=20. Influence of Buddhism.= But a deeper and more widespread influence than that of anything of Chinese origin was the introduction into Japan of Buddhism, which was first brought in about A. D. 552, but did not succeed in leavening the whole country until the middle of the ninth century. It was quietly propagated by leaders of various Buddhist sects which differ in minor practices, and slowly it gained ascendency, but its first more notable triumph followed the teaching of Kukai, founder of the Shingon sect, who so adapted Buddhist doctrines to the traditional ideas of ancestor worship as to maintain that all the Shinto deities were _avatars_ or incarnations of Buddha. With great ingenuity and cunning, a new interpretation was given to ancient myths, and new constructions were put upon old beliefs. The Shinto gods, rites, customs, and traditions took on a Buddhist significance, and many of the mysteries of birth and of death were explained in a manner so simple and popular as to commend them to all who listened to the new teaching. For Buddhism had already learned in India and in China the clever art of appropriating old beliefs and customs and of clothing them with a new and higher meaning. Confucianism itself had already in part prepared the way for Buddhism in Japan, and the successful Buddhist propagandists were wise enough to suppress or keep out of sight all that might be offensive in their system, and to teach only such forms of doctrine as could be made attractive to the masses of the people. Kukai thus succeeded in converting the Mikado to his new interpretations of the Shinto beliefs, and the new system thus put forward received the name "Riyobu Shinto," which means "two parts," or the "double way of the gods," or the twofold divine teaching. So complete and general did this Riyobu Shinto become in its spread throughout Japan that for a thousand years it dominated the civilization of the Empire. It had its priests, its gorgeous temples and ritual services, its philosophy, and its divers sects, and it is said that there are at least twelve distinct Buddhist sects in Japan to-day. According to Lafcadio Hearn, "the religion of the Buddha brought to Japan another and a wider humanizing influence--a new gospel of tenderness--together with a multitude of new beliefs that were able to accommodate themselves to the old, in spite of fundamental dissimilarity. In the highest meaning of the term, it was a civilizing power. Besides teaching new respect for life, the duty of kindness to animals as well as to all human beings, the consequences of all present acts upon the conditions of a future existence, the duty of resignation to pain as the inevitable result of forgotten error, it actually gave to Japan the arts and the industries of China. Architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, printing, gardening--in short, every art and industry that helped to make life beautiful--developed first in Japan