It has been well said by a Japanese historian that the fortunes of the Yamato were at their zenith during the reigns of the three Emperors Jimmu, Temmu, and Mommu. From the beginning of the eighth century they began to decline. For that decline, Buddhism was largely responsible. Buddhism gave to Japan a noble creed in the place of a colourless cult; gave to her art and refinement, but gave to her also something like financial ruin. The Indian faith spread with wonderful rapidity among all classes and betrayed them into fanatical extravagance. Anyone who did not erect or contribute largely to the erection of a temple or a pagoda was not admitted to the ranks of humanity. Men readily sacrificed their estates to form temple domains or to purchase serfs (tera-yakko) to till them. The sublimity of these edifices; the solemn grandeur of the images enshrined there; the dazzling and exquisite art lavished on their decoration; the strange splendour of the whole display might well suggest to the Japanese the work of some supernatural agencies. In the Nara epoch, the Government spent fully one-half of its total income on works of piety. No country except in time of war ever devoted so much to unproductive expenditures. The enormous quantities of copper used for casting images not only exhausted the produce of the mines but also made large inroads upon the currency, hundreds of thousands of cash being thrown into the melting-pot. In 760 it was found that the volume of privately coined cash exceeded one-half of the State income, and under pretext that to suspend the circulation of such a quantity would embarrass the people, the Government struck a new coin--the mannen tsuho--which, while not differing appreciably from the old cash in intrinsic value, was arbitrarily invested with ten times the latter's purchasing power. The profit to the treasury was enormous; the disturbance of values and the dislocation of trade were proportionately great. Twelve years later (772), another rescript ordered that the new coin should circulate at par with the old. Such unstable legislation implies a very crude conception of financial requirements. RECLAIMED UPLANDS