ism of Japan and the other Buddhisms of the
Asian continent. If there be one cause, leading all others, we incline
to believe it is because Japanese Buddhism is not the Buddhism of
Gautama, but is so largely Riy[=o]bu or Mixed. Yet in the alloy, which
ingredient has preserved most of its qualities? Is Japanese Buddhism
really Shint[=o]ized Buddhism, or Buddhaized Shint[=o]? Which is the
parasite and which the parasitized? Is the hermit crab Shint[=o], and
the shell Buddhism, or _vice versa_? About as many corrupt elements from
Shint[=o] entered into the various Buddhist sects as Buddhism gave to
Shint[=o].

This process of Shint[=o]izing Buddhism or of Buddhaizing
Shint[=o]--that is, of combining Shint[=o] or purely Japanese ideas and
practices with the systems imported from India, went on for five
centuries. The old native habits and mental characteristics were not
eradicated or profoundly modified; they were rather safely preserved in
so-called Buddhism, not indeed as dead flies in amber but as live
creatures, fattening on a body, which, every year, while keeping outward
form and name, was being emptied of its normal and typical life. It is
no gain to pure water to add either microbes or the food which nourishes
them.

Buddhism Writes New Chapters of Decay.

Phenomenally, the victory was that of Buddhism. The mustard-seed has
indeed become a great tree, lodging every fowl of heaven, clean and
unclean; but potentially and in reality, the leavening power, as now
seen, seems to have been that of Shint[=o]. Or, to change metaphor,
since the hermit crab and the shell were separated by law only one
generation ago, in 1870, we shall soon, before many generations, discern
clearly which has the life and which has only the shell.[34]

There are but few literary monuments[35] of Riy[=o]buism, and it has
left few or no marks in the native chronicles, misnamed history, which
utterly omit or ignore so many things interesting to the student and
humanist.[36] Yet to this mixture or amalgamation of Buddhism with
Shint[=o], more probably than to any other direct influence, may also be
ascribed that striking alteration in the system of Chinese ethics or
Confucianism which differentiates the Japanese form from that prevalent
in China. That is, instead of filial piety, the relation of parent and
child, occupying the first place, loyalty, the relation of lord and
retainer, master and servant, became supreme. Although Buddhism made