the origin of the "Kojiki," we have in the closing sentences of the author's preface the sole documentary authority explaining its scope and certifying to its authenticity...

Broadly speaking, the history of Japanese Buddhism in its missionary development is the history of Japan. Before Buddhism came, Japan was pre-historic. We know the country and p...

Does the name of Gautama, the Buddha, stand for a sun-myth or for a historic personage? One set of scholars and writers, represented by Professor Kern,[1] of Leyden, thinks the...

Two centuries and a half of Buddhism in Japan, showed the leaders and teachers of the Indian faith that complete victory over the whole nation was yet very far off. The court ha...

As a graduate of the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York, in the Class of 1877, your servant received and accepted with pleasure the invitation of the President a...

If the greatness of a teacher is to be determined by the number of his disciples, or to be measured by the extent and diversity of his influence, then the foremost place among a...

In sketching the history of the doctrinal developments of Buddhism in Japan, we note that the system, greatly corrupted from its original simplicity, was in 552 A.D. already a m...

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 Jō-dō Shu, or Sect of...

The story of the first introduction and propagation of Roman Christianity in Japan, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has been told by many writers, both old and n...

What impresses us in the study of the history of Japan is that, compared with China and Korea, she is young. Her history is as the story of yesterday. The nation is modern. The...

Sincerely regretting that we cannot pass more favorable judgments upon the Christianity of the seventeenth century in Japan, let us look into the two centuries of silence, and s...

Having seen the practical working of the ethics of Confucianism, especially in the old and simple system, let us now glance at the developed and philosophical forms, which, by g...

[Footnote 1: T.J., p. 71. Further illustrations of this statement may be found in his Classical Poetry of the Japanese, especially in the Selection and Appendices of this book;...

[Footnote 2: For the extent of Japanese influence abroad, see M.E., p. 246; Rein, Nitobe, and Hildreth; Modern Japanese Adventurers, T.A.S.J., Vol. VII., p. 191; The Intercourse...

[Footnote 1: The scholar who has made profound researches in all departments of Japanese learning, but especially in the literature of Shintō, is Mr. Ernest Satow, now the Briti...

[Footnote 2: M.E., p. 43; McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia, Art. Shintō; in T.A.S.J., Vol. III., Appendix, is to be found Mr. Satow's digest of the commentaries of the modern...

[Footnote 23: At the great Zenkōji, a temple of the Tendai sect, at Nagano, Japan, dedicated to three Buddhist divinities, one of whom is Kwannon (Avalokitesvara, the rafters of...

[Footnote 1: The late Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse, LL.D., who applied the principles of electro-magnetism to telegraphy, was the son of the Rev. Jedediah Morse, D.D., t...

[Footnote 1: "He was fond of saying that Princeton had never originated a new idea; but this meant no more than that Princeton was the advocate of historical Calvinism in opposi...

[Footnote 7: See in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, a very valuable paper by Mr. L.A. Waddell, on The Northern Buddhist Mythology, epitomized in the Japan Mail,...

[Footnote 3: The sketch of Indian thought here following is digested from material obtained from various works on Buddhism and from the Histories of India. See the excellent mon...

[Footnote 4: Much of the information as to history and doctrine contained in this chapter has been condensed from Mr. Bunyiu Nanjio's A Short History of the Twelve Japanese Budd...

[Footnote 1: See for a fine example of this, Mr. C. Meriwether's Life of Daté Masamuné, T.A.S.J., Vol. XXI., pp. 3-106. See also The Christianity of Early Japan, by Koji Inaba,...

[Footnote 1: Tathagata is one of the titles of the Buddha, meaning "thus come," i.e., He comes bringing human nature as it truly is, with perfect knowledge and high intelligence...

[Footnote 1: See On the Early History of Printing in Japan, by E.M. Satow, T.A.S.J., Vol. X., pp. 1-83, 252-259; The Jesuit Mission Press in Japan, by E.M. Satow (privately prin...

"The little island of Déshima, well and prophetically signifying Fore-Island, was Japan's window, through which she looked at the whole Occident ... We are under obligation to H...

"Buddhism has had a fair field in Japan, and its outcome has not been elevating. Its influence has been aesthetic and not ethical. It added culture and art to Japan, as it broug...

"A drop of spray cast by the infinite I hung an instant there, and threw my ray To make the rainbow. A microcosm I Reflecting all. Then back I fell again, And though I perished...

"Since Iyéyasú, his hair brushed by the wind, his body anointed with rain, with lifelong labor caused confusion to cease and order to prevail, for more than a hundred years ther...

"The Law of our Lord, the Buddha, is not a natural science or a religion, but a doctrine of enlightenment; and the object of it is to give rest to the restless, to point out the...

"We, the forty million souls of Japan, standing firmly and persistently upon the basis of international justice, await still further manifestations as to the morality of Christi...

[Footnote 27: See T.A.S.J., Vol. XIII., p. 114; the Chapter on Marriage and Divorce, in Japanese Girls and Women, pp. 57-84. The following figures are from the Résumé Statistiqu...

The missionary history of Japanese Buddhism is the history of Japan.--The first organized religion of the Japanese.--Professor Basil Hall Chamberlain's testimony--A picture of p...

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...

"My God I love Thee; not because I hope for Heaven thereby, Nor yet because, who love Thee not, must, die eternally. So would I love Thee, dearest Lord, and in Thy praise will s...

"In the great days of old, When o'er the land the gods held sov'reign sway, Our fathers lov'd to say That the bright gods with tender care enfold The fortunes of Japan, Blessing...

"Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not yet manifest, and there was naught named, naught done, who could know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth...

Buddha--sun myth or historic personage?--Buddhism one of the protestantisms of the world.--Characteristics of new religions.--Survey of the history of Indian thought.--The age o...

"Things being investigated, knowledge became complete; knowledge being complete, thoughts were sincere; thoughts being sincere, hearts were rectified; hearts being rectified, pe...

"There is nothing in things themselves that enables us to distinguish in them either good or evil, right or wrong. It is but man's fancy that weighs their merits and causes him...

"The purpose of Buddha's preaching was to bring into light the permanent truth, to reveal the root of all suffering and thus to lead all sentient beings into the perfect emancip...

Harmony of the systems of Confucius and Buddha in Japan during a thousand years.--Revival of learning in the seventeenth century.--Exodus of the Chinese scholars on the fall of...

Origin of the Kojiki. Analysis of its opening lines--Norito.--Indecency of the myths of the Kojiki.--Modern rationalistic interpretations--Life in prehistoric Japan.--Character...

In what respects Confucius was unique as a teacher.--Outline of his life.--The canon.--Primitive Chinese faith a sort of monotheism.--How the sage modified it.--History of Confu...

Policy of the Japanese government after the suppression of Christianity.--Insulation of Japan.--The Hollanders at Déshima.--Withdrawal of the English.--Relations with Korea.--Po...

The many-sided story of Japanese Christianity.--One hundred years of intercourse between Japan and Europe.--State of Japan at the introduction of Portuguese Christianity.--Xavie...

Japan is young beside China and Korea.--Japanese history is comparatively modern.--The oldest documents date from A.D. 712.--The Japanese archipelago inhabited before the Christ...

Salutatory.--The Morse Lectureship and its provisions.--The Science of Comparative Religion is Christianity's own child.--The Parliament of Religions.--The Study of Religion mos...

Four stages of the doctrinal development of Buddhism in Japan.--Reasons for the formation of sects.--The Saddharma Pundarika.--Shastras and Sutras.--The Ku-sha sect.--Book of th...

The Jō-dō or Pure Land sect.--Substitution of faith in Amida for the eight-fold Path.--Succession of the propagators of true doctrine.--Zendō and Hō-nen.--The Japanese path-find...