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Therefore thy servant, Myong, in all sincerity, sends his retainer, Nori Sachhi, to transmit it to the Imperial country, that it may be diffused abroad throughout the home provinces,* so as to fulfil the recorded saying of the Buddha, 'My law shall spread to the East." It is highly probable that in the effort to win the Yamato Court to Buddhism, King Myong was influenced as much by political as by moral motives.
Pushing on, the expeditionary force finally landed at a place not now identifiable in the province of Kawachi, which bounds Yamato on the west. The whole voyage had occupied four years according to the Chronicles, sixteen according to the Records.
The nature-worship, which was probably practised throughout the whole archipelago, became part of the system as government and society were made uniform on the Yamato model. It seems at least possible, if Buddhism had not come in so soon, that the ordinary features of a religion, dogmatic and ethical codes, would have been developed.
On the other hand, the modern Ainu, who are believed to represent the ancient population, include in their religious observances the worship of the first cakes made from the season's millet, and unless that rite be supposed to have been borrowed from the Yamato, it goes to indicate agricultural pursuits.
But though the pestilence was stayed, it brought an aftermath of lawlessness and produced much unrest in the regions remote from Yamato. Sujin therefore organized a great military movement, the campaign of the Shido shogun, or "Generalissimo of the four Circuits."* *The term "do" indicates a group of provinces.
The habit of blackening the teeth has long prevailed among married women in Japan, but the Yamato tombs have thus far furnished only one example of the practice, and no mention occurs in the ancient annals. Face painting, however, would seem to have been indulged in by both sexes.
On the 2d day of the 12th month, Sôgorô, having received a summons from the residence of the Gorôjiu Kuzé Yamato no Kami, proceeded to obey it, and was ushered to the porch of the house, where two councillors, named Aijima Gidaiyu and Yamaji Yôri, met him, and said "Some days since you had the audacity to thrust a memorial into the litter of our lord Yamato no Kami.
They were, in fact, an inferior copy of a Chinese prototype, the kinship of the two being further attested by the common use of the dragon as a decorative motive. Bronze vases and bowls, simple or covered, are occasionally found in the Yamato sepulchres. Sometimes they are gilt, and in no case do their shapes differentiate them from Chinese or modern Japanese models.
Yamato Take bathed daily in these waters, and gradually he felt his strength come again, and the pains left him, till at last one day he found with great joy that he was quite recovered. He now hastened to the temples of Ise, where you will remember that he prayed before undertaking this long expedition.
At Nara, in Yamato province, near the temple of Todai-ji, a store house built of wood and called the Shoso-in was constructed in the Nara epoch, and it still stands housing a remarkable collection of furniture and ornaments from the Imperial palace.
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