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.