CHAPTER VIII

NORTHERN BUDDHISM IS ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

[Footnote 1: On the Buddhist canon, see the writings of Beal, Spence Hardy, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc.]

[Footnote 2: Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 43, 108, 214; Classical Poetry of the Japanese, p. 173.]

[Footnote 3: See T.A.S.J., Vol. XIX., Part I., pp. 17-37; The Soul of the Far East; and the writings of Chamberlain, Aston, Dickins, Munzinger, etc.]

[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 Buddhist Sects, translated out of the Japanese into English. This author, besides visiting the old seats of the faith in China, studied Sanskrit at Oxford with Professor Max Müller, and catalogued in English the Tripitaka or Buddhist canon of China and Japan, sent to England by the ambassador Iwakura. The nine reverend gentlemen who wrote the chapters and introduction of the Short History are Messrs. Kō-chō Ogurusu, and Shu-Zan Emura of the Shin sect; Rev. Messrs. Shō-hen Uéda, and Dai-ryo Takashi, of the Shin-gon Sect; Rev. Messrs. Gyō-kai Fukuda, Keu-kō Tsuji, Renjō Akamatsu, and Zé-jun Kobayashi of the Jō-dō, Zen, Shin, and Nichiren sects, respectively. Though execrably printed, and the English only tolerable, the work is invaluable to the student of Japanese Buddhism. It has a historical introduction and a Sanskrit-Chinese Index, 1 vol., pp. 172, Tōkiō, 1887. Substantially the same work, translated into French, is Le Bouddhisme Japonais, by Ryauon Fujishima, Paris, 1889. Satow and Hawes's Hand-book for Japan has brief but valuable notes in the Introduction, and, like Chamberlain's continuation of the same work, is a storehouse of illustrative matter. Edkine's and Eitel's works on Chinese Buddhism have been very helpful.]

[Footnote 5: M. Abel Remusat published a translation of a Chinese Pilgrim's travels in 1836; M. Stanislais Julien completed his volume on Hiouen Thsang in 1858; and in 1884 Rev. Samuel Beal issued his Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims from China to India (400 A.D. and 518 A.D.). The latter work contains a map.]

[Footnote 6: B.N., p. 3.]

[Footnote 7: B.N., p. 11.]

[Footnote 8: Three hundred and twenty million years. See Century Dictionary.]

[Footnote 9: See the paper of Rev. Shō-hen Uéda of the Shingon sect, in B.N., pp. 20-31; and R. Fujishima's Le Bouddhisme Japonais, pp. xvi., xvii., from which most of the information here given has been derived.]

[Footnote 10: M.E., p. 383; S. and H., pp. 23, 30. The image of Binzuru is found in many Japanese temples to-day, a famous one being at Asakusa, in Tōkiō. He is the supposed healer of all diseases. The image becomes entirely rubbed smooth by devotees, to the extinguishment of all features, lines, and outlines.]

[Footnote 11: Davids's Buddhism, pp. 180, 200; S. and H., pp. (87) 389, 416.]

[Footnote 12: B.N., pp. 32-43.]

[Footnote 13: B.N., pp. 44-56.]

[Footnote 14: Japanese Fairy World, p. 282; Anderson's Catalogue, pp. l03-7.]

[Footnote 15: B.N., p. 62.]

[Footnote 16: Pfoundes, Fuso Mimi Bukuro, p. 102.]

[Footnote 17: B.N., p. 58. See also The Monist for January, 1894, p. 168.]

[Footnote 18: "Tien Tai, a spot abounding in Buddhist antiquities, the earliest, and except Puto the largest and richest seat of that religion in eastern China. As a monastic establishment it dates from the fourth century."--Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 137-142.]

[Footnote 19: S. and H., p. 87. See the paper read at the Parliament of Religions by the Zen bonze Ashitsu of Hiyéisan, the poem of Right Reverend Shaku Soyen, and the paper on The Fundamental Teachings of Buddhism, in The Monist for January, 1894; Japan As We Saw It, p. 297.]

[Footnote 20: See Century Dictionary, _mantra_.]

[Footnote 21: See Chapter XX. Ideas and Symbols in Japan: in History, Folk-lore, and Art. Buddhist tombs (go-rin) consist of a cube (earth), sphere (water), pyramid (fire), crescent (wind), and flame-shaped stone (ether), forming the go-rin or five-blossom tomb, typifying the five elements.]

[Footnote 22: B.N., p. 78.]

[Footnote 23: To put this dogma into intelligible English is, as Mr. Satow says, more difficult than to comprehend the whole doctrine, hard as that may be. "Dai Nichi Ni-yorai (Vairokana) is explained to be the collectivity of all sentient beings, acting through the mediums of Kwan-non, Ji-zō, Mon-ju, Shaka, and other influences which are popularly believed to be self-existent deities." In the diagram called the eight-leaf enclosure, by which the mysteries of Shingon are explained, Maha-Vairokana is in the centre, and on the eight petals are such names as Amitabha, Manjusri, Maitreya, and Avalokitesvara; in a word, all are purely speculative beings, phantoms of the brain, the mushrooms of decayed Brahmanism, and the mould of primitive Buddhism disintegrated by scholasticism.]

[Footnote 24: S. and H., p. 31.]

[Footnote 25: B.N., p. 115.]

[Footnote 26: Here let me add that in my studies of oriental and ancient religion, I have never found one real Trinity, though triads, or tri-murti, are common. None of these when carefully analyzed yield the Christian idea of the Trinity.]