Such dogmas were not able to live in organized forms, after the next importations of Buddhism which came in, not partly but wholly, under the name of the Mah[=a]yan[=a] or Great Vehicle, or Northern Buddhism.  By the new philosophy, more concrete and able to appeal more closely to the average man, these five schools, which, in their discussions, dealt almost wholly with noumena, were absorbed.  As matter of fact, none of them is now in existence, nor can we trace them, speaking broadly, beyond the tenth century.  Here and there, indeed, may be a temple bearing the name of one of the sects, or grades of doctrine, and occasionally an eccentric individual who “witnesses” to the old metaphysics; but these are but fossils or historical relics, and are generally regarded as such.

Against such baldness of philosophy not only might the cultivated Japanese intellect revolt and react, but as yet the common people of Japan, despite the modern priestly boast of the care of the imperial rulers for what the bonzes still love to call “the people’s religion,” were but slightly touched by the Indian faith.

The Great Vehicle.

The Kegon-Shu or Avatamsaka-sutra sect, is founded on a certain teaching which Gautama is said to have promulgated in nine assemblies held at seven different places during the second week of his enlightenment.  This sutra exists in no fewer than six texts, around each of which has gathered some interesting mythology.  The first two tests were held in memory and not committed to palm leaves; the second pair are secretly preserved in the dragon palace of Riu-gu[14] under the sea, and are not kept by the men of this world.  The fifth text of 100,000 verses, was obtained by a Bodhisattva from the palace of the dragon king of the world under the sea and transmitted to men in India.  The sixth is the abridged text.

It concerns us to notice that the shorter texts were translated into Chinese in the fourth century, and that later, other translations were made—­36,000 verses of the fifth text, 45,000 verses of the sixth text, etc.  When the doctrine of the sect had been perfected by the fifth patriarch and he lectured on the sutra, rays of white light came from his mouth, and there rained wonderful heavenly flowers.  In A.D. 736 a Chinese Vinaya teacher or instructor in Buddhist discipline, named D[=o]-sen, first brought the Kegon scriptures to Japan.  Four years later a Korean priest gave lectures on them in the Golden-Bell Hall of the Great Eastern Monastery at Nara.  He completed his task of expounding the sixty volumes in three years.  Henceforth, lecturing on this sutra became one of the yearly services of the Eastern Great Monastery.

“The Ke-gon sutra is the original book of Buddha’s teachings of his whole life.  All his teachings therefore sprang from this sutra.  If we attribute all the branches to the origin, we may say that there is no teaching of Buddha for his whole life except this sutra."[15] The title of the book, when literally translated, is Great-square-wide-Buddha-flower-adornment-teaching—­a title sufficiently indicative of its rhetoric.  The age of hard or bold thinking was giving way to flowery diction, and the Law was to be made easy through fine writing.