The San-ron Shu, as the Three-Shastra sect calls itself, is the sect of the Teachings of Buddha’s whole life.[13] Other sects are founded upon single sutras, a fact which makes the student liable to narrowness of opinion.  The San-ron gives greater breadth of view and catholicity of opinion.  The doctrines of the Greater Vehicle are the principal teachings of Gautama, and these are thoroughly explained in the three shastras used by this sect, which, it is claimed, contain Buddha’s own words.  The meanings of the titles of the three favorite sutras, are, The Middle Book, The Hundred, and The Book of Twelve Gates.  Other books of the canon are also studied and valued by this sect, but all of them are apt to be perused from a particular point of view; i.e., that of Pyrronism or infinite negation.

There are two lines of the transmission of this doctrine, both of them through China, though, the introduction to Japan was made from Korea, in 625 A.D.  Not to dwell upon the detail of history, the burden of this sect’s teaching, is, infinite negation or absolute nihilism.  Truth is the inconceivable state, or, in the words of the Japanese writer:  “The truth is nothing but the state where thoughts come to an end; the right meditation is to perceive this truth.  He who has obtained this meditation is called Buddha.  This is this doctrine of the San-ron sect.”

This sect, by its teachings of the Middle Path, seems to furnish a bridge from the Hinayana or Southern school, to the Mah[=a]yan[=a] or Northern school of Buddhism.  Part of its work, as set forth by the Rev. K[=o]-ch[=o] Ogurasu, of the Shin sect, is to defend the authenticity, genuineness and canonicity of the books which form the Northern body of scriptures.

In these two sects Hos-s[=o] and San-ron, called those of Middle Path, and much alike in principle and teaching, the whole end and aim of mental discipline, is nihilism—­in the one case subjective, and in the other absolute, the end and goal being nothing—­this view into the nature of things being considered the right one.

Is it any wonder that such teachings could in the long run satisfy neither the trained intellects nor the unthinking common people of Japan?  Is it far from the truth to suspect that, even when accepted by the Japanese courtiers and nobles, they were received, only too often, in a Platonic, not to say a Pickwickian, sense?  The Japanese is too polite to say “no” if he can possibly say “yes,” even when he does not mean it; while the common people all over the world, as between metaphysics and polytheism, choose the latter.  Is it any wonder that, along with this propagation of Nihilism as taught in the cloisters and the court, history informs us of many scandals and much immorality between the women of the court and the Buddhist monks?