first public
temples for the service of Buddhism were Shotoku's Shitenno-ji and
Umako's Hoko-ji erected in 587.

AMOUNT OF THE O-MURAJI'S PROPERTY

In the Annals of Prince Shotoku (Taishi-deri) it is recorded that the
parts of the o-muraji's estate with which the temple of the Four
Kings was endowed were 273 members of his family and household; his
three houses and movable property, together with his domain measuring
186,890 shiro, and consisting of two areas of 128,640 shiro and
58,250 shiro in Kawachi and Settsu, respectively. The shiro is
variously reckoned at from 5% to 7.12 tsubo (1 tsubo = 36 square
feet). Taking the shiro as 6 tsubo, the above three areas total 1000
acres approximately. That this represented a part only of the
o-muraji's property is held by historians, who point to the fact that
the o-omi's wife, a younger sister of the o-muraji, incited her
husband to destroy Moriya for the sake of getting possession of his
wealth.

THE EMPEROR SUSHUN

The deaths of Prince Anahobe and Moriya left the Government
completely in the hands of Soga no Umako. There was no o-muraji; the
o-omi was supreme. At his instance the crown was placed upon the head
of his youngest nephew, Sushun. But Sushun entertained no friendship
for Umako nor any feeling of gratitude for the latter's action in
contriving his succession to the throne. Active, daring, and astute,
he judged the o-omi to be swayed solely by personal ambition, and he
placed no faith in the sincerity of the great official's Buddhist
propaganda. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the new faith prospered. When
the dying Emperor, Yomei, asked to be qualified for Nirvana, priests
were summoned from Kudara. They came in 588, the first year of
Sushun's reign, carrying relics (sarira), and they were accompanied
by ascetics, temple-architects, metal-founders, potters, and a
pictorial artist.

The Indian creed now began to present itself to the Japanese people,
not merely as a vehicle for securing insensibility to suffering in
this life and happiness in the next, but also as a great protagonist
of refined progress, gorgeous in paraphernalia, impressive in rites,
eminently practical in teachings, and substituting a vivid rainbow of
positive hope for the negative pallor of Shinto. Men began to adopt
the stole; women to take the veil, and people to visit the hills in
search of timbers suited for the frames of massive temples. Soga no
Umako, the ostensible leader of this great