ts of this conglomerate, so typical of Japanese
religion, are from no fewer than four different sources: Brahmanism,
Buddhism, Taoism and Shint[=o]ism. "Thus, Bishamon is the Buddhist
_Vais'ramana_[42] and the Brahmanic Kuvera; Benten is Sarasvati, the
wife of Brahma; Daikoku is an extremely popularised form of Mahakala,
the black-faced Temple Guardian; Hotei has Taoist attributes, but is
regarded as an incarnation of Maitreya, the Buddhist Messiah;
Fuku-roku-jiu is of purely Taoist origin, and is perhaps a
personification of Lao-Tsze himself; Ju-ro-jin is almost certainly a
duplicate of Fuku-roku-jiu; and, lastly, Ebisu, as the son of Izanagi
and Izanami, is a contribution from the Shint[=o] hero-worship."[43] If
Riy[=o]bu Buddhism be two-fold, here is a texture or amalgam that is
_shi-bu_, four-fold. Let us watch lest _go-bu_, with Christianity mixed
in, be the next result of the process. To play the Japanese game of
go-ban, with Christianity as the fifth counter, and Jesus as a
Palestinian avatar of some Dhyani Buddha, crafty priests in Japan are
even now planning.

This illustration of the Seven Gods of Happiness, whose local
characters, functions and relations have been developed especially
within the last three or four hundred years, is but one of many that
could be adduced, showing what proceeded on a larger scale. The
Riy[=o]bu process made it almost impossible for the average native to
draw the line between history and mythology. It destroyed the boundary
lines, as Pantheism invariably does, between fact and fiction, truth and
falsehood. The Japanese mind, by a natural, possibly by a racial,
tendency, falls easily into Pantheism, which may be called the destroyer
of boundaries and the maker of chaos and ooze. Pretty much all early
Japanese "history" is ooze; yet there are grave and learned men, even in
the Constitutional Japan of the Meiji era--masters in their arts and
professions, graduates of technical and philosophical courses--who
solemnly talk about their "first emperor ascending the throne, B.C.
660," and to whom the dragon-born, early Mikados, and their
fellow-tribesmen, seen through the exaggerated mists of the Kojiki, are
divine personages.

The Gon-gen in the Processions.

While living in Japan between 1870 and 1874, the writer used to enjoy
watching and studying the long processions which celebrated the
foundation of temples, national or local festivals, or the completion of
some great publi