red
at his seven shrines in the seven home provinces (Kinai), and not to
the Merciful Buddha, though the saving grace of the latter had then
been preached for nearly a cycle. The first appeal to the foreign
deity in connexion with natural calamity was in the opening year
(642) of the Empress Kogyoku's reign when, in the presence of a
devastating drought, sacrifices of horses and cattle to the Shinto
Kami, changes of the market-places,** and prayers to the river gods
having all failed to bring relief, an imposing Buddhist service was
held in the south court of the Great Temple. "The images of Buddha,
of the bosatsu, and of the Four Heavenly Kings were magnificently
adorned; a multitude of priests read the Mahayana Sutra, and the
o-omi, Soga no Emishi, held a censer, burned incense, and prayed."
But there was no success; and not until the Empress herself had made
a progress to the source of a river and worshipped towards the four
quarters, did abundant rain fall.

*Only three earthquakes are recorded up to the year A.D. 645, and the
second alone (A.D. 599) is described as destructive.

**This was a Chinese custom, as was also the sacrificial rite
mentioned in the same context.

Such an incident cannot have contributed to popularize the Indian
creed. The people at large adhered to their traditional cult and were
easily swayed by superstitions. The first half of the seventh century
was marked by abnormal occurrences well calculated to disturb men's
minds. There were comets (twice); there was a meteor of large
dimensions; there were eclipses of the sun and moon; there were
occultations of Venus; there was snow in July and hail "as large as
peaches" in May, and there was a famine (621) when old people ate
roots of herbs and died by the wayside, when infants at the breast
perished with their mothers, and when thieves and robbers defied
authority. It is not, perhaps, surprising in such circumstances, and
when witches and wizards abounded, that people fell into strange
moods, and were persuaded to regard a caterpillar as the "insect of
the everlasting world," to worship it, and to throw away their
valuables in the belief that riches and perpetual youth would be thus
won. A miyatsuko, by name Kawakatsu, had the courage to kill the
designing preacher of this extravagance, and the moral epidemic was
thus stayed.

ENGRAVING: ONE OF THE STATUES OF "SHITENNO" IN THE KAIDAN-IN, TODAIJI
(Tembyo Sculpture, Eighth Century)

ENGRAV