It would take many long ages of constant speaking, day and night, to exhaust even one half of the attributes of Amida. We may never come to know them all; but of His great Compassion we are quite sure, for did He not become Incarnate for us in the person of a certain Hozo Biku? That Incarnation was the visible embodiment of His Compassion: it was undertaken "for us men and for our salvation," and it is this that gives to the Believer in Salvation by Faith the assurance that Amida is no mere name, but that in Him Essence and Name are one and indivisible. [**] Compassion is the Heart of Buddha.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.

I

Amida and God.

I venture to suggest that, in estimating the Buddhist conception of God, as shown in the Jodo doctrine of Amitabha, special consideration should be given to certain statements of St. Paul. In Eph. iv. 5, he speaks of the Father as being epi pantun (Transcendental), dia pantun (Immanent), en pathin (Indwelling). In 1. Cor. vii. 6 he speaks of Him as the Divine Substance (ex oy ta panta), out of whom are all things, of the Son as the Divine Agent through whom (di oy) all things are made, and again of the Father as the Ultimate Object (emeis eis ayton) to whom we all tend. I believe that the working out of these passages would lead the Shinshuist to results which, while thoroughly in harmony with the Faith of the Church, would also be agreeable to what he believes respecting Amida.

II

Amida in the Shingon Sect.

Circumstances have recently led me to the study of Japanese Funeral customs. I have found a special interest in the rites of the Shingon, a sect which I believe to have in it very considerable elements of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. (See my Wheat among the Tares and Papers on the Formative Elements of Japanese Buddhism in the Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan). Shingon is very largely a symbolic religion, and the funeral service employed consists mainly of symbolical

manual acts (mudra), and the recitation of certain quasi-sacramental Sanskrit formulae (mantra).

When, prior to its removal to the Temple, the corpse has been placed before the temporary altar in the house on which stand the thirteen Buddhas whom the Shingon reverence, the priest commences the service with lustration, and meditation on the Three Secrets, the Three Actions, and the Three Classes of Buddhas. Then, accompanying his actions with symbolical gestures, he recites (i) a formula significant of his desire for Enlightenment, and (ii) one of meditation on the teachings of Fugen (Samantabhadra), the meaning of which I have not been able to discover, except so far that Fugen is said to have been especially concerned with teaching the Unity of the Buddha.