CHAPTER XVII

BUDDHISM REACHES JAPAN

BUDDHISM reached Japan from Korea, and not at first from China.

Korea, in the age which we have been considering, was not as large a country as it is now. The whole of the district, from the Yalu river, which forms the present boundary of the Korean Empire, to the Tatong river, halfway between Wiju and Seoul, belonged to China. The rest of the peninsula was divided into three independent kingdoms: Koma, which occupied the eastern slopes, from the Tumen in the north down almost to the extreme south of the peninsula; Kudara, which occupied the whole of the western slopes from the Chinese frontier to the extreme south; and the small kingdom of Shiragi in the south-eastern corner of the peninsula, on the side nearest to Japan. The southernmost province of Shiragi was the province of Mimana, which may be said to have been at one time practically a Japanese colony.

Buddhism had reached the kingdom of Koma in A.D. 372, the missionary having been sent from Singanfu by the ruler of the Former Thsin (A.D. 350-394). A ruler of the Eastern Tsin (317 to 420) had sent an Indian priest, Marananda, to preach the Gospel of Buddha in Kudara in the year 384. Shiragi had received the doctrine from the neighbouring kingdom of Koma in

[paragraph continues] A.D. 424. The well-known propensity of the Buddhist priesthood for political intrigue and amateur statecraft makes it highly probable that the rival rulers of the Thsin and the Tsin, casting about for any straw with which to support their tottering dynasties, made use of the Buddhist missionaries for political purposes to gain allies for themselves in Koma and Kudara, both of which kingdoms touched the Chinese frontiers. As to the exact nature of the Korean Buddhism we have no accurate information. The division into sects in China was still new, and sectarian lines were not very clearly defined. The doctrine still wore its Indian and predominantly Hinayanistic character; Vasubandhu, Asangha, and other great teachers of Mahayana had possibly not been born when Buddhism reached Korea. There are indications to show that much attention was paid to the Vinaya discipline, and that whatever speculation there was ran along the lines laid down by the Kusha, Sanron, and Jojitsu sects (see Chapter XVI.).