“The wisdom that is from above is ... without variance, without
    hypocrisy.”—­James.

    “The mystery of God, even Christ in whom are all the treasures
    of wisdom and knowledge.”—­Paul.

CHAPTER VIII — NORTHERN BUDDHISM IN ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

Chronological Outline.

In sketching the history of the doctrinal developments of Buddhism in Japan, we note that the system, greatly corrupted from its original simplicity, was in 552 A.D. already a millennium old.  Several distinct phases of the much-altered faith of Gautama, were introduced into the islands at various times between the sixth and the ninth century.  From these and from others of native origin have sprung the larger Japanese sects.  Even as late as the seventeenth century, novelties in Buddhism were imported from China, and the exotics took root in Japanese soil; but then, with a single exception, only to grow as curiosities in the garden, rather than as the great forests, which had already sprung from imported and native specimens.

We may divide the period of the doctrinal development of Buddhism in Japan into four epochs: 

I. The first, from 552 to 805 A.D., will cover the first six sects, which had for their centre of propagation, Nara, the southern capital.

II.  Then follows Riy[=o]bu Buddhism, from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.

III.  This was succeeded by another explosion of doctrine wholly and peculiarly Japanese, and by a wide missionary propagation.

IV.  From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, there is little that is doctrinally noticeable, until our own time, when the new Buddhism of to-day claims at least a passing notice.

The Japanese writers of ecclesiastical history classify in three groups the twelve great sects as the first six, the two mediaeval, and the four modern sects.

In this lecture we shall merely summarize the characteristics of the first five sects which existed before the opening of the ninth century but which are not formally extant at the present time, and treat more fully the purely Japanese developments.  The first three sects may be grouped under the head of the Hinayana, or Smaller Vehicle, as Southern or primitive orthodox Buddhism is usually called.

Most of the early sects, as will be seen, were founded upon some particular sutra, or upon selections or collections of sutras.  They correspond to some extent with the manifold sects of Christendom, and yet this illustration or reference must not be misleading.  It is not as though a new Christian sect, for example, were in A.D. 500 to be formed wholly on the gospel of Luke, or the book of the Revelation; nor as though a new sect should now arise in Norway or Tennessee because of a special emphasis laid on a combination of the epistle to the Corinthians and the book of Daniel.  It is rather as though distinct names and organizations should be founded upon the writings of Tertullian, of Augustine, of Luther, or of Calvin, and that such sects should accept the literary work of these scholars not only as commentaries but as Holy Scripture itself.