Thus we can see more clearly the outward and visible
manifestations of Shint[=o]. In forming our judgment, however, we must
put aside those descriptions which are found in the works of European
writers, from Marco Polo and Mendez Pinto down to the year 1870. Though
these were good observers, they were often necessarily mistaken in their
deductions. For, as we shall see in our lecture on Riy[=o]bu or Mixed
Buddhism, Shint[=o] was, from the ninth century until late into the
nineteenth century, absorbed in Buddhism so as to be next to invisible.
Origins of the Japanese People.
Without detailing processes, but giving only results, our view of the
origin of the Japanese people and of their religion is in the main as
follows:
The oldest seats of human habitation in the Japanese Archipelago lie
between the thirtieth and thirty-eighth parallels of north latitude.
South of the thirty-fourth parallel, it seems, though without proof of
writing or from tradition, that the Malay type and blood from the far
south probably predominated, with, however, much infusion from the
northern Asian mainland.
Between the thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth parallels, and west of the
one hundred and thirty-eighth meridian of longitude, may be found what
is still the choicest, richest and most populous part of The Country
Between Heaven and Earth.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83