For every Shint[=o] festival he arranged a
corresponding Buddhist's saints' day or gala time. Then, training up a
band of disciples, he sent them forth proclaiming the new irenicon.
The Hindu Yoga Becomes Japanese Riy[=o]bu.
It was just the time for this brilliant and able ecclesiastic to
succeed. The power and personal influence of the Mikado were weakening,
the court swarmed with monks, the rising military classes were already
safely under the control of the shavelings, and the pen of learning had
everywhere proved itself mightier than the sword and muscle.
K[=o]b[=o]'s particular dialectic weapons were those of the Yoga-chara,
or in Japanese, the Shingon Shu, or Sect of the True Word.[23] He, like
his Chinese master, taught that we can attain the state of the
Enlightened or Buddha, while in the present physical body which was born
of our parents.
This branch of Buddhism is said to have been founded in India about A.D.
200, by a saint who made the discovery of an iron pagoda inhabited by
the holy one, Vagrasattva, who communicated the exact doctrine to those
who have handed it down through the Hindoo and Chinese patriarchs. The
books or scriptures of this sect are in three sutras; yet the essential
point in them is the Mandala or the circle of the Two Parts, or in
Japanese Riy[=o]bu.
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