Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
enjoy the benefits of a visit to a famous shrine without actually going there, by selling to
them the amulets and inscriptions that they would have received, and also, for a considera-
tion, transmitting to the appropriate god the prayers and requests that the suppliants would
have preferred to make themselves had they been able to afford the time and the money.
Generallyspeaking,
shintō
priestsdidnothavetopracticeanyausterities.Theirreligion
stresses a full life, with complete enjoyment of the pleasures of food and drink and family
life. Even though, before the Meiji period, the two religions of
shintō
and Buddhism were
theoretically combined, so that
shintō
gods were incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon,
nevertheless, withsomemarginalexceptions, thedistinctions between thetworeligions re-
mained fairly clear, as did that between the two priesthoods. The shrines at Ise, whose god
was the Imperial ancestress, and thus the family god of the Emperor, were the only ones to
keep Buddhist priests off their premises, and they even devised a special derogatory lan-
guage to refer to them, calling them “shaven-pates.”
The Buddhist priesthood was quite different from that of the
shintō
religion, as it was
not fundamentally an intermediary between the masses of believers and the Buddha. The
priests themselves were the believers, seeking by their devotions to climb through the
gradesofcreationtoachieveBuddhahoodforthemselves.Thevarioussects,someofwhich
go back to the appearance of the religion in Japan, almost amount to religions in them-
selves. Before Kyoto had become the capital in 794, the Emperor had had his palace in
Nara, and in this city there still remained the great temples of the old sects, whose beliefs
were not remotely concerned with the masses, but who spent their time looking after their
treasures and indulging in philosophical discussion. Some centuries later there were oth-
er foundations, the great complexes of monasteries and temples on Mt Hiei, just east of
Kyoto, and on Mt Koya, south of Osaka. They were not so powerful as they had been be-
fore Oda Nobunaga's persecutions, but were still of great importance. The Buddhism they
practiced was full of symbolic ritual and arcane lore. The Zen sect, with centers round
Kyoto and in Kamakura, the center of administration of an earlier shogunate, had a min-
imum of ritual, but concentrated on a training in meditation and search for enlightenment:
its austere methods, and emphasis upon intuition and authority, endeared it to the warrior
class.
These sects all taught that a man might achieve Buddhahood through his own efforts,
although others might help him either by their teaching or by suitable prayers when he was
deadandintheunderworld,sothathecouldgomorequicklyonhiswaytohisnextincarn-
ation. The next development was the emergence of the various “Pure Land” sects, which
taught that salvation depended upon the efforts of another, of the Buddha called Amida in
Japanese (Amithaba in Sanskrit), who would grant everlasting joy to those who recited in
faith and sincerity the phrase “Glory to the Buddha Amida,” for they would spend the rest
