he soil created by Izanami and
Izanagi steadily rose in honor.

Degradation of the Foreign Deities.

For example, the Indian saint Dharma is reputed to have come to the
Dragon-fly Country long before the advent of Buddhism, but the people
were not ready for him or his teachings, and therefore he returned to
India. So at least declares the book entitled San Kai Ri[27] (Mountain,
Sea and Earth), which is a re-reading and explanation of Japanese
mythology and tradition as recorded in the Kojiki, by a Ki[=o]t[=o]
priest of the Shin Shu Sect. Of this Dharma, it is said, that he outdid
the Roman Regulus who suffered involuntary loss of his eyelids at the
hands of the Carthaginians. Dharma cut off his own eyelids, because he
could not keep awake.[28] Throwing the offending flesh upon the ground,
he saw the tea-plant arise to help holy men to keep vigil. Daruma, as
the Japanese spell his name, has a temple in central Japan. It is
related that when Sh[=o]toku, the first patron of Buddhism, was one day
walking abroad he found a poor man dying of hunger, who refused to
answer any questions or give his name. Sh[=o]toku ordered food to be
given him, and wrapped his own mantle round him. Next day the beggar
died, and the prince charitably had him buried on the spot. Shortly
afterward it was observed that the mantle was lying neatly folded up, on
the tomb, which on examination proved to be empty. The supposed dying
beggar was no other than the Indian Saint Dharma, and a pagoda was built
over the grave, in which images of the priest and saint were
enshrined.[29] Yet, alas, to-day Daruma the Hindoo and foreigner,
despite his avatar, his humility, his vigils and his self-mutilation,
has been degraded to be the shop-sign of the tobacconists. Besides being
ruthlessly caricatured, he is usually pictured with a scowl, his lidless
eyes as wide open as those upon a Chinese junk-prow or an Egyptian
coffin-lid. Often even, he has a pipe in his mouth--a comical
anachronism, suggestive to the smoker of the dark ages that knew no
tobacco, before nicotine made the whole world of savage and of civilized
kin. Legless dolls and snow-men are named after this foreigner, whose
name is associated almost entirely with what is ludicrous.

On K[=o]b[=o]'s expounding his scheme to the Mikado, the emperor was so
pleased with his servant's ingenuity, that he gave it the name of
Riy[=o]bu[30] Shint[=o]; that is, the two-fold divine doctrine, double
way of