Of this religion of Buddha, by no means peculiar to Japan, but prevailing through the whole of central and southeastern Asia, and having probably more adherents than any other religious creed, it is not necessary here to speak at any length. A much more correct idea of it is to be obtained from the recorded observations of our modern missionaries, and from the elaborate investigations of Abel Rémusat, and several other learned Orientalists, who have shed a flood of light upon this interesting subject, than can be gathered from the letters of the Portuguese missionaries, whose comprehension of the Buddhist doctrine was, on many important points, especially as to the cardinal one of annihilation, exceedingly confused, contradictory, and erroneous; and, indeed, the same confusion and error exists in almost all European travellers in the East, down to a very recent period. Suffice it to say, that in the austerities and contempt for the world and its pleasures, practised and professed by the bonzes of the Buddhists, even Xavier and his brother Jesuits found their match; while, in the hierarchy into which those bonzes were arranged; the foreign language, imperfectly known even to themselves, of their sacred books and their liturgy, and which recent investigations have detected to be, with the bonzes of China and Japan, not Pali alone, but also pure Sanscrit; their doctrine of celibacy; the establishment of monasteries and nunneries; their orders of begging devotees; their exterior of purity and self-denial, but supposed secret licentiousness;[34] their fasts; their garbs; the tinkling of bells; the sign of the cross; the rosaries on which they counted their prayers; the large number of persons of noble birth who entered upon the clerical life; their manner of preaching; their religious processions; their pilgrimages; the size, splendor, and magnificence of their temples, known as Tera, the roofs supported by tall pillars of cedar; the altar within, and the lamps and incense burning there; the right of asylum possessed by the Tera; and even the practice of confession, prayers for the dead, and the sale of merit;—in all these respects, this system presented a complete counterpart at least to the show and forms and priestly devices of that very scheme of Roman Catholic worship which Xavier and his brother missionaries sought to introduce into Japan. The only striking difference was in the images, often of gigantic size, to be found in the Tera, but which, after all, were no more than a set-off against the pictures of the Catholic churches.