While then, as we repeat, everything that comes to the
Japanese mind suffers as it were "a sea change, into something new and
strange," is it not fair to say that the change made by K[=o]b[=o] was
at the expense of Buddhism as a system, and that the thing that suffered
reversion was the exotic rather than the native plant? For, in the
emergence of this new idea of loyalty as supreme, Shint[=o] and not
Buddhism was the dictator.
Even more after K[=o]b[=o]'s death than during his life, Japan improved
upon her imported faith, and rapidly developed new sects of all degrees
of reputableness and disreputableness. Had K[=o]b[=o] lived on through
the centuries, as the boors still believe;[39] he could not have
stopped, had he so desired, the workings of the leaven he had brought
from China. From the sixth to the twelfth century, was the missionary
age of Japanese Buddhism. Then followed two centuries of amazing
development of doctrine. Novelties in religion blossomed, fruited and
became monuments as permanent as the age-enduring forests Hakone, or
Nikk[=o]. Gautama himself, were he to return to "red earth" again, could
not recognize his own cult in Japan.
In China to-day Buddhism is in a bad state. One writer calls it, "The
emasculated descendant that now occupies the land with its drone of
priests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the
learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found.
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