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And, as he stepped out before the house, a storm rose up suddenly, and a monster stretched out his claws and seized him by the hair. And he lifted him up in the air and carried him away. They passed by the tower which looks out to sea, a Buddhist temple in the hills. And in the distance, in the clouds, the scholar saw the figure of a god in golden armor.
And since thou speakest once again of wind, when last the Holy One was here, maybe I offended in pressing for charms. 'Sister, said the lama, using that form of address a Buddhist monk may sometimes employ towards a nun, 'if charms comfort thee 'They are better than ten thousand doctors. 'I say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of Such-zen, will make as many as thou mayest desire.
We see as clearly in Buddhist as in non-Buddhist India that there was a tendency to construct philosophic systems and another tendency to create deities satisfying to the emotions as well as to the intellect and yet another tendency to compose new scriptures. But apart from this parallel development, it becomes clear after the Christian era that Buddhism is becoming surrounded by Hinduism.
Even the Buddhist and Shinto priests in Osaka and its territories were independent of the Bakufu authority, and there were cases of boundary disputes in which the Tokugawa officials declined to give judgment since they were not in a position to enforce it. It may well be supposed that this state of affairs grew steadily more obnoxious to the Tokugawa.
In every community the Buddhist parish-priest was a public official as well as a spiritual teacher: he kept the parish register, and made report to the authorities upon local matters of importance. By introducing the love of learning, Confucianism had partly prepared the way for Buddhism.
When we try to find the brighter spots they are chiefly where civilisation, as apart from religion, has built up necessities for the community, such as hospitals, universities, and organised charities, as conspicuous in Buddhist Japan as in Christian Europe. We cannot deny that there has been much virtue, much gentleness, much spirituality in individuals.
In Pali, Majjhima-desa, "the Middle Country." See Davids' "Buddhist Birth Stories," page 61, note. See chapter xii, note 3, Buddha's pari-nirvana is equivalent to Buddha's death. See chapter xiii, note 6. The order of the characters is different here, but with the same meaning. See the preparation of such a deed of grant in a special case, as related in chapter xxxix.
Among the ablest books on Buddhism are: "Buddhism;" "The Growth of Religion as illustrated by Buddhism," and the able article on the same subject in the "Britannica" all by Rhys Davids. "Buddha: His Life, Character, and Order," by Professor Oldenberg, is a scarcely less important contribution to Buddhist literature.
Perhaps a clearer idea of the former splendor may be had by a brief recital of what chroniclers and archæologists prove to have been the plan of the Buddhist Brazen Temple, now a collection of sixteen hundred monolithic granite pillars, standing twelve feet from the ground and arranged in lines of forty each way; they cover a space measuring two hundred and thirty-one feet north to south and two hundred and thirty-two feet east to west.
And all around the dripping walls of these chambers on pedestals are grey slabs, shaped exactly like the haka in Buddhist cemeteries, and chiselled with figures of divinities in high relief. All have glory- disks: some are nave and sincere like the work of our own mediaeval image-makers. Several are not unfamiliar.
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