to the immortal priest
Kukai (Kobo Daishi), who is said to have elaborated the doctrine in
the early years of the ninth century. Both seem wrong.

SUPERSTITIONS

Side by side with the vigorous Buddhism of the Nara epoch, strange
superstitions obtained currency and credence. Two may be mentioned as
illustrating the mood of the age. One related to an ascetic, En no
Ubasoku, who was worshipped by the people of Kinai under the name of
En no Gyoja (En the anchorite). He lived in a cave on Katsuragi Mount
for forty years, wore garments made of wistaria bark, and ate only
pine leaves steeped in spring water. During the night he compelled
demons to draw water and gather firewood, and during the day he rode
upon clouds of five colours. The Kami Hitokotonushi, having been
threatened by him for neglecting his orders, inspired a man to accuse
him of treasonable designs, and the Emperor Mommu sent soldiers to
arrest him. But as he was able to evade them by recourse to his art
of flying, they apprehended his mother in his stead, whereupon he at
once gave himself up. In consideration of his filial piety his
punishment was commuted to exile on an island off the Izu coast, and
in deference to the Imperial orders he remained there quietly
throughout the day, but devoted the night to flying to the summit of
Mount Fuji or gliding over the sea. This En no Gyoja was the founder
of a sect of priests calling themselves Yamabushi.

The second superstition relates to one of the genii named Kume. By
the practice of asceticism he obtained supernatural power, and while
riding one day upon a cloud, he passed above a beautiful girl washing
clothes in a river, and became so enamoured of her that he lost his
superhuman capacities and fell at her feet. She became his wife.
Years afterwards it chanced that he was called out for forced labour,
and, being taunted by the officials as a pseudo-genius, he fasted and
prayed for seven days and seven nights. On the eighth morning a
thunder-storm visited the scene, and after it, a quantity of heavy
timber was found to have been moved, without any human effort, from
the forest to the site of the projected building. The Emperor,
hearing of this, granted him forty-five acres, on which he built the
temple of Kume-dera.

Such tales found credence in the Nara epoch, and indeed all through
the annals of early Japan there runs a well-marked thread of
superstition which owed something of its obtrusiveness to interco