Nevertheless, the ethical element held its own in the Japanese mind; and against the pessimism and puerility of Buddhism and the religious emptiness of Shintō, the bond of Japanese society was sought in the idea of loyalty. While then, as we repeat, everything that comes to the Japanese mind suffers as it were "a sea change, into something new and strange," is it not fair to say that the change made by Kōbō was at the expense of Buddhism as a system, and that the thing that suffered reversion was the exotic rather than the native plant? For, in the emergence of this new idea of loyalty as supreme, Shintō and not Buddhism was the dictator.
Even more after Kōbō's death than during his life, Japan improved upon her imported faith, and rapidly developed new sects of all degrees of reputableness and disreputableness. Had Kōbō lived on through the centuries, as the boors still believe;[39] he could not have stopped, had he so desired, the workings of the leaven he had brought from China. From the sixth to the twelfth century, was the missionary age of Japanese Buddhism. Then followed two centuries of amazing development of doctrine. Novelties in religion blossomed, fruited and became monuments as permanent as the age-enduring forests Hakoné, or Nikkō. Gautama himself, were he to return to "red earth" again, could not recognize his own cult in Japan.
In China to-day Buddhism is in a bad state. One writer calls it, "The emasculated descendant that now occupies the land with its drone of priests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and corruption."[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The common people of China are to-day Taoists rather than Buddhists.[41]
If this be the position in China, something not very far from it is found in Japan to-day. Whatever may be the Buddhism of the few learned scholars, who have imbibed the critical and scientific spirit of Christendom, and whatever be the professions and representations of its earnest adherents and partisans, it is certain that popular Buddhism is both ethically and vitally in a low state. In outward array the system is still imposing. There are yet, it may be, millions of stone statues and whole forests of wayside effigies, outdoors and unroofed—irreverently called by the Japanese themselves, "wet gods." Hosts upon hosts of lacquered and gilded images in wood, sheltered under the temple tiles or shingles, still attract worshippers. Despite shiploads of copper Buddhas exported as old metal to Europe and America, and thousands of tons of gods and imps melted into coin or cannon, there are myriads of metal reminders of those fruits of a religion that once educated and satisfied; but these are, in the main, no longer to the natives instruments of inspiration or compellers to enthusiasm. In this time of practical charity, they are poor substitutes for those hospitals and orphan asylums which were practically unknown in Japan until the advent of Christianity.
Kōbō's smart example has been followed only too well by the people in every part of the country. One has but to read the stacks of books of local history to see what an amazing proportion of legends, ideas, superstitions and revelations rests on dreams; how incredibly numerous are the apparitions; how often the floating images of Buddha are found on the water; how frequently flowers have rained out of the sky; how many times the idols have spoken or shot forth their dazzling rays—in a word; how often art and artifices have become alleged and accepted reality. Unfortunately, the characteristics of this literature and undergrowth of idol lore are monotony and lack of originality; for nearly all are copies of Kōbō's model. His cartoon has been constantly before the busy weavers of legend.
It may indeed be said, and said truly, that in its multiplication of sects and in its growth of legend and superstition, Buddhism has but followed every known religion, including traditional Christianity itself. Yet popular Buddhism has reached a point which shows, that, instead of having a self-purgative and self-reforming power, it is apparently still treading in the steps of the degradation which Kōbōbegan.
The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.
We repeat it, Riyōbu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance. It is to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins. Its ingwa is manifest. Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to Japanese Buddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done by Kōbō, as shown in his Riyōbu system. Not from foreign writers and their fancies, nor even from the books which profess to describe these divinities, do we get such an idea of their real meaning and of their influence with the people, as we do by observation of every-day practice, and a study of the idols themselves and of Japanese folk-lore, popular romance, local history and guidebooks. Those familiar divinities, indeed, at the present day owe their vitality rather to the artists than to priests, and, it may be, have received, together with some rather rude handling, nearly the whole of their extended popularity and influence from their lay supporters. The Seven Happy Gods of Fortune form nominally a Buddhist assemblage, and their effigies on the kami-dana or god-shelf, found in nearly every Japanese house, are universally visible. The child in Japan is rocked to sleep by the soothing sound of the lullaby, which is often a prayer to these gods. Even though it may be with laughing and merriment, that, in their name the evil gods and imps are exorcised annually on New Year's eve, with showers of beans which are supposed to be as disagreeable to the Buddhist demons "as drops of holy water to the Devil," yet few households are complete without one or more of the images or the pictures of these favorite deities.