The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of MéijiGriffis, William Elliot
Religion
The Religions of Japan, from the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji
Griffis, William Elliot
Japan -- Religion
[Footnote 35: The native literature illustrating Riyōbuism is not
extensive. Mr. Ernest Satow in the American Cyclopædia (Japan:
Literature) mentions several volumes. The Tenchi Réiki Noko, in eighteen
books contains a mixture of Buddhism and Shintō, and is ascribed by
some to Shōtoku and by others to Kōbō, but now literary critics
ascribe these, as well as the books Jimbetsuki and Tenshoki, to be
modern forgeries by Buddhist priests. The Kogoshiui, written in A.D.
807, professes to preserve fragments of ancient tradition not recorded
in the earlier books, but the main object is that which lies at the
basis of a vast mass of Japanese literature, namely, to prove the
author's own descent from the gods. The Yuiitsu Shintō Miyoho Yoshiu,
in two volumes, is designed to prove that Shintō and Buddhism are
identical in their essence. Indeed, almost all the treatises on
Shintō before the seventeenth century maintained this view. Certain
books like the Shintō Shu, for centuries popular, and well received
even by scholars, are now condemned on account of their confusion of the
two religions. One of the most interesting works which we have found is
the San Kai Ri, to which reference has been made.]
[Footnote 36: T.J., p. 224.]
[Footnote 37: "Human life is but fifty years," Japanese Proverb; M.E.,
p. 107.]
[Footnote 38: Chamberlain's Classical Poetry of the Japanese, p. 130.]
[Footnote 39: S. and H., p. 416.]
[Footnote 40: Things Chinese, by J. Dyer Ball, p. 70; see also Edkins
and Eitel.]
[Footnote 41: The Japan Weekly Mail of April 28, 1893, translating and
condensing an article from the Bukkyō, a Buddhist newspaper, gives
the results of a Japanese Buddhist student's tour through China--"Taoism
prevails everywhere.... Buddhism has decayed and is almost dead."]
[Footnote 42: Vaisramana is a Deva who guarded, praised, fed with
heavenly food, and answered the questions of the Chinese Dō-sen
(608-907 A.D.) who founded the Risshu or Vinaya sect.--B.N., p. 25.]
[Footnote 43: Anderson, Catalogue, pp. 29-45.]
[Footnote 44: Some of those are pictured in Aimé Humbert's Japon
Illustré, and from the same pictures reproduced by electro-plates which,
from Paris, have transmigrated for a whole generation through the
cheaper books on Japan, in every European language.]
CHAPTER VIII
NORTHERN BUDDHISM IS ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS
[Footnote 1: On the Buddhist canon, see the writings of Beal, Spence
Hardy, T. Rhys Davids, Bunyiu Nanjio, etc.]
[Footnote 2: Edkins's Chinese Buddhism, pp. 43, 108, 214; Classical
Poetry of the Japanese, p. 173.]
[Footnote 3: See T.A.S.J., Vol. XIX., Part I., pp. 17-37; The Soul of
the Far East; and the writings of Chamberlain, Aston, Dickins,
Munzinger, etc.]
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