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A HANDBOOK OF MODERN JAPAN

ren, Ji, Yuzu Nembutsu. Moreover, as the last two of these are comparatively insignificant, the mere mention of their names is enough, but a little more should be said concerning each of the other six.

1. The Tendai sect is the oldest, but now ranks among the lowest. It belongs to the school which "sought to define truth and to find salvation in knowledge": but as the truth was often too abstruse for the mass, it must be dealt out, by means of pious devices, according to the ability of the learner; so that the disciples of this sect have been called the Jesuits of Buddhism.

2. To the same school belongs the Shingon sect, which is only a year younger than the former sect and now ranks third in the list. It was founded by the celebrated priest Kōbō Daishi; and its doctrines also are quite abstruse. This is the sect which is responsible for that mixing of Shintō and Buddhism that prevailed for so many centuries by the adoption of Shintō deities into the Buddhist pantheon. These believers are sometimes called the Gnostics of Buddhism.

3. The Zen sect represents the school which teaches that "abstract contemplation leads to a knowledge of saving truth." "Look carefully within, and there you will find the Buddha." This sect arose probably "out of a reaction against the multiplication of idols," and was "a return to simpler forms of worship and conduct; therefore its disciples have been called "the Quakers of Japanese Buddhism." Others call them