Benten or Knanon, with the features and drapery of the homelike beauties
of Yamato or Adzuma, have ever been more lovely to the admiring eye of
the Japanese sailor and farmer, than the Aryan features of the idols
imported from India. So also, the worshipper to whom the lovely scenery
of Japan was fresh from the hands of the kami who were so much like
himself, turned naturally in preference, to the "gods many" of his own
land.
Succeeding centuries only made it worse for the imported devas or gods,
while the kami, or the gods sprung from the soil created by Izanami and
Izanagi steadily rose in honor.
Degradation of the Foreign Deities.
For example, the Indian saint Dharma is reputed to have come to the
Dragon-fly Country long before the advent of Buddhism, but the people
were not ready for him or his teachings, and therefore he returned to
India. So at least declares the book entitled San Kai Ri[27] (Mountain,
Sea and Earth), which is a re-reading and explanation of Japanese
mythology and tradition as recorded in the Kojiki, by a Ki[=o]t[=o]
priest of the Shin Shu Sect. Of this Dharma, it is said, that he outdid
the Roman Regulus who suffered involuntary loss of his eyelids at the
hands of the Carthaginians.
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