The Creed of Half Japan
CHAPTER XIX — BUDDHISM DURING THE NARA PERIOD [*1] FROM A.D. 621-782

^224:1 It is said of Zendo that he and his disciples were much given to itinerant preaching. So were the Nestorians. The Greek merchant Cosmas Indicopleustes, who was in India A.D. 535, mentions a Nestorian order of itinerant preachers named Periodeutae, or wanderers, who were busy in his days evangelizing in N. W. India. Olopen himself. may have been one; we find him in China and then in India. It is possible that Kuya and Eikwan may have been itinerant preachers after this type, having learned the value of it from Zendo. So also may have been the mysterious personage who, in 1095, appeared to Ryonin, the founder of the Yudzunembutsu, and told him of the "One man that stood for all men, and the one religious act that embraced all others." Ippen (1239-1239), the founder of the Ji Sect, wandered in his allegiance from the Tendai to the Seizanha of the Jodo, and finally founded a sect of his own. He was a great student of Zendo, both as a teacher and as an artist, and his sect was intended to be a reproduction of Zendo's teachings. His nickname was Yugyo Shonin, "the itinerating preacher," and to this day, the head of the Ji sect is supposed to be always travelling about the country preaching.