From the Buddhism of Southern Asia to that of China and Japan is a far
cry. It must be remembered that the monastic Buddhism, in which the
_Arhat_ seeking his own salvation is the ideal, gradually gave place
before Buddhism left India and entered Eastern Asia to the
_Mahāyāna_, or Great Vessel, in which the _Bodhisattva_, or
compassionate servant of humanity, became the ideal. Other important
changes also took place in the religion of Gotama during the five or
six centuries after his death. In the first place, in spite of all his
teachings that men should not look to him for help the teacher was
himself deified: He "mounts the empty throne of Brahmā." A little
later there appeared a docetic tendency which explained him away, or
attempted to show that he was without human feeling or passion, a kind
of unreal adaptation of the eternal to the needs of time. Others
conceived of him as an Eternal Being carrying on the work he had begun
upon earth, and opening up salvation to all sentient beings, until
finally a trinitarian doctrine was evolved which related the
historical Gotama to the eternal Buddha, and conceived of him as
having emptied himself of his glory for a season out of compassion for
mankind, but as now enjoying it and manifesting it in pitiful and
helpful ministries.
It is possible to see in this developing Buddhology evidence of
Christian influence: the late Arthur Lloyd of Tokyo is the chief
exponent of such a view. To me, however, it seems at once more
scientific and more interesting to find in these parallels one more
evidence alike of the similarity of human nature in all lands and
ages, and of the indwelling Presence of the one Father of us all,
guiding the nations in their search for Truth. The vitality and
adaptability of Buddhism are evidences of His Spirit.
This vitality, even if at times adaptability has degenerated into
compromise, is, as we have seen, great in Southern Asia, and amongst
the sources of its strength we have noted its great influence as a
civilising power and as a bond of social life: its appeal to the
imagination and to the gratitude of the peoples: its philosophical
explanation of the age-old problem of suffering, and the moderation
and sanity of its ethical teachings. All these factors enter in
differing degrees into the vitality of Buddhism in China and Japan:
for it has done much to help the civilisation of these countries also,
and to give them a popular philosophy of life and a pleasant social
setting for religious faith.
Let us consider these facts in more detail as regards the Buddhism of
Japan; for she is leading the Orient not only in matters of material
progress, but in such spiritual things as a revival of the old faith
which she is characteristically using to her own advantage. In 1918,
for instance, a Pan-Buddhistic League was formed in Tokyo, and more
remarkable has been the lead taken by the Buddhists of Japan in
sending strong idealistic appeals to the Conferences at Versailles and
Washington. The vital forces of Buddhism in Japan, then, are as
follows:--
1. Buddhism has for twelve centuries rendered a unique service to the
culture of the nation. Letters, architecture, painting, the discipline
of the mind--in fact, the whole culture of Japan is shot through and
through with Buddhist influence. It is significant that the two
Western writers who entered most deeply into the spirit of Japanese
culture, Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa, both became Buddhists and are
buried in Buddhist cemeteries.
2. Buddhism is again a great bond of social union. Its great
pilgrimages, for example, are the favourite recreation of the people,
and its great festivals such as the _Bon Matsuri_, in which the
spirits of the departed are honoured, are seasons of great
sociability. Here, again, the "pessimistic" Buddhism is a cheerful and
a pleasant thing.
3. Its appeal to the imagination is obvious. Splendid temples with
their dim golden altars, gorgeous vestments, sonorous chanting, and
all the splendour of an artistic ritual--all this leaps to the eye of
the most casual visitor. What must it not be to the artistic Japanese
worshipper with all its tender associations?
4. Nor does Japanese Buddhism appeal less to the mind. Its apologists
constantly claim for it that it is a more philosophical and more
scientific creed than any other. I have been many times impressed with
the wide reading of Japanese Buddhists, and with the intellectual tone
of Japanese Christianity. It is clear that the crude theology of some
missionaries will not meet the acid test of modern scholarship, and is
partly responsible for a widespread belief amongst the Japanese that
Christianity is out of date. The chief Buddhist sects give their
priests a better training in the History of Religion than our
missionary societies. A stronger apologetic literature is needed.
5. The best apologetic, however, is in saintly lives; Tolstoi and
Francis of Assisi especially make an immense appeal to the Japanese;
there are Tolstoyan colonies, and a Buddhist Franciscan society. Yet
it must be remembered that they find in the saints of Buddhism such as
Honen and Nichiren, men worthy to compare with these great Christian
souls. Mr. Takayama, whose influence on young Japan has been so great,
was at once an ardent disciple of Tolstoy and a follower of Nichiren;
Dr. Anesaki is no less a Buddhist of the Nichiren school because he is
a devoted admirer of St. Francis. And these men believe that Buddhism
and Christianity at their best are closely akin: "We see your Christ,"
says Dr. Anesaki, "because we have first seen our Buddha."
6. There is much to be said for this view; for Buddhism in Japan has
developed a very noble idea of God; he is the Eternal Father who has
compassion on all his sons; their salvation is won by faith, not by
merit, and gratitude is the motive to good living. It is surely a
misnomer to call the fair forms of Amida, the lord of the Western
paradise, and of Kwannon the Compassionate, "idols." And Jīzo, the
strong Conqueror of Death, the play mate and protector of little
children--is he not a noble embodiment of divine strength and
gentleness? If the Christian apologist argues that these are figments
of the imagination, the Buddhist is right in replying that they owe
their inspiration to the historic Sākyamuni and his early followers,
and that there is as much evidence in the vision of a Buddhist saint
as in that of an Old Testament prophet for the objective reality of
the god who is worshipped. May we not see in the strivings of good and
true men everywhere to know God a movement of the Spirit of God
Himself? This is my own conviction--that the Spirit of God has been
moving for long centuries amongst our Buddhist brethren and has led
them far upon the path to Truth. It is, however, only right to say
that this view is shared by comparatively few missionaries in Japan.
Though the great Conference at Edinburgh in 1910 accepted it as an
axiom that God had been at work in these ethnic faiths, and though it
was specifically stated of Japanese Buddhism, yet it is a fact that
this view is held at best as one of academic interest, and without
enthusiasm. The leading authority upon the subject amongst the
Protestant missionaries in Japan sums up his conviction in these
weighty words and they are one tenable interpretation: "It may be
said, then, that Mahāyāna Buddhism is a religion with a rather lofty
idea of God among many conceptions of the divine, but without a real
faith in the living God; a religion with the idea of a saviour, but
without a historical saviour; a religion with a doctrine of divine
grace paralysed by the old karma doctrine; a religion with a promise
of a present salvation and a future life, which is nevertheless made
obscure by the doubts of a recurrent agnostic philosophy that cuts the
nerve of all vital ethics and beclouds the hopes of a better
future."[11] The student must weigh these two interpretations: and can
only do so by a sympathetic and patient study of the facts. And the
outstanding fact is that Buddhism has been the civiliser of Asia, and
a great bond of union between its peoples.
Japan is, in many ways, the best country for an intelligent study of
its achievements.
She has been called the custodian of Asiatic civilisation: India,
China, and Korea have all poured their rich gifts into her lap, and
she has preserved them with wise discrimination. But she has always
assimilated them till they are her own, and express her own genius.
This is perhaps especially true of Buddhism, which is a very different
thing in Japan even from what it is in China and Korea. Still more
does it differ from that which we have studied in Ceylon and Burma. To
turn away from these monastic expressions of the ancient faith to the
elaborate Buddhism of Japan is to realise that a development has taken
place not unlike that of Christianity, in its transition from the
simplicity of Galilean hillsides and the upper chamber at Jerusalem to
the pomp of high mass in St. Peter's at Rome or St. Mark's at Venice.
Into each great process there have entered similar elements, the
growth of a theology by which the historic founder is related to the
eternal order, the absorption of ideas and rituals from peoples
converted to the new faith and the making over of the faith in each
new land till it becomes indigenous, and racy of the soil. The story
of Buddhism as it developed its philosophical systems and its
elaborate pantheon cannot be told here;[12] but we may attempt, as in
the case of Ceylon and Burma, to give a few impressions of the
Buddhism of Japan, which will indicate the processes of change and
suggest what are the vital forces of this amazingly flexible religion,
whose watchwords have been adaptation and compromise.
When Buddhism entered Japan in the seventh century A.D. it was already
the religion of all Asia. It found amidst the semi-barbarous peoples
of the islands certain deeply rooted ideas, such as the worship of
heroes and especially of the Emperor, who was believed to be descended
from the Sun-goddess Amaterasu. Within three centuries it had
civilised the country, and had triumphantly identified this goddess
with its own Sun-Buddha Vairochana, producing a blended faith made up
of elements of the old Shinto (_Shen Tao_ or Way of the Gods, _Kami no
michi_) and of highly philosophical Buddhism which saw in the sun the
source of all cosmic energy. This new Buddhism or _Ryobu Shinto_ is
different indeed from the faith of the founder, but it claims to be
the logical and only legitimate evolution of his teachings.
Let us glance at it first in its great mountain fastness of Kōya San,
where its founder Kobo Daishi lived and died, and where the faithful
await with him the coming of Miroku--or Maitri--the next Buddha.
Koya San.
Like a great lotus of eight petals are the hills of Kōya San, and up
their wooded slopes wind the pilgrim roads. It is the season of
pilgrimage and they are thronged with pilgrims clad in white; here is
a litter in which some invalid is being borne to the great temple
where priests by the performance of mystic ritual and incantations
will attempt to restore him to physical as well as spiritual health;
here an aged couple are helping one another over steep parts of the
way. As they approach the shrines they say a prayer to the pitiful
Jizō, that he will be merciful to their dead; then as they pass the
wooden octagonal library they turn it upon its axis in order that the
merit of reading its voluminous scriptures may be theirs: and near by
some afflicted person rubs the portion of the wooden figure of Binzuru
which is affected in himself. Behind these somewhat childish
superstitions is an elaborate philosophy, and if one is fortunate one
may find a monk with leisure and ability to explain the elaborate
_mandaras_, the pictures of this _Shingon_, or Trueword; Buddhism.
Founded in the ninth century by the great scholar Kobo Daishi, it is a
pantheistic worship of Dainichi, the great sun Buddha, the indwelling
and pervading essence of the world. Present in all things, he is most
present where men worship him, and so by mystic rite and incantation
the worshipper is identified with this source of his being, and lays
hold of certain secrets of bodily and spiritual health. Japan, like
other countries, is eagerly looking for a religion which works, and
which has a message for this life as well as for that beyond the
grave. Amongst the great trees are innumerable tombs of the faithful,
and here in their midst sits Kobo Daishi himself awaiting the coming
of Miroku, the next Buddha. Nor is his spirit of loving-kindness,
which is the essence of Buddhism, forgotten. Unique amongst the
monuments of war stands this seventeenth-century pillar calling down
the mercies of heaven upon all who fell in the war with Korea, both
friend and foe.
In these temples, too, one will see the simple mirror, emblem at once
of Amaterasu and of Dainichi, of Shinto and of Buddhism: are not the
two now reconciled, and have they not become an integral part of the
soul of Japan, _Yamato Damashii_? Here on Kōyasan mingle Japanese
nature-worship, Indian idealistic philosophy, gods from central Asia,
and the superstitions of needy human hearts. There is much that is
fine as well as much that is corrupt, and it is noteworthy that the
impatient reformer, Nichiren, called Kōbo "the prize liar" of Japan,
and abominated the beliefs and practices of _Shingon_. Yet he was not
unbiased in his judgments!
Hieisan and its Sects.
Another great mountain-fastness of Japanese Buddhism is Hieisan. Here
amidst vast cryptomerias and redwoods a contemporary of Kōbo, named
Saichō or Dengyō, established just eleven hundred years ago a
synthetic Buddhism, which strove to reconcile the conflicting schools
and to represent at once the founder Sākyamuni as he is revealed in
the Lotus Scripture, seated in glory and opening a way for all to
become Buddhas, and the eternal Amida Buddha of the Western Paradise.
Side by side are preaching-halls for these two schools of Buddhist
devotion, and from the parent stock of _Tendai_ have sprung the three
great sects of _Jōdo_, _Shinshu_, and _Nichiren-Shu_. The two former
are extreme developments of the Way of Faith in Amida, and the latter
is a revolt from their pietism and vain repetitions to the historical
Sākyamuni and the famous "Lotus Scripture," the _Hokkekyō_ which is
found to-day in every Buddhist temple in Japan. At the foot of the
great mountain clusters the old imperial city of Kyōto, or Miyako,
with its thousand temples. Let us visit some of them.
A Shinshu Temple.
The great _Hondo_ or hall of the _Hongwanji_ temples in Kyōto is a
thing of exquisite beauty. How different are these great altars, these
exquisite paintings, this cave of splendour, with its dim lights and
its fragrant incense, from the simple rock-hewn shrines of Ceylon and
their barbaric frescoes, and from the sunny courtyards and massed
images of a Burmese pagoda! Very different, too, is the worship of
this devout crowd of Japanese men and women, prostrating themselves
before the high altar or joining in antiphonal praises of Amitābha
(_Amida Nyorai_), the lord of the Western Paradise. The influence of
the solemn chanting, the deep notes of gongs, the incense rising in
clouds, the dim lights, the burnished gold and lacquer work of screen
and altar--all this is almost hypnotic, and the congregation is borne
along on a tide of sombre feeling shot through with gleams of joy and
otherworldly enthusiasm. The student who has steeped himself in the
simple pithy sayings of the _Dhammapada_, or of the Amitābha Books,
and then passes on to study the elaborate apocalypses of the Lotus
Scripture, will understand what has taken place in this transition
from the simple ethical reform movement of early Buddhism to the
elaborate pietism and cultus of the _Mahāyāna_. The historical
Sākyamuni has almost disappeared, and in his place there are the
eternal or semi-eternal Buddhas, and the great Bodhisattvas. Let us
study the figures in this great Kyōto temple. The central position is
given to the Japanese monk Shinran, a Luther or Wesley who in the
twelfth century popularised in Japan the Way of Salvation by Faith; to
the left of him are the figures of Amida Nyorai, the chief object of
worship in this sect, Honen, the predecessor of Shinran and his
teacher in the way of mystic faith, and Shōtoku, the great layman who
as Regent of Japan espoused Buddhism in the seventh century A.D., and
laid the foundations of Japanese civilisation. He is the patron saint
of the arts and crafts of Japan and is given a prominent place in
_Shin Shu_ Buddhism (to which three-quarters of Japanese Buddhists
belong) because it claims to be a religion for lay-people and not only
for monks. There is a delightful story of Shinran and of the lady who
led him to realise this truth. Going up to his monastery on the Hiei
San Shinran met a charming princess, who took from her long silken
sleeve a burning glass; "See how this little crystal gathers to a
point the scattered rays of the sun," she cried. "Cannot you do this
for our religion?" He replied that it took twenty years to train a
monk in the old _Tendai_ sect to which he belonged, and she reminded
him that women were not allowed to go up to its temples. He went away
and meditating upon the essential teachings of Buddhism came to the
conclusion that the real heart of the matter was this, that it is
faith in the eternal Buddha and gratitude to him which are to be the
motives of true living, that as the Lotus Scripture teaches, all may
become Buddhas, and that the priests of Amida should be free to become
fathers after the pattern of the Heavenly Father. Marrying the
charming princess this Japanese Luther founded a new sect, and to-day
one sees the hereditary abbot, splendid in purple and scarlet,
accompanied by his son, a boy of seventeen, proudly conscious of his
destiny as the next head of the great hierarchy, and taking his place
in the elaborate ritual of the service. Behind them are the choir in
robes of old gold and the priests in black. "_Namu Amida Butsu_"[13]
intone the priests, and alternating with this act of faith they sing
to a kind of Gregorian chant such words as these:
"Eternal Life, Eternal Light!
Hail to Thee, wisdom infinite.
Hail to Thee, mercy shining clear,
And limitless as is the air.
Thou givest sight unto the blind,
Thou sheddest mercy on mankind,
Hail, gladdening Light,
Hail, generous Might,
Whose peace is round us like the sea,
And bathes us in infinity."
Or it may be some patriarch who is being hymned, such as Honen
himself:
"What though great teachers lead the way,--
Genshin and Zendo of Cathay,--
Did Honen not the truth declare
How should we far-off sinners fare
In this degenerate, evil day?"
Occasionally a hymn, like the excellent preaching of some of the
priests, strikes a note of moral living whose motive is gratitude to
Amida:
"Eternal Father on whose breast
We sinful children find our rest,
Thy mind in us is perfected
When on all men thy love we shed;
So we in faith repeat thy praise,
And gratefully live out our days."[14]
The Japanese, in whom gratitude is a very strong motive, find in the
teachings of Shinran a Buddhism which is very Christian, and the words
attributed to him as he was nearing his journey's end, are a confession
of sin which is only worthy of a saint. That the mass of his followers
fall far behind him in this respect is unfortunately true, as it is
true of most of us who call ourselves by a greater name.
Other founders of Buddhism are commemorated on the altars and in the
hymns of this sect, especially Nāgārjuna, the Indian philosopher of
about the second century A.D., and Donran, a Chinese, who carried
still further the evolution of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
A Revival of Buddhism.
The _Shin Shu_ is one of the sects of Japanese Buddhism in which a
great revival seems to be at work. Upwards of five hundred young
priests are being trained in its schools in Kyōto, and it claims to
have one hundred and fifty thousand children in its Sunday Schools, an
organisation in which it has wisely imitated the missionary methods of
the Christian Church.
This Buddhist revival in Japan is well worthy of study. As in Ceylon
and Burma nationalism has much to do with it. The Japanese have been
reminded by Lafcadio Hearn and Fenollosa and by their own native
scholars trained by Max Müller at Oxford, or in other Western
universities, how great is the debt which they owe to Buddhism; "There
is scarcely one interesting or beautiful thing produced in the
country," wrote Lafcadio Hearn, "for which the nation is not in some
sort indebted to Buddhism," and the Japanese, in whom gratitude is a
strong motive, are saying, "Thank you." Moreover, in the present
restless seeking after truth the nation is finding, in its old
religions, things which it is refusing lightly to cast away, and in
its resentment against some of the nations of Christendom, and its
conviction that our Christianity does not go very deep, it reminds
itself that after all Buddhism was a great international force which
helped to establish peace for a thousand years in Asia.
The present revival manifests itself in many ways, not least in the
new intellectual activity which has brought into existence Buddhist
universities, chairs of religious education, and a very vigorous
output of literature; and each of the great sects has some outstanding
scholar trained in the scientific methods of Western scholarship, but
proud to call himself a Buddhist. There are ample signs, too, of a
quickened interest in social service, of movements for children and
young people, such as the Y.M.B.A., which is now active in all
Buddhist countries.
Old temples are being repaired and new ones built and there are said
to be over a hundred thousand of these in Japan devoted to Buddhism
alone. Amongst the more recent is one in Kyōto which cost nearly a
million pounds sterling; for the transport of its massive timbers
hundreds of thousands of women sacrificed their hair. It is
interesting and amusing to see Buddhist priests in bowler hats and
gorgeous robes directing the removal of some ancient shrine to a new
site and to note the modern American methods of engineering employed.
All this is symptomatic of a new Japan which is yet tenaciously loyal
to its old past.
Another symptom is a vigorous attempt at moral reform about which the
"Mahāyānist," a Buddhist periodical, said, "Whilst formerly the
moral sickness was allowed to go on unchecked, now the coverings are
cast aside and the disease laid bare which is the first thing to do if
the patient is to be cured." One hears a good deal about
misappropriation of temple funds, and moral laxity in matters of sex.
It is not for a visitor to comment on these things. Personally I
believe that Buddhism is really a power for good: and I am inclined to
think that the beautiful courtesy and kindliness one meets everywhere
largely spring from it, and are one of its many noble fruits. We in
the West have made more of commercial honesty and less of courtesy and
forbearance than Jesus was wont to do: and there is no more odious
type than the self-righteous visitor from Western lands who comes to
the East armed with a narrow and negative moral code and a critical
spirit. Certainly Buddhism is teaching "morals" to its children, and
in a thousand ways its influence is felt in that very attractive
character so truly described by Lafcadio Hearn as peculiar to the
Japanese, of which the essence is a genuine kindness of heart that is
essentially Buddhist. Another proof that the chief sects are now
filled with vigorous life is to be found in their missionary
activities. The first Buddhist missionary from Japan to China was sent
out by the eastern branch of the _Hongwanji_ in 1876, a spiritual
return for the early Chinese missions of twelve hundred years ago.
Missions have also been established in Honolulu in 1897 and they are
numerous on the Pacific Coast of North America. Home missionary work,
too, is being attempted, owing largely to the influence of a layman;
the _Shin Shu_ priests are working in jails, seeking to arouse a sense
of sin in the inmates; and in Tokio one may visit a training school
where some sixty students are trained in charity organisation and
lodging houses for the poor.
Christian Influence.
All this is very largely the outcome of Christian activities in Japan
and it is very noteworthy that while the Christian Church is
numerically small its leadership in liberal politics and in
philanthropy is acknowledged all over the Empire and its pervasive
influence upon the thought of modern Japan is obvious on all sides.
St. Francis of Assisi and Tolstoy are perhaps the Christian leaders
most admired by the Japanese. They belong to the same spiritual
company as the great Sākyamuni, who, like them, embraced poverty and
was filled with a tender love and a sane yet passionate enthusiasm of
humanity. Japan is looking for a great spiritual and moral leader.
Will he be a Buddhist like the great Nichiren who in the thirteenth
century came like a strong sea-breeze to revive the soul of his people
and preached a religion which was to be a moral guide in national
affairs and in the daily life of his people? Or will he be a Christian
leader who, counting all things as dung compared with the Gospel of
Jesus, shall answer the cry of the Japanese patriot who believes that
his people are hungry for truth? There is a wealth of liberalism in
young Japan and there are idealists everywhere waiting to rally around
a great religious leader. But he will need to know and understand her
past and to launch his appeal to that wonderful patriotism which is
the essence of the Japanese character.
Can Buddhism produce this moral leadership? Let us hear what a
Japanese Christian of great learning and insight has to say. "To
Buddhism Japan owes a great debt for certain elements of her faith
which would scarcely have developed without its aid; but those
germinal elements have taken on a form and colouring, a personal
vitality not gained elsewhere. Important as are those elements of
faith, they still lack the final necessary reality. Buddhism is
incomplete in the god whom it presents as an object of worship. In
place of the Supreme Being, spiritual and personal, Buddhism offers a
reality of which nothing can be affirmed, or, at best, a Great Buddha
among many. Buddhism is incomplete in the consciousness of sin which
it awakens within the soul of man. Instead of the sense of having
violated an eternal law of righteous love by personal antagonism,
Buddhism deepens the consciousness of human misery by an unbreakable
bond of suffering; and the salvation, therefore, which Buddhism offers
is deliverance from misery, not from the power of personal sin. In its
idea of self-sacrifice, Buddhism affords an element of faith much more
nearly allied to that of the Christian believer. In both the offering
of self is for the sake of the multitude, the world-brotherhood; but
in the one pity, often acquiescent and helpless, predominates, whereas
in the other loyalty to a divine ideal finds expression in the
obligation to active service."
And yet let us note that Buddhism has undoubtedly nerved men of
action, and inspired saints, and that its call to meditation and to
quiet strength is one that our age needs to regard. Not far from the
great Pietist temples of _Hongwanji_, I found a veritable haven of
peace--the courtyard and simple buildings of a _Zenshu_ sect.
How different from the Buddhism of the Amida sects is that of
_Zenshu_! Seated in his exquisite retreat one may visit an abbot or
teacher of this school. The orderliness and quiet of his temple
courts, the stillness of his posture, the repose of his face--all
alike tell one of spiritual calm. Perhaps one begins to ask him the
secret of it. "Ah," he may say, "that is not easy. You should go and
study one of the simpler sects." Then, if his questioner is
persistent, he will suddenly present him with one of the _Koans_, or
dark sayings which have come down for many centuries: "Listen," he
will say, "to the sound of a single hand." Puzzled and disturbed the
mind may refuse to deal with this enigma, or it may learn the great
lesson which is intended to be learned, that intuition is a surer
guide to truth than the discursive reason, or as we should say in our
psychological jargon, the sub-conscious has gifts for us if we will
give it a chance. The essence, in fact, of this sect is a quiet sense
of the presence of eternal truths. The Buddha is not to be found in
images or books, but in the heart or mind, and in scores of Buddhist
monasteries I have found the spirit of Wordsworth with its serene
sense of a pervasive presence,
"Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns."
[11] A. K. Reischauer, _Studies in Japanese Buddhism_.
[12] See _Buddhism as a Religion_, by H. Hackmann, and my _Epochs of
Buddhist History_. (To be published later.)
[13] Praise to Amida Buddha.
[14] See "Buddhist Hymns," tr. by S. Yamabe and L. Adams Beck.