Dengyo's teaching was founded upon the Buddhadology of the Lotus of Truth the Johan nine Gospel of Buddhism, so to speak. In it the personal Buddha was revealed in his real, though quasi-historical, and spiritual aspects. The historical Buddha, the revealer of the Way to Truth, is at the same time the Truth itself. These two aspects of Buddha's personality, to gether with his manifestations to believing spirits of all possible varieties, make up the Buddhist Trinity. All the practices of virtue, meditation, mysteries and the wisdom of philos ophy are, with Dengyo, to be concentrated in the belief in the trinitarian Buddha. Though the mystic side was the chief source of the influence which Dengyo and his successors exercised upon the court, other sides of his religion were cultivated in his monastery on Mount Hiei. In this way the hill monastery became a centre of Buddhist religion and learn ing and several branches of the later Buddhism flowed out of this fountain.
On the other side, Kobo's Buddhism loses sight of a personal Buddha in the mist of a mystic pantheism. It was a curious combina tion of phantastic idealism and extreme ma terialism. The mystic practices founded upon this doctrine became the chief attractions both to the court and the people. Kobo's ingenuity and zeal gradually overshadowed Dengyo's in fluence and many of the latter's followers found it more useful to emphasize the mystic side of their master's teaching. Thus the Japanese Buddhism of the four centuries from the ninth onward was chiefly a religion of mysteries.
During this period the growing centraliza tion of the government and the splendor of the court life, on the one side, and the hierarchic system of the two centres of mystic Buddhism, on the other, helped one another in their growth. Buddhist ceremonies became the order of the day in the court. Sermons and sacra ments in numerous temples were attended by throngs, both of the high and low in rank. Bishops and abbots became dignified nobles, exercising their influence upon affairs, political and military.
Still care must have been taken of the kami of old. The amalgamation of the kami-worship with Buddhism went on. While Dengyo's at tempt on this line was not quite successful; Kobo's mystic pantheism was just fitted for embracing the old deities into the Buddhist pan theon. The Ryobu, or syncretic, Shinto now came into vogue. Every Shinto sanctuary was attended by Buddhist priests and their rituals were a mixture. But as the Shinto belief was affected by Buddhism, so Buddhism was to a great , degree influenced by the Shinto religion. We can a systematized Shinto as ex isting after this time, and the syncretism con tinued till the Restoration of 1868.
The sway of the mystic Buddhism, how ever, was not limited to the external aspects of religious exercises. In the midst of solemn ceremonies and the luxurious splendor of the court life, the evanescence of worldly things was felt and the aspiration for an eternal bliss become conspicuous. The people, who had long since ceased to be naive children of nature, were led to the conscious consideration of the problems of human life and to self-introspec tion. Side by side with painting and sculpture,
literature imbued with Buddhistic sentiment be came a great influence. Romantic sentimental ism, combined with an uneasy spirit, marks many romances of the latter past of the period. Thus a current of disquieted and aspiring emo tion was flowing under the external brilliancies, both religious and social.
III. Religious Agitations (1200-I600).— The above-mentioned current finally manifested itself in a powerful way, when the Fujiwara clan, which furnished the sole directors of the flourishing court life and the ruling political forces, was overpowered by the military clans. Political and family strifes in the middle of the 12th century brought the weakness of the court to the light of day. To the place of the Fuji wara nobles the military clan of Taira suc ceeded. But this latter enjoyed only 30 years of luxurious life and was crushed by the Mina moto clan (in 1185). Instead of the refine ment and luxury of the preceding rulers the Minamoto rule was a stern militarism, and they ruled the whole country with their headquarters in an eastern province. This momen•us change, though long since prepared for, impressed deeply the people in the capital and the western provinces. Cherry blossoms in full bloom were dispersed suddenly 'by a frosty storm. Not only the poets felt so, but all the people saw the change actually take place before their eyes. It was not a mere political revolution. The Buddhist hierarchy lost its power together with its political supporters. The people's longing for a simple and appealing faith was no longer satisfied by elaborate mystifications and gor geous rituals. The result was the rise of pietism.
The germ of the pietist faith had been, for a hundred years, fostered in the monasteries belonging to Hiei. Faith in Amita the re deemer in the Western Pure Land (Dodo, or Sukhawati) had its propagators in several writers, painters and itinerant preachers. The time was ripe for its rise; sentiment and aspira tion demanded it. Its coming into power was signalized by Honen (1133-1212), the promul gator of the faith in the turn of the 12th and the 13th centuries. Honen opened the only gate of salvation that all might enter by a sim ple and devout faith in Amita's redeeming power. Amita's grace, into which we can be taken by invoking his name, was the gospel he brought forward to the salvation of him.. self and all those who would follow his faith. Conversion in masses took place; conversion of the nobles and courtiers amazed by the sud den decline of the court splendor, of the mili tary men disgusted with their barbarous pur suits, of the common people long since dis satisfied with the mere outward forms of reli gion. His saintly personality with his simple gospel of salvation was indeed a revelation of the serene light issuing from the Western Land of Bliss.