h the old Shint[=o] heart still
in it, making a strange growth in the eyes of the continental believers.
To the Northern and Southern was now added an Eastern or Japanese
Buddhism.

Who was the wonder-worker that annexed the Land of the Gods to Buddhadom
and re-read the Kojiki as a sutra, and all Japanese history and
traditions as only a chapter of the incarnations of Buddha?

K[=o]b[=o] the Wonder Worker.

The Philo and Euhemerus of Japan was the priest Kukai, who was born in
the province of Sanuki, in the year 774. He is better known by his
posthumous title K[=o]b[=o] Daishi, or the Great Teacher who promulgates
the Law. By this name we shall call him. About his birth, life and
death, have multiplied the usual swaddling bands of Japanese legend and
tradition,[10] and to his tomb at the temple on Mount K[=o]-ya, the
Campo Santo of Japanese Buddhism, still gather innumerable pilgrims. The
"hall of ten thousand lamps," each flame emblematic of the Wisdom that
saves, is not, indeed, in these days lighted annually as of old; but the
vulgar yet believe that the great master still lives in his mausoleum,
in a state of profoundly silent meditation. Into the hall of bones near
by, covering a deep pit, the teeth and "Adam's apple" of the cremated
bodies of believers are thrown by their relatives, though the pit is
cleared out every three years. The devotees believe that by thus
disposing of the teeth and "Adam's apple," they obtain the same
spiritual privileges as if they were actually entombed there, that is,
of being born again into the heaven of the Bodhisattva or the Pure Land
of Absolute Bliss, by virtue of the mystic formulas repeated by the
great master in his lifetime.

Let us sketch the life of K[=o]b[=o],

First named Toto-mono, or Treasure, by his parents, who sent him to
Ki[=o]t[=o] to be educated for the priesthood, the youth spent four
years in the study of the Chinese classics. Dissatisfied with the
teachings of Confucius, he became a disciple of a famous Buddhist
priest, named Iwabuchi (Rock-edge or throne). Soon taking upon himself
the vows of the monk, he was first named Kukai, meaning "space and sea,"
or heaven and earth.[11] He overcame the dragons that assaulted him, by
prayers, by spitting at them the rays of the evening star which had
flown from heaven into his mouth and by repeating the mystic formulas
called Dharani.[12] Annoyed by hobgoblins with whom he was obliged to
converse, he got rid of