The court had indeed been invaded and won. Even
the Mikado, the ecclesiastical head of Shint[=o], and the incarnation
and vicar of the heavenly gods, had not only embraced Buddhism, but in
many instances had shorn the hair and taken the vows of the monk. Yet
the people clung tenaciously to their old traditions, customs and
worship; for their gods were like themselves and indeed were of
themselves, since Shint[=o] is only a transfiguration of Japanese life.
In the Japanese of those days we can trace the same traits which we
behold in the modern son of Nippon, especially his intense patriotism
and his warlike tendencies. To convert these people to the peaceful
dogmas of Siddartha and to make them good Buddhists, something more than
teaching and ritual was necessary. It was indispensable that there
should be complete substitution, all along the ruts and paths of
national habit, and especially that the names of the gods and the
festivals should be Buddhaized.
Popular customs are nearly immortal and ineradicable. Though wars may
come, dynasties rise and fall, and convulsions in nature take place, yet
the people's manners and amusements are very slow in changing. If, in
the history of Christianity, the European missionaries found it
necessary in order to make conquest of our pagan forefathers, to baptize
and re-name without radically changing old notions and habits, so did it
seem equally indispensable that in Japan there should be some system of
reconciliation of the old and the new, some theological revolution,
which should either fulfil, absorb, or destroy Shint[=o].
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