Japan and the Japanese

BUDDHISM. 63
yet in general that system seems to have been much less austere
than the rival doctrine of Buddha, which teaches that sorrow is in-
separable from existence, the only escape from it being in annihi-
lation. The adherents of Sinto were, on the other hand, much more
disposed to look upon the bright side of things, turning their religious
festivals into holidays, and regarding people in sorrow and
distress as unfit for the worship of the gods, whose felicity ought
not to be disturbed by the sight of pain and misery. And this,
perhaps, was one of the causes that enabled the religion of Buddha,
which addresses itself more to the sorrowing hearts of which the
world is so full, to obtain that predominancy of which the Portu-
guese missionaries found it in possession.
Of this religion of Buddha, by no means peculiar to Japan, but
prevailing through the whole of central and south-eastern Asia, and
having probably more adherents than any other religious creed, it
is not necessary here to speak at any length. A much more cor-
rect idea of it is to be obtained from the recorded observations of
our modern missionaries, and from the elaborate investigations of
Abel Remusat, and several other learned orientalists, who have shed
a flood of light upon this interesting subject, than can be gathered
from the letters of the Portuguese missionaries, whose comprehen-
sion of the Buddhist doctrine was, on many important points, espe-
cially as to the cardinal one of annihilation, exceedingly confused,
contradictory and erroneous ; and, indeed, the same confusion and
error exists in almost all European travellers in the East, down to
a very recent period. Suffice it to say, that in the austerities and
contempt for the world and its pleasures, practised and professed
by the bonzes of the Buddhists, even Xavier and his brother Jesuits
found their match ; while, in the hierarchy into which those bonzes
were arranged; the foreign language, imperfectly known even to
themselves, of their sacred books and their liturgy, and which recent
investigations have detected to be, with the bonzes of China and
Japan, not Pali, alone but also pure Sanscrit ; their doctrine of
celibacy ; the establishment of monasteries and nunneries ; their
and became the god [first of the seven superior gods] who bears the hono-
rific title of Kami toko kontsi-no mikoto, that is to say, the venerable one
who constantly supports the empire."