His ministers, who were required to worship
these maskers, vainly remonstrated as also when he accepted a sort of
Sibylline book from a nun who alleged that she had ascended to heaven
and received it there.

The next Emperor, Tai-Tsung, was converted to Buddhism by his Minister
Wang Chin,[658] a man of great abilities who was subsequently
sentenced to death for corruption, though the Emperor commuted the
sentence to banishment. Tai-Tsung expounded the scriptures in public
himself and the sacred books were carried from one temple to another
in state carriages with the same pomp as the sovereign. In 768 the
eunuch Yu Chao-En[659] built a great Buddhist temple dedicated to the
memory of the Emperor's deceased mother. In spite of his minister's
remonstrances, His Majesty attended the opening and appointed 1000
monks and nuns to perform masses for the dead annually on the
fifteenth day of the seventh month. This anniversary became generally
observed as an All Souls' Day, and is still one of the most popular
festivals in China. Priests both Buddhist and Taoist recite prayers
for the departed, rice is scattered abroad to feed hungry ghosts and
clothes are burnt to be used by them in the land of shadows. Large
sheds are constructed in which are figures representing scenes from
the next world and the evening is enlivened by theatricals, music and
fire-works.[660]

The establishment of this festival was due to the celebrated teacher
Amogha (Pu-k'ung), and marks the official recognition by Chinese
Buddhism of those services for the dead which have rendered it popular
at the cost of forgetting its better aspects. Amogha was a native of
Ceylon (or, according to others, of Northern India), who arrived in
China in 719 with his teacher Vajrabodhi. After the latter's death he
revisited India and Ceylon in search of books and came back in 746. He
wished to return to his own country, but permission was refused and
until his death in 774 he was a considerable personage at Court,
receiving high rank and titles. The Chinese Tripitaka contains 108
translations[661] ascribed to him, mostly of a tantric character,
though to the honour of China it must be said that the erotic
mysticism of some Indian tantras never found favour there. Amogha is a
considerable, though not auspicious, figure in the history of Chinese
Buddhism, and, so far as such changes can be the work of one man, on
him rests the responsibility of making it become in popular e