CHAPTER X - JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

Missionary Buddhism the Measure of Japan's Civilization.

Broadly speaking, the history of Japanese Buddhism in its missionary development is the history of Japan. Before Buddhism came, Japan was pre-historic. We know the country and people through very scanty notices in the Chinese annals, by pale reflections cast by myths, legends and poems, and from the relics cast up by the spade and plough. Chinese civilization had filtered in, though how much or how little we cannot tell definitely; but since the coming of the Buddhist missionaries in the sixth century, the landscape and the drama of human life lie before us in clear detail. Speaking broadly again, it may be said that almost from the time of its arrival, Buddhism became on its active side the real religion of Japan--at least, if the word "religion" be used in a higher sense than that connoted by either Shintō or Confucianism. Though as a nation the Japanese of the Méiji era are grossly forgetful of this fact, yet, as Professor Chamberlain says,[1] "All education was for centuries in Buddhist hands. Buddhism introduced art; introduced medicine; created the folk-lore of the country; created its dramatic poetry; deeply influenced politics, and every sphere of social and intellectual activity; in a word, Buddhism was the teacher under whose instruction the Japanese nation grew up."

For many centuries all Japanese, except here and there a stern Shintōist, or an exceptionally dogmatic Confucian, have acknowledged these patent facts, and from the emperor to the eta, glorified in them. It was not until modern Confucian philosophy entered the Mikado's empire in the seventeenth century, that hostile criticism and polemic tenets denounced Buddhism, and declared it only fit for savages. This bitter denunciation of Buddhism at the lips and hands of Japanese who had become Chinese in mind, was all the more inappropriate, because Buddhism had for over a thousand years acted as the real purveyor and disperser of the Confucian ethics and culture in Japan. Such denunciation came with no better grace from the Yedo Confucianists than from the Shintō revivalists, like Motoöri, who, while execrating everything Chinese, failed to remember or impress upon his countrymen the fact, that almost all which constituted Japanese civilization had been imported from the Middle Kingdom.

Buddhism, in its purely doctrinal development, seems to be rather a system of metaphysics than a true religion, being a conglomeration, or rather perhaps an agglomeration, of all sorts of theories relating to the universe and its contents. Its doctrinal and metaphysical side, however, is to be carefully distinguished from its popular and external features, for in its missionary development Buddhism may be called a system of national improvement. The history of its propagation, in the land farthest east from its cradle, is not only the outline of the history of Japanese civilization, but is nearly the whole of it.

Pre-Buddhistic Japan.

It is not perhaps difficult to reconstruct in imagination the landscape of Japan in pre-Buddhistic days. Certainly we may, with some accuracy, draw a contrast between the appearance of the face of the earth then and now. Supposing that there were as many as a million or two of souls in the Japanese Archipelago of the sixth century--the same area which in the nineteenth century contains over forty-one millions--we can imagine only here and there patches of cultivated fields, or terraced gullies. There were no roads except paths or trails. The horse was probably yet a curiosity to the aborigines, though well known to the sons of the gods. Sheep and goats then, as now, were unknown. The cow and the ox were in the land, but not numerous.[2] In architecture there was probably little but the primeval hut. Tools were of the rudest description; yet it is evident that the primitive Japanese were able to work iron and apply it to many uses. There were other metals, though the tell-tale etymology of their names in Japanese metallurgy, as in so many other lines of industry and articles of daily use, points to a Chinese origin. It is the almost incredible fact that the Japanese man or woman wore on the person neither gold nor silver jewelry. In later times, decoration was added to the sword hilt and pins were thrust in the hair.

Possibly a prejudice against metal touching the skin, such as exists in Korea, may account for this absence of jewelry, though silver was not discovered until A.D. 675, or gold until A.D. 749. The primitive Japanese, however, did wear ornaments of ground and polished stone, and these so numerously as to compel contrast with the severer tastes of later ages. Some of these magatama--curved jewels or perforated cylinders--were made of very hard stone which requires skill to drill, cut and polish. Among the substances used was jade, a mineral found only in Cathay.[3] Indeed, we cannot follow the lines of industry and manufactures, of personal adornment and household decoration, of scientific terms and expressions, of literary, intellectual and religious experiment, without continually finding that the Japanese borrowed from Chinese storehouses. Possibly their debt began at the time of the alleged conquest of Korea[4] in the third century.

In Japanese life, as it existed before the introduction of Buddhism, there was, with barbaric simplicity, a measure of culture somewhat indeed above the level of savagery, but probably very little that could be appraised beyond that of the Iroquois Indians in the days of their Confederacy. For though granting that there were many interesting features of art, industry, erudition and civilization which have been lost to the historic memory, and that the research of scholars may hereafter discover many things now in oblivion; yet, on the other hand, it is certain that much of what has long been supposed to be of primitive Japanese origin, and existent before the eighth century, has been more or less infused or enriched with Chinese elements, or has been imported directly from India, or Persia,[5] or has crystallized into shape from the mixture of things Buddhistic and primitive Japanese.

Apart from all speculation, we know that in the train of the first missionaries came artisans, and instructors in every line of human industry and achievement, and that the importation of the inventions and appliances of "the West"--the West then being Korea and China, and the "Far West," India--was proportionately as general, as far-reaching, as sensational, as electric in its effects upon the Japanese minds, as, in our day, has been the introduction of the modern civilization of Europe and the United States.[6]

The Purveyors of Civilization.

The Buddhist missionaries, in their first "enthusiasm of humanity," were not satisfied to bring in their train, art, medicine, science and improvements of all sorts, but they themselves, being often learned and practical men, became personal leaders in the work of civilizing the country. In travelling up and down the empire to propagate their tenets, they found out the necessity of better roads, and accordingly, they were largely instrumental in having them made. They dug wells, established ferries and built bridges.[7] They opened lines of communication; they stimulated traffic and the exchange of merchandise; they created the commerce between Japan and China; and they acted as peacemakers and mediators in the wars between the Japanese and Koreans. For centuries they had the monopoly of high learning. In the dark middle ages when civil war ruled, they were the only scholars, clerks, diplomatists, mediators and peacemakers.

Japanese diet became something new under the direction of the priests. The bonzes taught the wickedness of slaughtering domestic animals, and indeed, the wrong of putting any living thing to death, so that kindness to animals has become a national trait. To this day it may be said that Japanese boys and men are, at least within the limits of their light, more tender and careful with all living creatures than are those of Christendom.[8] The bonzes improved the daily fare of the people, by introducing from Korea and China articles of food hitherto unknown. They brought over new seeds and varieties of vegetables and trees. Furthermore, necessity being the mother of invention, not a few of the shorn brethren made up for the prohibition of fish and flesh, by becoming expert cooks. They so exercised their talents in the culinary art that their results on the table are proverbial. Especially did they cultivate mushrooms, which in taste and nourishment are good substitutes for fish.

The bonzes were lovers of beauty and of symbolism. They planted the lotus, and the monastery ponds became seats of splendor, and delights to the eye. Their teachings, metaphysical and mystical, poetical and historical, scientific and literary, created, it may be said, the Japanese garden, which to the refined imagination contains far more than meets the eye of the alien.[9] Indeed, the oriental imitations in earth, stone, water and verdure, have a language and suggestion far beyond what the usual parterres and walks, borders and lines, fountains and statuary of a western garden teach. It may be said that our "language of flowers" is more luxuriant and eloquent than theirs; yet theirs is very rich also, besides being more subtle in suggestion. The bonzes instilled doctrine, not only by sermons, books and the emblems and furniture of the temples, but they also taught dogma and ethics by the flower-ponds and plots, by the artificial landscape, and by outdoor symbolism of all kinds. To Buddhism our thanks are due, for the innumerable miniature continents, ranges of mountains, geographical outlines and other horticultural allusions to their holy lands and spiritual history, seen beside so many houses, temples and monasteries in Japan. In their floral art, no people excels the Japanese in making leaf and bloom teach history, religion, philosophy, aesthetics and patriotism.

Not only around the human habitation,[10] but within it, the new religion brought a marvellous change. Instead of the hut, the dwelling-house grew to spacious and comfortable proportions, every part of the Japanese house to-day showing to the cultured student, especially to one familiar with the ancient poetry, the lines of its origin and development, and in the larger dwellings expressing a wealth of suggestion and meaning. The oratory and the kami-dana or shelf holding the gods, became features in the humblest dwelling. Among the well-to-do there were of course the gilded ancestral tablets and the worship of progenitors, in special rooms, with imposing ritual and equipment, with which Buddhism did not interfere; but on the shelf over the door of nearly every house in the land, along with the emblems of the kami, stood images representing the avatars of Buddha.[11] There, the light ever burned, and there, offerings of food and drink were thrice daily made. Though the family worship might vary in its length and variety of ceremony, yet even in the home where no regular system was followed, the burning lights and the stated offering made, called the mind up to thoughts higher than the mere level of providing for daily wants. The visitation of the priests in time of sorrow, or of joy, or for friendly converse, made religion sweetly human.[12]

Outwardly the Buddhist architecture made a profound change in the landscape. With a settled religion requiring gorgeou