Ichimura Takenojo, a nephew of the first Ichimura Uzaemon, the proprietor of the Ichimura-za, became an acolyte in a Buddhist seminary in the district of Honjo, Yedo. He had his head shaved and put on priest’s robes, and giving up the applause of the stage for the calm of the cloister, went straight off to the Buddhist institution. Afterwards he studied at Hiei-zan, the mountain monastery overlooking Kyoto, and rose to a leading position in the priesthood, becoming the head priest of a mountain temple, and returning to a Yedo temple, where he died in his old age. Yamashita Kyoyemon, contemporary of Sakata Tojuro, had a priest brother, and Yamatoya Imbei of Osaka had two Buddhist priests for brothers. Ichikawa Danshiro, the most talented pupil of the first Ichikawa Danjuro, left the stage in the middle of his career to become a priest. Many urgent messages were sent from his former theatre in Yedo requesting him to rejoin the actors, and at last he consented on condition that he return immediately the performances were over to his secluded temple life. Of quite a different character was Miyasaki Denkichi’s connection with Buddhism. He was with other actors imprisoned on account of a scandal in a nunnery, and since the head nun was a favourite of the Shogun’s Court she was sentenced to death. Many of the yakusha shaved their heads as a sign of their retirement from active life. The fourth Ichikawa Danjuro was one of those who voluntarily abandoned a flourishing career, and Sadoshima Chogoro, the author of _Sadoshima Nikki_, or Journal of Sadoshima, took a holy name, and lived in front of the Kennin-ji, a Buddhist temple, in Kyoto. Some of the star actors went on pilgrimages. Arashi Sangoro visited the thirty-three temples sacred to Kwannon, the Goddess of Mercy, in Kyushu, and afterwards became a priest. The yakusha had his superstitions. He went to shrines and prayed to obtain the fame of actors past and gone, or made special supplications that he might be successful in a new rôle. He was like other men; he mixed up in fights and had to go to prison, he had his love affairs and rivalries; sometimes became despondent and committed suicide early, or retired to open a shop dealing in incense, or white powder for the face. There were not only skilled musicians, amateur poets, and painters among them, but they were uppermost in the making and producing of plays. They were able to sew their own stage costumes and to embroider them with elaborate designs. Their costumes had a considerable effect upon the fashions, inducing men to dress in extravagant taste, while women of good families followed the example set by the actors on the stage, copying colours, designs, and styles, even the width of the obi.