is new
residence, he organized an administrative machine on the exact lines
of that of the Court.

ENGRAVING: KO-NO-MA (ROOM) NISHI (WEST) HONGWAN-JI TEMPLE, AT KYOTO
(An example of "Shoinzukuri" building)

Thenceforth the functions of Imperialism were limited to matters of
etiquette and ceremony, all important State business being transacted
by the Ho-o and his camera entourage. If the decrees of the Court
clashed with those of the cloister, as was occasionally inevitable,
the former had to give way. Thus, it can scarcely be said that there
was any division of authority. But neither was there any progress.
The earnest efforts made by Go-Sanjo to check the abuse of sales of
rank and office as well as the alienation of State lands into private
manors, were rendered wholly abortive under the sway of Shirakawa.
The cloistered Emperor was a slave of superstition. He caused no less
than six temples* to be built of special grandeur, and to the
principal of these (Hosho-ji) he made frequent visits in state, on
which occasions gorgeous ceremonies were performed. He erected the
Temple of the 33,333 Images of Kwannon (the Sanjusangen-do) in Kyoto;
he made four progresses to the monastery at Koya and eight to that at
Kumano; he commissioned artists to paint 5470 Buddhist pictures,
sculptors to cast 127 statues each sixteen feet high; 3150 life-size,
and 2930 of three feet or less, and he raised twenty-one large
pagodas and 446,630 small ones.

*These were designated Roku-sho-ji, or "six excellent temples."

His respect for Buddhism was so extreme that he strictly interdicted
the taking of life in any form, a veto which involved the destruction
of eight thousand fishing nets and the loss of their means of
sustenance to innumerable fishermen, as well as the release of all
falcons kept for hawking. It has even been suggested that Shirakawa's
piety amounted to a species of insanity, for, on one occasion, when
rain prevented a contemplated progress to Hosho-ji, he sentenced the
rain to imprisonment and caused a quantity to be confined in a
vessel.* To the nation, however, all this meant something very much
more than a mere freak. It meant that the treasury was depleted and
that revenue had to be obtained by recourse to the abuses which
Go-Sanjo had struggled so earnestly to check, the sale of offices and
ranks, even in perpetuity, and the inclusion of great tracts of State
land in private manors.

*This silliness was spoken of b