dition has woven into a beautiful legend the nation's impression
of this lady's piety. In an access of humility she vowed to wash the
bodies of a thousand beggars. Nine hundred and ninety-nine had been
completed when the last presented himself in the form of a loathsome
leper. Without a sign of repugnance the Empress continued her task,
and no sooner was the ablution concluded than the mendicant ascended
heavenwards, a glory of light radiating from his body. It is also
told of her that, having received in a dream a miniature golden image
of the goddess of Mercy (Kwannon) holding a baby in her arms, she
conceived a daughter who ultimately reigned as the Empress Koken.*

*The resemblance between the legend and the Buddhist account of the
Incarnation is plain. It has to be remembered that Nestorians had
carried Christianity to the Tang Court long before the days of Komyo.

In spite, however, of all this zeal for Buddhism, the nation did not
entirely abandon its traditional faith. The original cult had been
ancestor worship. Each great family had its uji no Kami, to whom it
made offerings and presented supplications. These deities were now
supplemented, not supplanted. They were grafted upon a Buddhist stem,
and shrines of the uji no Kami became uji-tera, or "uji temples."*
Thenceforth the temple (tera) took precedence of the shrine
(yashiro). When spoken of together they became ji-sha. This was the
beginning of Ryobu Shinto, or mixed Shinto, which found full
expression when Buddhist teachers, obedient to a spirit of toleration
born of their belief in the doctrines of metempsychosis and universal
perfectibility, asserted the creed that the Shinto Kami were avatars
(incarnations) of the numerous Buddhas.

*Thus, Kofukuji, built by Kamatari and Fuhito was called O-Nakatomi
no uji-tera; Onjo-ji, erected by Otomo Suguri, was known as Otomo no
uji-tera, and so forth.

The Nara epoch has not bequeathed to posterity many relics of the
great religious edifices that came into existence under Imperial
patronage during its seventy-five years. Built almost wholly of wood,
these temples were gradually destroyed by fire. One object, however,
defied the agent of destruction. It is a bronze Buddha of huge
proportions, known now to all the world as the "Nara Daibutsu." On
the fifteenth day of the tenth month of the fifteenth year of
Tembyo--7th of November, 743--the Emperor Shomu proclaimed his
intention of undertaking this work. The re