While all this religious fervour was finding costly expression among the aristocrats in Nara, the propagandists and patrons of Buddhism did not neglect the masses. In the year 741, provincial temples were officially declared essential to the State's well-being. These edifices had their origin at an earlier date. During the reign of Temmu (673-686) an Imperial rescript ordered that throughout the whole country every household should provide itself with a Buddhist shrine and place therein a sacred image. When the pious Empress Jito occupied the throne (690-696), the first proselytizing mission was despatched to the Ezo, among whom many converts were won; and, later in the same reign, another rescript directed that a certain Sutra--the Konkwo myo-kyo, or Sutra of Golden Effulgence--should be read during the first month of every year in each province, the fees of the officiating priests and other expenses being defrayed out of the local official exchequers. ENGRAVING: PAGODA OF YAKUSHI-JI, NARA During Mommu's time (697-707), Buddhist hierarchs (kokushi) were appointed to the provinces. Their chief functions were to expound the Sutra and to offer prayers. The devout Shomu not only distributed numerous copies of the Sutras, but also carried his zeal to the length of commanding that every province should erect a sixteen-foot image of Shaka with attendant bosatsu (Bodhisattva), and, a few years later, he issued another command that each province must provide itself with a pagoda seven storeys high. By this last rescript the provincial temples (kokubun-ji) were called into official existence, and presently their number was increased to two in each province, one for priests and one for nuns. The kokushi attached to these temples laboured in the cause of propagandism and religious education side by side with the provincial pundits (kunihakase), whose duty was to instruct the people in law and literature; but it is on record that the results of the former's labours were much more conspicuous than those of the latter. GYOGI