CHAPTER II.

The Shinshu in its relations to S'akyamuni and to Buddhism in general.

( section section 1-17.) [**]

The Shinshu claims to be a Buddhistic sect.--Buddhism, as a religion, presupposes no creator, only a Law of Cause and Effect which has always worked inexorably as far as human thought can carry us backwards, a Law through the operations of which all the worlds comprising the universe have been evolved out of the original chaos of matter (Jap. Shinnyo Skt. Butatathata), and brought to their present state of growth, decay, or ruin.

The Founder of Buddhism is the Buddha S'akyamuni whose death may be placed about the year 480 B. C. The religion reached Japan, officially, by way of Central Asia, China, and Corea, about the middle of the sixth century A.D. About a thousand years had thus elapsed from the Nirvana of S'akyamuni to the time when Buddhism first reached these shores. In the course of these centuries it had become one of the most stupendous systems of religious teaching that the world has ever seen. Its sacred books numbered over six thousand volumes: the articles in its creed were described as being 81,000 in number, and the whole system was aptly

compared to an immense pharmacopoea, in which were to be found drugs and prescriptions for every one of the spiritual troubles of mankind (including toothache and the teething of children). [**] No physician ever came across all human diseases in the course of his practice, or had occasion to try all drugs: no religious teacher ever had to deal with all forms of ignorance and sin, or to provide remedies suitable for each case. The utmost that any teacher of Buddhism can do is to draw from this vast storehouse a few doctrines that seem most suitable for the wants of those with whom he has to deal, and to formulate for himself a particularized system which may lie wholly within the confines of Buddhism, and yet scarcely touch any one of the sister systems formulated, within the Buddhist sphere, by other minds.

Hence, almost from the very commencement, Buddhism has been a religion with many (and occasionally diametrically opposite) doctrines, erected, from time to time, into conflicting sects and denominations.

We may pass over the Indian and Chinese sects, [*+] which have now none but an antiquarian value. All that has come in the way of denominationalism from India to Japan is the division into the three vehicles, or yanas [*++] as they are called. Shinshu

claims to belong to the last and truest of these, to the Real Mahayana, which has satisfactorily solved the problem of making the personal experience of the individual believer serve for the salvation of others.