[paragraph continues] Seishi, respectively the second and third persons of the Buddhist Trinity. It comes to one as a shock, after having been told that the Shinshu are the Unitarians of Buddhism, to learn, on the authority of a popular book, written for the edification of ignorant but pious persons, that Shotoku Taishi was an Incarnation of Kwannon, that Honen Shonin, the teacher of Shinran, was Seishi in the flesh, that Tamahi-no-miya, Shinran's wife, was an incarnation of Kwannon, and that Amida himself condescended to take flesh as Shinran. [**] The tendency of the present-day Shinshu is to drop these fabled incarnations, and we can only rejoice that it should be so. We lose our reverence for an Incarnate God when Iris Incarnations are constantly taking place in varied forms and shapes. But it is interesting to find ourselves thus brought face to face, once more, with one of the earliest problems of Christian History, and to be under the necessity, as Christians, of proving once more that there has been but one Incarnation of the Godhead--that of God in Christ. It is a significant point in our favour that the official Shinshu teaching also recognizes but one Incarnation properly so called,--that of Amida in Hozo Biku. Our Catechism of the Shinshu mentions no other. The rest are apparitions rather than Incarnations. [*+]

Footnotes

^57:* I believe that a distinction is sometimes made between Amida Nyorai, and Namu-amide-Butsu. The former is used to denote Him, as he was and ever will be, the Absolute. The latter term (which is also the invocation of praise) is Amida, after his Incarnation as Hozo Biku, when he had attained his glory and received the "Name above every Name."

^59:* This incident was one of `the turning points in Nichiren's life.

^61:* I often think in connection with this grouping of Buddhistic deities, of Zechariah's Vision of the two witnesses the priestly and the royal--that stood before the Lord of the whole earth.

^62:* Shinran Shonin Go ichidai Kowa vol. i, p. 71, 73.

^62:+ The Shinshuist gets his teaching of the incarnations of Kwannon from the Fumonbon, a chapter of the Hokkekyo. But the Hokkekyo is not officially recognized as one of the fundamental documents of the Shinshu. It is indeed the strongest weapon the Nichiren sect possesses for combating what it considers to be the Shinshu heresies concerning Buddha.