e, is believed by
Buddhists to represent Avalokitesvara; but, in recent times he has been
recognized, detected and recaptured by the Shint[=o]ists as Kotohira.
The goddess Kishi, and that miscellaneous assortment or group known as
the Seven Patrons of Happiness, which form a sort of encyclopaedia or
museum of curiosities derived from the cults of India, China and Japan,
are also components of the amazing menagerie and pantheon of this sect,
in which scholasticism run mad, and emotional kindness to animals become
maudlin, join hands.

The Ultra-realism of Northern Buddhism.

Like most of the other Japanese sects, the Nichirenites claim that their
principles are contained in the Hok-ke-ki[=o], which is considered the
consummate white flower of Buddhist doctrine and literature. This is the
Japanese name for that famous sutra, the Saddharma Pundarika, so often
mentioned in these chapters but a thousand-fold more so in Japanese
literature. The Ten-dai and the Nichiren sects are allied, in that both
lay supreme emphasis upon this sutra; but the former interprets it with
an intellectual, and the latter with an emotional emphasis.
Philosophically, the two bodies have much in common. Outwardly they are
very far apart. One has but to read their favorite scripture, to see the
norm upon which the gorgeous art of Japan has been developed. Probably
no single book in the voluminous canon of the Greater Vehicle gives one
so masterful a key to Japanese Buddhism. Its pages are crowded with
sensuous descriptions of all that is attractive to both the reason and
the understanding. Its descriptions of Paradise are those which would
suit also the realistic Mussulman. Its rhetoric and visions seem to be
those of some oriental De Quincey, who, out of the dreams of an
opium-eater, has made the law-book of a religion. Translated into
matter-of-fact Chinese, none better than Nichiren knew how to present
its realism to his people.

In its ethical standards, which are two, this sect, like most others,
prescribes one course of life for the monk, which is difficult, and
another for the laity, which is easy. The central dogma is that every
part of the universe, including not only gods and men, but animals,
plants and the very mud itself, is capable, by successive
transmigrations, of attaining to Buddhaship. In one sense, Nichirenism
is the transfiguration of atheistic evolution. In its teachings there
are also two forms: the one, largely in symb