oku
Taishi, his name is associated by tradition with achievements not
properly assignable to him, as the invention of the potter's
wheel--though it had been in use for centuries before his time--and
the production of various works of art which can scarcely have
occupied the attention of a religious zealot. By order of the Empress
Gensho, Gyogi was thrown into prison for a time, such a disturbing
effect did his propagandism produce on men's pursuit of ordinary
bread winning; but he soon emerged from durance and was taken into
reverent favour by the Emperor Shomu, who attached four hundred
priests as his disciples and conferred on him the titles of Dai-Sojo
(Great Hierarch) and Dai-Bosatsu (Great Bodhisattva).

The enigma of the people's patience under the stupendous burdens
imposed on them by the fanatic piety of Shomu and his consort, Komyo,
finds a solution in the co-operation of Gyogi, whose speech and
presence exercised more influence than a hundred Imperial edicts. It
is recorded that, by way of corollary to the task of reconciling the
nation to the Nara Court's pious extravagance, Gyogi compassed the
erection of no less than forty-nine temples. But perhaps the most
memorable event in his career was the part he took in reconciling the
indigenous faith and the imported. However fervent Shomu's belief in
Buddhism, the country he ruled was the country of the Kami, and on
descent from the Kami his own title to the throne rested. Thus,
qualms of conscience may well have visited him when he remembered the
comparatively neglected shrine of the Sun goddess at Ise. Gyogi
undertook to consult the will of the goddess, and carried back a
revelation which he interpreted in the sense that Amaterasu should be
regarded as an incarnation of the Buddha. The Emperor then despatched
to Ise a minister of State who obtained an oracle capable of similar
interpretation, and, on the night after receipt of this utterance,
the goddess, appearing to his Majesty in a vision, told him that the
sun was Birushana (Vairotchana Tathagata); or Dainishi (Great Sun)
Nyorai.

Thus was originated a theory which enabled Buddhism and Shinto to
walk hand in hand for a thousand years, the theory that the Shinto
Kami are avatars of the Buddha. Some historians contend that this
idea must have been evolved and accepted before the maturity of the
project for casting the colossal image at Nara, and that the credit
probably belongs to Gembo; others attribute it