It was, however, very far from
being what it is at present--the religion of the educated men of the
nation, and, by excellence, the religion of Chinese Asia. But in those
early centuries it did not fully satisfy the Chinese mind, which turned
to the philosophy of Taoism and to the teachings of the Buddhist for
intellectual food, for comfort and for inspiration.
The time when Chinese learning entered Japan, by the way of Korea, has
not been precisely ascertained.[7] It is possible that letters[8] and
writings were known in some parts of the country as early as the fourth
century, but it is nearly certain, that, outside the Court of the
Emperor, there was scarcely even a sporadic knowledge of the literature
of China until the Korean missionaries of Buddhism had obtained a
lodgement in the Mikado's capital. Buddhism was the real purveyor of the
foreign learning and became the vehicle by means of which Confucianism,
or the Chinese ethical principles, reached the common people of Japan.
The first missionaries in Japan were heartily in sympathy with the
Confucian ethics, from which no effort was made to alienate them. They
were close allies, and for a thousand years wrought as one force in the
national life. They were not estranged until the introduction, in the
seventeenth century, of the metaphysical and scholastic forms given to
the ancient system by the Chinese schoolmen of the Sung dynasty (A.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162