All Japanese popular religion of the past has been intensely local and patriotic.  The ancient idea that Nippon was the first country created and the centre of the world, has persisted through the ages, modifying every imported religion.  Hence the noticeable fact in Japanese Buddhism, of the comparative degradation of the Hindu deities and the exaltation of those which were native to the soil.

The normal Japanese, be he priest or lay brother, theologian or statesman, is nothing if not patriotic.  Even the Chinese gods and goddesses which, clothed in Indian drapery and still preserving their Aryan features, were imported to Japan, could not hold their own in competition with the popularity of the indigenous inhabitants of the Japanese pantheon.  The normal Japanese eye does not see the ideals of beauty in the human face and form in common with the Aryan vision.  Benten or Knanon, with the features and drapery of the homelike beauties of Yamato or Adzuma, have ever been more lovely to the admiring eye of the Japanese sailor and farmer, than the Aryan features of the idols imported from India.  So also, the worshipper to whom the lovely scenery of Japan was fresh from the hands of the kami who were so much like himself, turned naturally in preference, to the “gods many” of his own land.

Succeeding centuries only made it worse for the imported devas or gods, while the kami, or the gods sprung from the soil created by Izanami and Izanagi steadily rose in honor.

Degradation of the Foreign Deities.

For example, the Indian saint Dharma is reputed to have come to the Dragon-fly Country long before the advent of Buddhism, but the people were not ready for him or his teachings, and therefore he returned to India.  So at least declares the book entitled San Kai Ri[27] (Mountain, Sea and Earth), which is a re-reading and explanation of Japanese mythology and tradition as recorded in the Kojiki, by a Ki[=o]t[=o] priest of the Shin Shu Sect.  Of this Dharma, it is said, that he outdid the Roman Regulus who suffered involuntary loss of his eyelids at the hands of the Carthaginians.  Dharma cut off his own eyelids, because he could not keep awake.[28] Throwing the offending flesh upon the ground, he saw the tea-plant arise to help holy men to keep vigil.  Daruma, as the Japanese spell his name, has a temple in central Japan.  It is related that when Sh[=o]toku, the first patron of Buddhism, was one day walking abroad he found a poor man dying of hunger, who refused to answer any questions or give his name.  Sh[=o]toku ordered food to be given him, and wrapped his own mantle round him.  Next day the beggar died, and the prince charitably had him buried on the spot.  Shortly afterward it was observed that the mantle was lying neatly folded up, on the tomb, which on examination proved to be empty.  The supposed dying beggar was no other than the Indian Saint Dharma, and a pagoda was built over the grave, in which images