Koken, who followed him on the throne, carried her devotion still further. In the great temple of Todaiji 5000 monks recited the daily offices, and an Imperial decree forbade the taking of all life. After a reign of ten years, her minister, Fujiwara Nakamaro, advised her to abdicate in favour of a distant cousin, Junnin (759-764), and an unlawful affection which she had conceived for an ambitious and worldly priest, Dokyo, led her to acquiesce. But the, retirement of the Empress was not what Dokyo desired, and Dokyo had great influence with the clergy. A civil war ensued. Dokyo and his followers defeated Fujiwara in a battle fought in the province of Omi, after which the victorious monk dethroned Junnin and restored Koken to power. Junnin was banished to Awaji, where he died the following year. For centuries he was known in history as Awaji no haitei (the Imperial Exile of Awaji), and it was not till 1871 that tardy justice was done to his memory by his restoration, under the name of Junnin, to the official list of emperors.

Koken then reascended the throne as Shotoku. She had owed her restoration to the fidelity of her paramour,

and he claimed his reward. Dokyo took the title of Ho-o (the word which the Japanese always use for the Pope), and he claimed a temporal throne as well. But here public opinion stepped in, and the god of the temple of Hachiman at Usa, a god then reverenced by Buddhist and Shintoist alike, pronounced his verdict. Never yet, he said, had a subject dared to raise himself to the Imperial throne. Shotoku was reluctantly compelled to banish her lover. A very short time after, she died (769).

It was in the midst of these events that Saicho was born. And things did not go much better as time went on. Shotoku was succeeded by Konin (770-781), but the change of sovereign brought no relief to the country. The Fujiwaras were reinstalled in office, it is true, and the meddling Pope Dokyo banished to a safe distance, in what was then the remote province of Shimotsuke. But the Nara monks were not pleased to see an end put to their temporal power, and in the next reign, that of Kwammu (782-805), an insurrection of the Ebisu in the north--one of a series of similar outbreaks, and therefore possibly traceable to Dokyo's sinister influence--gave the authorities a vast amount of trouble. Kwammu resolved that, at whatever cost, the interference of the Buddhist clergy in matters of state must come to an end, and accordingly removed his capital, first to Uda, and eventually to his new city of Kyoto, or Heian.

Now, is it to be wondered at that the lad Saicho, brought up amidst such surroundings, should speedily