the Hosso sect, founded by Hiouen Thsang after his return to China from his pilgrimage tours in India. Hiouen Thsang was a worthy follower of S'akyamuni, a painstaking scholar, and a man of judgment. We shall have to consider his personality and doctrines later on. The sect which he founded has ceased to have any organic existence in Japan.

Footnotes

^106:1 There is no definite date to be given for Nagarjuna, about whom, as about As'vaghosha, there are many legends. But he took part in Kanishka's Council (so it is said), and in that case his birth must have taken place about the time I have assigned for it.

^107:1 Tada Kanae, "Shoshingekowa," p. 225.

^107:2 In the Lankavatara Sutra (Jap. Ryogakyo) Shaka is made to prophesy the appearance of Nagarjuna six hundred years after his Nirvana.

^110:1 See my "Shinran and His Work," p. 51. I have in that book very fully discussed the doctrinal bearings of the Faith in Amida.

^111:1 Japanese very often divide the doctrines of S'akyamuni into three Vehicles. These are sometimes called the Hinayana, the Apparent Mahayana (i.e. of the Abhidharmas), and the True Mahayana (in which there is always salvation by faith, though the object of faith may be Amida, Vairoc'ana, S'akyamuni, or all the Buddhas). At other times they are also spoken of as the Vehicles of S'ravakas, Pratyekabuddhas, and Bodhisattvas, and this is the view taken in the Saddharmapundarika.

If we turn to Irenaeus, whom we may consider a somewhat younger contemporary of Nagarjuna's, we get the first mention of the Ophites, a Buddho-gnostic sect, known by various names, such as Naassenes, Peratae, Marcosians, etc., all of whose doctrines are very similar. Perhaps the best account of these sectaries will be found in Hippolytus, "Ref. omn. Haer.," bk. v. These men, he says, assert that the beginning of all things is "a Man and the Son of Man" (a term which will apply either to Amida, or to Christ, or to S'akyamuni); that he has three bodies--spiritual, psychic, material (which is true both of Amida and of S'akyamuni); that he has three natures--one that of the blessed man above, of Adamas (Sans. Ajita), which is true of Amida; a second a mortal one, below on earth; and a third, which is above and has no king over it (Hippolytus, op. cit., bk. v. pp. 150-151, ed. Migne). This "Man and the Son of Man" has appeared in various parts of the earth, each part having its own gods and saviours and godlike men. Such a one was Jesus, surnamed Christ, a Man with three natures, three bodies, three powers, who came upon earth in the days of Herod (pp. 176-7).

The Ophites also maintained that there were three churches--spiritual, psychic, material--an arrangement which again suggests the three Vehicles of the Mahayana.

^112:1 Nanjo, "Twelve Buddhist Sects," p. 51, etc.