noble family, that of Soga no Iname, whose household had possibly been already converted to Buddhism, advised the sovereign to accept the gift. Another section of the nobility, headed by Mononobe no Okoshi and Nakatomi no Kanako, was furiously opposed to having any dealings with a new religion which could not be brought into the country without offence to the national gods. The Emperor temporized. He entrusted the care of the images and books to Soga no Iname, as though to allow those who would to adopt the new religion, without committing himself to any definite line of action in this respect. Soga housed the idols in his own villa, which he converted into a place of worship. Soon after this a pestilence broke out, which was taken to denote the anger of the native gods. Soga's temple was destroyed by a mob, and the great statue of the Buddha thrown into the canal at Naniwa. Then followed another portent--a flash of lightning from a cloudless sky, which set fire to the Imperial Palace. This was clearly a token of the anger of the Hotoke. The offending statue was fished out of the river, and reverently placed in a suitable abode, and the Emperor, as a further act of reparation, caused two images to be carved in wood and set up at Hoshino. This was the first beginning of the glyptic arts in Japan. At the same time he sent a prudent message to the King of Kudara, asking him to send no more Buddhist bonzes or images, but requesting to be supplied with physicians, apothecaries, soothsayers, almanack-makers, and artisans, and promising in return to supply him with munitions of

war. This last clause looks very much as though an offensive and defensive alliance had been really the aim of the King of Kudara.

The bonzes and images, however, continued to come. It cost a civil war and many a riot before Buddhism became a permanent institution. It possibly cost even more, for there was something suspicious about the death of the Emperor Sujun (592), if not about those of his predecessors, Bidatsu (586) and Yomei (587); but the proselytizing zeal of the Korean Court and their supporters in Japan (whose numbers may have increased with the opposition raised by the Kami-worshippers) knew no discouragement. Architects, wood-carvers, and almanack-makers came. Books on geography and astronomy, which the Buddhists, from their wide-reaching connections, were most fitted to teach, books on magic, and almanacks, of which they had almost a monopoly, came, and were eagerly received by the Japanese, who have always had a desire to know. But priests came too, and nuns, and in their hands were books, relics, and sacred images of Maitreya, of Amitabha with his two companions, of Kwannon the Deity of Mercy, so that by the death of Shotoku Taishi there were 46 temples and nearly 1400 monks and nuns composing the staff of Buddhist missions. Many sacred books came also, for