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