In this, K[=o]b[=o] did but follow out the ordinary Shint[=o] plan for securing god-possession and obtaining revelation; that is, by starving both the stomach and the brain.[20] After a week’s waiting he obtained the vision.  The Food-possessing Goddess revealed to him the yoke (or Yoga) by which he could harness the native and the imported gods to the chariot of victorious Buddhism.  She manifested herself to him and delivered the revelation on which his system is founded, and which, briefly stated, is as follows: 

All the Shint[=o] deities are avatars or incarnations of Buddha.  They were manifestations to the Japanese, before Gautama had become the enlightened one, or the jewel in the lotus, and before the holy wheel of the law or the sacred shastras and sutras had reached the island empire.  Further more, provision was made for the future gods and deified holy ones, who were to proceed from the loins of the Mikado, or other Japanese fathers, according to the saying of Buddha which is thus recorded in a Japanese popular work: 

“Life has a limited span, and naught may avail to extend it.  This is manifested by the impermanence of human beings, but yet, whenever necessary, I will hereafter make my appearance from time to time as a god (Kami), a sage (Confucian teacher), or a Buddha (Hotoke)."[21]

In a word, the Shint[=o] goddess talked as orthodox (Yoga) Buddhism as the ancient characters of the Indian, Persian and pre-Islam-Arabic stories in the Arabian Nights now talk the purest Mohammedanism.[22] According to the words put into Gautama’s mouth at the time of his death, the Buddha was already to reappear in the particular form and in all the forms, acceptable to Shint[=o]ists, Confucianists, or Buddhists of whatever sect.

Descending from the shrine of vision and revelation, with a complete scheme of reconciliation, with correlated catalogues of Shint[=o] and Buddhist gods, with liturgies, with lists of old popular festivals newly named, with the apparatus of art to captivate the senses, K[=o]b[=o] forthwith baptized each native Shint[=o] deity with a new Chinese-Buddhistic name.  For every Shint[=o] festival he arranged a corresponding Buddhist’s saints’ day or gala time.  Then, training up a band of disciples, he sent them forth proclaiming the new irenicon.

The Hindu Yoga Becomes Japanese Riy[=o]bu.

It was just the time for this brilliant and able ecclesiastic to succeed.  The power and personal influence of the Mikado were weakening, the court swarmed with monks, the rising military classes were already safely under the control of the shavelings, and the pen of learning had everywhere proved itself mightier than the sword and muscle.  K[=o]b[=o]’s particular dialectic weapons were those of the Yoga-chara, or in Japanese, the Shingon Shu, or Sect of the True Word.[23] He, like his Chinese master, taught that we can attain the state of the Enlightened or Buddha, while in the present physical body which was born of our parents.