D. 901-922. He is supposed
to be the one who added the _kana_, or common vernacular script letters,
to the Chinese text and thus made the norito accessible to the people.
The little pocket prayer-books, folded in an accordeon-like manner, are
very cheap and popular. The sect is regarded as heretical by strict
Shint[=o]ists, as the system Yuwiitsu consists "mainly of a Buddhist
superstructure on a Shint[=o] foundation." Yoshida applied the tenets of
the Shingon or True Word sect of Buddhists to the understanding and
practice of the ancient god-way.
The Suiga sect teaches a system which is a combination of Yuwiitsu and
of the modern philosophical form of Confucianism as elaborated by Chu
Hi, and known in Japan as the Tei-shu philosophy. The founder was
Yamazaki Ansai, who was born in 1618 and died in 1682. By combining the
forms of the Yoshida sect, which is based on the Buddhism of the Shingon
sect, with the materialistic philosophy of Chu Hi, he adapted the old
god-way to what he deemed modern needs.
In the Deguchi sect, the ancient belief is explained by the Chinese Book
of Changes (or Divination). Deguchi Nobuyoshi, the founder, was
god-warden or _kannushi_ of the Geiku or Outer Palace Temple at Ise. He
promulgated his views about the year 1660, basing them upon the book
called Eki by the Japanese and Yi-king by the Chinese.
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