This influence seems to have reached its maximum during the reign of Shomu Tenno (724-748) and his Consort Komyo Kogo (the very name, a posthumous one, is in itself significant). Shomu Tenno was a very zealous Buddhist. He founded hospitals and charitable institutions, and his Empress distinguished herself by personally undertaking the nursing of lepers --a truly Christian work. Japan was in no position at the time to undertake hospital work unaided. Foreign doctors had to be employed, and the industry of Japanese students has recently shown us the presence in Japan, at the Court, of a Nestorian Christian (the Nestorian Christians were famous all

over the East for their skill in medicine). Here, therefore, we have possibly two instances of simultaneous collaboration, Buddhist and Christian uniting in the production of books in China, and in works of charity in Japan.

In 781, the Singanfu monument is erected, and shortly before, or afterwards, the Chinese Emperor finds reason for prohibiting the collaboration. In 782 the Emperor Kwammu comes to the throne of Japan. The Buddhists have been giving themselves airs for some time, and the ambitious priest Dokyo, intriguing with the Empress Shotoku (765-769), has assumed the title of Ho O, or "religious emperor," a kind of pope! Kwammu determines to put an end to the political intrigues of the Nara clergy, removes his capital to Kyoto, and sends Kobo and Dengyo to China to investigate religion. They come back, the one with the Shingon, the

other with the Tendai. Again it is significant that these sects, and especially the Tendai, which became practically the State religion of Japan for many centuries, were the very sects which had organized the persecution against Zendo, when he first began to preach his doctrine of Salvation by Faith in Amida.

But the light still shone, in spite of the opposition of the Tendai. Zendo's books came over to Japan, Mr. Tada tells us, at different times between 796 and 858, and several monks, such as Kuya and Eikwan, kept alive the faith in Amida, invoking His Name on Hieizan, or wandering, disguised as travelling priests or horsedealers (umakata), from province to province, preaching a simple faith to country peasants. And finally, the great Honen (Genial), breaking with the Tendai, as so many others had done, in order to return to the teaching of Zendo, founds at Kurodani a temple, still known as Konkai Komyoji, "the Illustrious Temple of the Golden Precept," which is to this day one of the chief seats of the Chinsei sub-division of the Jodo sect. And it is this Chinsei-ha which preserves Zendo's rule of making the Nembutsu an invocation of the Great Amida alone, to the exclusion of all the rest.

Footnotes