now, according to mental habit, it isolates it, and makes
its realisation its solitary purpose. In this the Japanese, by their greater
Indian affinity, enjoy an advantage over the Chinese, who are withheld by that
strong common sense which is expressed in Confucianism, from the unbalanced development
of any single motive to its full intensity.
Those disturbances in China which, towards the close of the
Tâng dynasty, prevented the exchange of diplomatic amenities between the two
countries, and the conscious dependence which Japan began to place on her own
power, induced the statesmen of the time - amongst whom stands that Michizane
who is so revered as Tenjin, patron of letters and learning - to resolve on
sending no more embassies to Choan, and to cease borrowing further from Chinese
institutions. A new era began, in which Japan strove to create a system of her
own, based on the revival of purely Yamato ideals, for
Confined in their island home, with no questions of state
to trouble their sweet reveries, the court aristocracy found their serious
occupation in art and poetry. The lesser duties of statecraft were left to
inferiors, for to the over-refinement of the time it appeared that useful
duties were both lowering and impure, so that the handling of money and the use
of arms were functions fit only for the menial classes.
Even the administration of justice was relegated to the
lower orders. Governors of provinces would almost spend their lives in the
capital, Kyoto, leaving their representatives and henchmen to take charge of
their local duties, and some were even heard to make the proud boast that they
had never left the metropolis.
To Buddhism, still the dominant element in the nation's
range of variation, the halo of the eternal feminine draws closer in the Jodo
ideal of the Fujiwara epoch than at any other moment in its
over Japan in the Fujiwara epoch, and, intoxicated with
frantic love, men and women deserted the cities and villages in crowds to
follow Kuya or Ipen, dancing and singing the name of Amida as they went.
Masquerades came into vogue, representing angels descending from Heaven with
the lotus daïs, in order to welcome and bear upward the departing soul. Ladies
would spend a lifetime in weaving or embroidering the image of Divine Mercy,
out of threads extracted from the lotus-stem. Such was the new movement, which,
however closely paralleled in China, in the beginning of the Tâng dynasty, was
nevertheless so completely and distinctively Japanese. It has never died, and
to this day two-thirds of the people belong to this Jodo sect, which
corresponds to the Vaishnavism of India.
Both Genshin, the formulator of the creed, and Genku, who
carried it to its culmination, pleaded that human nature
was weak and, try as it might, could not accomplish entire
self-conquest and direct attainment of the Divine in this life. It was rather
by the mercy of the Amida Buddha and his emanation, Kwannon, that one could
alone be saved. They did not put themselves in conflict with the earlier sects,
but, leaving them to work out, each its own results in its own way, declared
that it was for strong natures and rare individuals to develop by what they
called Shodo, or the Path of Saints, while for the ordinary masses a
prayer, even a single prayer, addressed to the almost maternal Godhead,
represented in Amida, the Immeasurable Light, was enough to draw the soul into
His world of purity, called the Jodo, where, free from the pains and
evils of this wretched life, they could evolve into the Buddhahood itself.
This prayer they called "the easier path," and
their images, softened by the spirit of femininity, produced a new type, very
different from those of the stately
[paragraph continues] Buddhas, and fierce representations of the Divine wrath, known to
the preceding age as the Siva-like Fudo, Destroyer of Earthly Passion
and Sentiment. Shinran, a disciple of Genku, founded the Honganji sect, now the
most powerful in the country, of the adherents of this idea.
Japanese painting, with its delicate lines and refined
colours, begins now to be characterised, from the tenth century onwards, by a
predominating use of gold, which, not unlike the gold backgrounds of mediæval
artists in Europe, is explained by the argument that yellow light must permeate
the regions of Amida.
Its subjects of illustration are the Kingdom of Amida, or ideal Mercy, the Kwannon of Seishi, or ideal Power, and the twenty-five Angels, who,
with their heavenly music, escorted spirits into Paradise. There is no better
representation of this idea than in the grand picture of Amida and the
twenty-five Angels by
[paragraph continues] Genshin himself - which picture is now kept in Koyashan.
The sculpture of the period rose to its greatest height in
Jocho (of the eleventh century), whose Amida is still to be seen in all its
glory at Hoodo, in Uji, one of the innumerable temples which the Fujiwara
ministers consecrated to the new Jodo, or Faith in the Land of Purity. The Fudo
of this sculptor is so sweet as to be almost an Amida - a fact which is
significant of the strength of that feminine influence that could change even
the mighty form of Siva himself.
But, alas! in a world so worldly, no such dreamland could
long persist! The storm was already brewing in the provinces that was to
scatter to the four winds that festival of flowers which reigned in Kyoto, the capital. Each local disturbance added to the power of those provincial
magistrates who actually held the reins of government, and ultimately
constituted them the daimyos and
NOTES
Choan is the present city of Suiang, in the
viceroyalty of Shenshi, where the Empress-Dowager took refuge recently, during
the unfortunate occupation of Pekin by the Allies. Choan, with Rakuio or Loyang, formed the two chief capitals of the Hâng and Tâng dynasties. In this and other
cases we have followed the Japanese pronunciation of Chinese names.
Bhakti. - That love of God, and devotion in love,
which attains to selflessness. In Europe St. Teresa and some of the modern
Protestant sects may stand as examples.
Gnan. - That supreme illumination of the
intellect in which the transcendent oneness of all things becomes self-evident.
Sankaracharya. - The greatest Hindu saint and
commentator of modern times. He lived in the eighth century, and is the father
of modern Hinduism. He died at the age of 32.
Ramanuja. - A saint and philosopher of the
Bhakti-type. He lived in Southern India in the twelfth century. He is the
founder of the second great school of the Vedanta philosophy.
Chaitanya. - Known as the "Prophet of
Nuddea," in Bengal, an ecstatic saint of the thirteenth century.
Suma and Shioya. - Two places near Kobe, Japan.