whole life," made it a feature of its teachings that it professed to accept every one of the many thousand volumes of the Mahayana Canon, as of equal authority, without assigning to any single one a pre-eminent place among its compeers. It aimed at the most complete and glorious comprehensiveness (a comprehensiveness which, I fear, can only be attained by the sacrifice of the critical faculty). Zendo's Buddhist biographer [**] adds that he also studied the Vinaya discipline (a fact which may be taken as showing traces of a somewhat practical turn of mind), and notices further that, during these student days, he was continually restless, that he sighed for greater definiteness, and expressed a longing for that simpler doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Amida, which has always had its exponents in China as well as in Japan.

At last, weary of the confusion, he went into the Library, prayed for guidance, closed his eyes, and put out his hand for the book which was to simplify his Creed. The same story is told of others in .Chinese Buddhism: in Zendo's case, his hand fell upon the volume of the Kwangyo (the Amitayurdhyani Sutra), [*+] which relates how Sakyamuni

comforted Queen Vaidehi in her distress by reminding her of the mercies of Amitabha, "who is ever near thee." Zendo read and received comfort; but he could not understand all he read, and where he was there was none to explain it.

But he heard that, south of the Yangtze, at Rozan (#), there were traditions and books which might explain what he wanted. It was here that Eon (#), who died A.D. 416, had worked for thirty years, and had founded, in connection with a body of friends known as the "eighteen sages of Rozan," a guild known as the White Lotus Society, which was the first association of Buddhist monks and laymen for the joint adoration of Amida Butsu. Zendo learned all that he could at Rozan, and then recommenced his travels, consulting as many religious teachers as he found likely to be able to give him helpful advice and