has the Commentary by Shotoku ever been made accessible to Western scholars. All I know of the "Shomangyo," the Sutra treating of the duties of women, is that it is classed by Nanjo among the Avatamsaka Scriptures which formed the Canon used by the Yogacharya sect, the Japanese Hosso. It is therefore a writing of a comparatively late date.' Of the "Yuimakyo," which deals with the duties of the Buddhist layman, there is fortunately an English translation, published in 1897 in the columns of a now defunct periodical, the Hansei Zasshi. It is too lengthy to be reproduced here, but it is very practical, and contains a very full summary of the religious life as viewed by the Mahayanist. A man who should fashion his life according to its precepts would come very near to being a holy man. He might, however, be a prig.

Shotoku was also a man who believed in the power and efficacy of prayer. When his friend the Omi, Soga no Umako, lay ill, he instituted formal intercessions for his recovery, and a thousand persons took temporary vows to lead a monastic life until the sick man should recover. Shotoku's limitations were due to his exalted position. Had he been born a prince of a long- dethroned house, like Christ, with no thoughts before him of temporal power, or had he been able to make the renunciation of earthly position, which is such a touching and prominent feature in the life of S'akyamuni, he would have accomplished even more than he did. It was his misfortune that, like As'oka, he had to combine the offices of priest and prince in his own person. When a ruling prince takes to preaching, there is always a danger lest the

doctrine, becoming superficially popular, should become perverted. It was so in As'oka's case; it was so in Shotoku's. Three years after his death stringent measures had to be taken to enforce discipline amongst an immoral clergy, and the Nara age, to which we are now coming, was a very corrupt and superstitious one. There is no healthy religion of any kind that does not involve the bearing of a cross of some sort or other.