Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 177

During the reign of the Emperor Ming of the Hou-Han dynasty, in the year AD. 65, a mission was sent from China to procure the Buddhist Sutras as well as some teachers of the Indian faith. More than three centuries elapsed before, in the year 372, the creed obtained a footing in Korea; and not for another century and a half did it find its way (522) to Japan. It encountered no obstacles in Korea. The animistic belief of the early Koreans has never been clearly studied, but whatever its exact nature may have been, it certainly evinced no bigotry in the presence of the foreign faith, for within three years of the arrival of the first image of Sakiya Muni in Koma, two large monasteries had been built, and the King and his Court were all converts.

No such reception awaited Buddhism in Japan when, in 522, a Chinese bonze, Shiba Tachito, arrived, erected a temple on the Sakata plain in Yamato, enshrined an image, of Buddha there, and endeavoured to propagate the faith. At that time, Wu, the first Emperor of the Liang dynasty in China, was employing all his influence to popularize the Indian creed. Tradition says that Shiba Tachito came from Liang, and in all probability he took the overland route via the Korean peninsula, but the facts are obscure. No sensible impression seems to have been produced in Japan by this essay. Buddhism was made known to a few, but the Japanese showed no disposition to worship a foreign god. Twenty-three years later (545), the subject attracted attention again. Song Wang Myong, King of Kudara, menaced by a crushing attack on the part of Koma and Shiragi in co-operation, made an image of the Buddha, sixteen feet high, and petitioned the Court of Yamato in the sense that as all good things were promised in the sequel of such an effort, protection should be extended to him by Japan. Tradition says that although Buddhism had not yet secured a footing in Yamato, this image must be regarded as the pioneer of many similar objects subsequently set up in Japanese temples.

Nevertheless, A.D. 552 is usually spoken of as the date of Buddhism's introduction into Japan. In that year the same King of Kudara presented direct to the Yamato Court a copper image of Buddha plated with gold; several canopies (tengai), and some volumes of the sacred books, by the hands of Tori Shichi (Korean pronunciation, Nori Sachhi) and others. The envoys carried also a memorial which said: "This doctrine is, among all, most excellent. But it is difficult to explain and difficult to understand. Even the Duke Chou and Confucius did not attain to comprehension. It can produce fortune and retribution, immeasurable, illimitable. It can transform a man into a Bodhi. Imagine a treasure capable of satisfying all desires in proportion as it is used. Such a treasure is this wonderful doctrine. Every earnest supplication is fulfilled and nothing is wanting. Moreover, from farthest India to the three Han, all have embraced the doctrine, and there is none that does not receive it with reverence wherever it is preached. Therefore thy servant, Myong, in all sincerity, sends his retainer, Nori Sachhi, to transmit it to the Imperial country, that it may be diffused abroad throughout the home provinces,* so as to fulfil the recorded saying of the Buddha, 'My law shall spread to the East.'"** It is highly probable that in the effort to win the Yamato Court to Buddhism, King Myong was influenced as much by political as by moral motives. He sought to use the foreign faith as a link to bind Japan to his country, so that he might count on his oversea neighbour's powerful aid against the attacks of Koma and Shiragi.

*That is to say, the Kinai, or five provinces, of which Yamato is the centre.

**The memorial is held by some critics to be of doubtful authenticity, though the compilers of the Chronicles may have inserted it in good faith.

A more interesting question, however, is the aspect under which the new faith presented itself to the Japanese when it first arrived among them as a rival of Shinto and Confucianism. There can be no doubt that the form in which it became known at the outset was the Hinayana, or Exoteric, as distinguished from the Mahayana, or Esoteric. But how did the Japanese converts reconcile its acceptance with their allegiance to the traditional faith, Shinto? The clearest available answer to this question is contained in a book called Taishiden Hochu, where, in reply to a query from his father, Yomei, who professed inability to believe foreign doctrines at variance with those handed down from the age of the Kami, Prince Shotoku is recorded to have replied:

"Your Majesty has considered only one aspect of the matter. I am young and ignorant, but I have carefully studied the teachings of Confucius and the doctrine of the Kami. I find that there is a plain distinction. Shinto, since its roots spring from the Kami, came into existence simultaneously with the heaven and the earth, and thus expounds the origin of human beings. Confucianism, being a system of moral principles, is coeval with the people and deals with the middle stage of humanity. Buddhism, the fruit of principles, arose when the human intellect matured. It explains the last stage of man. To like or dislike Buddhism without any reason is simply an individual prejudice. Heaven commands us to obey reason. The individual cannot contend against heaven. Recognizing that impossibility, nevertheless to rely on the individual is not the act of a wise man or an intelligent. Whether the Emperor desire to encourage this creed is a matter within his own will. Should he desire to reject it, let him do so; it will arise one generation later. Should he desire to adopt it, let him do so; it will arise one generation earlier. A generation is as one moment in heaven's eyes. Heaven is eternal. The Emperor's reign is limited to a generation; heaven is boundless and illimitable. How can the Emperor struggle against heaven? How can heaven be concerned about a loss of time?"

The eminent modern Japanese historiographer, Dr. Ariga, is disposed to regard the above as the composition of some one of later date than the illustrious Shotoku, but he considers that it rightly represents the relation assigned to the three doctrines by the Japanese of the sixth and seventh centuries. "Shinto teaches about the origin of the country but does not deal with the present or the future. Confucianism discusses the present and has no concern with the past or the future. Buddhism, alone, preaches about the future. That life ends with the present cannot be believed by all. Many men think of the future, and it was therefore inevitable that many should embrace Buddhism."

But at the moment when the memorial of King Myong was presented to the Emperor Kimmei, the latter was unprepared to make a definite reply. The image, indeed, he found to be full of dignity, but he left his ministers to decide whether it should be worshipped or not. A division of opinion resulted. The o-omi, Iname, of the Soga family, advised that, as Buddhism had won worship from all the nations on the West, Japan should not be singular. But the o-muraji, Okoshi, of the Mononobe-uji, and Kamako, muraji of the Nakatomi-uji, counselled that to bow down to foreign deities would be to incur the anger of the national gods. In a word, the civil officials advocated the adoption of the Indian creed; the military and ecclesiastical officials opposed it. That the head of the Mononobe-uji should have adopted this attitude was natural: it is always the disposition of soldiers to be conservative, and that is notably true of the Japanese soldier (bushi). In the case of the Nakatomi, also, we have to remember that they were, in a sense, the guardians of the Shinto ceremonials: thus, their aversion to the acceptance of a strange faith is explained.

What is to be said, however, of the apparently radical policy of the Soga chief? Why should he have advocated so readily the introduction of a foreign creed? There are two apparent reasons. One is that the Hata and Aya groups of Korean and Chinese artisans were under the control of the Soga-uji, and that the latter were therefore disposed to welcome all innovations coming from the Asiatic continent. The other is that between the o-muraji of the Kami class (Shimbetsu) and the o-omi of the Imperial class (Kwobetsu) there had existed for some time a political rivalry which began to be acute at about the period of the coming of Buddhism, and which was destined to culminate, forty years later, in a great catastrophe. The Emperor himself steered a middle course. He neither opposed nor approved but entrusted the image to the keeping of the Soga noble. Probably his Majesty was not unwilling to submit the experiment to a practical test vicariously, for it is to be noted that, in those days, the influence of the Kami for good or for evil was believed to be freely exercised in human affairs.

This last consideration does not seem to have influenced Soga no Iname at all. He must have been singularly free from the superstitions of his age, for he not only received the image with pleasure but also enshrined it with all solemnity in his Mukuhara residence, which he converted wholly into a temple.

Very shortly afterwards, however, the country was visited by a pestilence, and the calamity being regarded as an expression of the Kami's resentment, the o-muraji of the Mononobe and the muraji of the Nakatomi urged the Emperor to cast out the emblems of a foreign faith. Accordingly, the statue of the Buddha was thrown into the Naniwa canal and the temple was burned to the ground. Necessarily these events sharply accentuated the enmity between the Soga and the Mononobe. Twenty-five years passed, however, without any attempt to restore the worship of the Buddha. Iname, the o-omi of the Soga, died; Okoshi, the o-muraji of the Mononobe, died, and they were succeeded in these high offices by their sons, Umako and Moriya, respectively.

When the Emperor Bidatsu ascended the throne in A.D. 572, the political stage was practically occupied by these two ministers only; they had no competitors of equal rank. In 577, the King of Kudara made a second attempt to introduce Buddhism into Japan. He sent to the Yamato Court two hundred volumes of sacred books; an ascetic; a yogi (meditative monk); a nun; a reciter of mantras (magic spells); a maker of images, and a temple architect. If any excitement was caused by this event, the annals say nothing of the fact. It is briefly related that ultimately a temple was built for the new-comers in Naniwa (modern Osaka). Two years later, Shiragi also sent a Buddhist eidolon, and in 584—just sixty-two years after the coming of Shiba Tachito from Liang and thirty-two years after Soga no Iname's attempt to popularize the Indian faith—two Japanese high officials returned from Korea, carrying with them a bronze image of Buddha and a stone image of Miroku.* These two images were handed over, at his request, to the o-omi, Umako, who had inherited his father's ideas about Buddhism. He invited Shiba Tachito, then a village mayor, to accompany one Hida on a search throughout the provinces for Buddhist devotees. They found a man called Eben, a Korean who had originally been a priest, and he, having resumed the stole, consecrated the twelve-year-old daughter of Shiba Tachito, together with two other girls, as nuns. The o-omi now built a temple, where the image of Miroku was enshrined, and a pagoda on the top of whose central pillar was deposited a Buddhist relic which had shown miraculous powers.

*The Sanskrit Maitreya, the expected Messiah of the Buddhist.

Thus, once more the creed of Sakiya Muni seemed to have found a footing in Japan. But again the old superstitions prevailed. The plague of small-pox broke out once more. This fell disease had been carried from Cochin China by the troops of General Ma Yuan during the Han dynasty, and it reached Japan almost simultaneously with the importation of Buddhism. The physicians of the East had no skill in treating it, and its ravages were terrible, those that escaped with their lives having generally to lament the loss of their eyes. So soon as the malady made its second appearance in the immediate sequel of the new honours paid to Buddhism, men began to cry out that the Kami were punishing the nation's apostacy, and the o-muraji, Moriya, urged the Emperor (Bidatsu) to authorize the suppression of the alien religion. Bidatsu, who at heart had always been hostile to the innovation, consented readily, and the o-muraji, taking upon himself the duty of directing the work of iconoclasm, caused the pagoda and the temple to be razed and burned, threw the image into the canal, and flogged the nuns. But the pestilence was not stayed. Its ravages grew more unsparing. The Emperor himself, as well as the o-omi, Umako, were attacked, and now the popular outcry took another tone: men ascribed the plague to the wrath of Buddha. Umako, in turn, pleaded with the Emperor, and was permitted to rebuild the temple and reinstate the nuns, on condition that no efforts were made to proselytize.

Thus Buddhism recovered its footing, but the enmity between the o-muraji and the o-omi grew more implacable than ever. They insulted each other, even at the obsequies of the sovereign, and an occasion alone was needed to convert their anger into an appeal to arms.