[paragraph continues] Apocalypse. Isis teachings are described by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius, and others. They were of the general Gnostic type, and we note with interest that he and his followers used the word Caulaucau as a term apparently for God. Now, Caulaucau is that Buddhist term which is found along with Abraxas in the system of Basilides and in the Japanese Shingon. It brings the Japanese Mahayana very near to the holy ground of the New Testament--too near, perhaps, for some people.

One more point remains to be noticed. It is said both of Nicolas and of Basilides that their followers speedily lapsed into wild immoralities, quite at variance with the austere strictness which these two heresiarchs affected. I am not personally aware of any immoral practices amongst the Japanese Shingonists, but the Rev. Ekai Kawaguchi, the Buddhist priest who has travelled so long in Thibet, speaks of the immoral doctrines of the old sect of Lamas in that country, and likewise of an immoral sect of the Japanese Shingon which had to be suppressed on account of its filthy practices. So I conclude that the Shingon, like its parent Gnosticism, has, at some period in its history, presented the same sad contrast of the pure and the impure.

Footnotes

^58:1 Basilides, A.D. (circa) 110.

^58:2 Valentinus, A.D. (circa) 130.

^59:1 Bacon, "Wisdom of the Ancients," ch. xiii.

^61:1 See Church Quarterly Review, October, 1909.

^61:2 This thought is constantly expressed in the Saddharma pundarika. It was one of Nichiren's favourite topics.

^61:3 I have taken my matter mainly from Irenaeus and Epiphanius.

^62:1 See "Dissertations Praeviae in Irenaei Libros," in Migne's edition of Irenaeus, p. xxxviii.

^62:2 In Sanskrit Akshobya, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi. These, with the Central Roshana or Vairoc'ana, form the Five Dhyani Buddhas, the Gochi Nyorai of Japan. It is to be noted that Fukujoju is identified with S'akyamuni. Millioue ("Cat. Mus. Guimet," 1883, p. 204) identifies Amida with the Egyptian Amenti. In the funeral ritual of the Shingon he appears as Amrita, "The Immortal." I believe that it must have been this personage whom the Gnostics identified with Christ. There was evidently, from the case of Fukujoju, a disposition to identify the Dhyani Buddhas with actual teachers and saints, and it is quite evident that the Alexandrian Gnostics did not look upon Christ as the only Saviour.