The Seven Gods of Good Fortune.
We repeat it, Riy[=o]bu Buddhism is Japanese Buddhism with vengeance. It
is to-day suffering from the effect of its own sins. Its _ingwa_ is
manifest. Take, for example, the little group of divinities known as the
Seven Gods of Good Fortune, which forms a popular appendage to Japanese
Buddhism and which are a direct and logical growth of the work done by
K[=o]b[=o], as shown in his Riy[=o]bu system. Not from foreign writers
and their fancies, nor even from the books which profess to describe
these divinities, do we get such an idea of their real meaning and of
their influence with the people, as we do by observation of every-day
practice, and a study of the idols themselves and of Japanese folk-lore,
popular romance, local history and guidebooks. Those familiar
divinities, indeed, at the present day owe their vitality rather to the
artists than to priests, and, it may be, have received, together with
some rather rude handling, nearly the whole of their extended popularity
and influence from their lay supporters. The Seven Happy Gods of Fortune
form nominally a Buddhist assemblage, and their effigies on the
kami-dana or god-shelf, found in nearly every Japanese house, are
universally visible.
Pages:
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291