Читать книгу A History of the Japanese People - Kikuchi Dairoku - Страница 202

That Buddhism obtained a firm footing among the upper classes during the first century after its introduction must be attributed in no small measure to the fact that the throne was twice occupied by Empresses in that interval. The highly decorative aspects of the creed appealing to the emotional side of woman's nature, these Imperial ladies encouraged Buddhist propagandism with earnest munificence. But the mass of the people remained, for the most part, outside the pale. They continued to believe in the Kami and to worship them. Thus, when a terribly destructive earthquake* occured in 599, it was to the Kami of earthquakes that prayers were offered at his seven shrines in the seven home provinces (Kinai), and not to the Merciful Buddha, though the saving grace of the latter had then been preached for nearly a cycle. The first appeal to the foreign deity in connexion with natural calamity was in the opening year (642) of the Empress Kogyoku's reign when, in the presence of a devastating drought, sacrifices of horses and cattle to the Shinto Kami, changes of the market-places,** and prayers to the river gods having all failed to bring relief, an imposing Buddhist service was held in the south court of the Great Temple. "The images of Buddha, of the bosatsu, and of the Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently adorned; a multitude of priests read the Mahayana Sutra, and the o-omi, Soga no Emishi, held a censer, burned incense, and prayed." But there was no success; and not until the Empress herself had made a progress to the source of a river and worshipped towards the four quarters, did abundant rain fall.

*Only three earthquakes are recorded up to the year A.D. 645, and the second alone (A.D. 599) is described as destructive.

**This was a Chinese custom, as was also the sacrificial rite mentioned in the same context.

Such an incident cannot have contributed to popularize the Indian creed. The people at large adhered to their traditional cult and were easily swayed by superstitions. The first half of the seventh century was marked by abnormal occurrences well calculated to disturb men's minds. There were comets (twice); there was a meteor of large dimensions; there were eclipses of the sun and moon; there were occultations of Venus; there was snow in July and hail "as large as peaches" in May, and there was a famine (621) when old people ate roots of herbs and died by the wayside, when infants at the breast perished with their mothers, and when thieves and robbers defied authority. It is not, perhaps, surprising in such circumstances, and when witches and wizards abounded, that people fell into strange moods, and were persuaded to regard a caterpillar as the "insect of the everlasting world," to worship it, and to throw away their valuables in the belief that riches and perpetual youth would be thus won. A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was thus stayed.

ENGRAVING: ONE OF THE STATUES OF "SHITENNO" IN THE KAIDAN-IN, TODAIJI

(Tembyo Sculpture, Eighth Century)