been deified and worshipped.  It is evident that all the creatures in that Buddhist chamber of imagery, the Hokke Ki[=o], that could possibly be made into gods have received apotheosis.  The very book itself is also worshipped, for the Nichirenites are extreme believers in verbal inspiration, and pay divine honors to each jot and tittle of the sutra, which to them is a god.  They adore also the triad of the three precious ones, the Buddha, the Rule or Discipline, and the Organization; or, Being, Law, and Church.  The hideous idol, Fudo, “Eleven-faced,” “Horse-headed,” “Thousand-handed,” or girt in a robe of fiery flame, is believed by Buddhists to represent Avalokitesvara; but, in recent times he has been recognized, detected and recaptured by the Shint[=o]ists as Kotohira.  The goddess Kishi, and that miscellaneous assortment or group known as the Seven Patrons of Happiness, which form a sort of encyclopaedia or museum of curiosities derived from the cults of India, China and Japan, are also components of the amazing menagerie and pantheon of this sect, in which scholasticism run mad, and emotional kindness to animals become maudlin, join hands.

The Ultra-realism of Northern Buddhism.

Like most of the other Japanese sects, the Nichirenites claim that their principles are contained in the Hok-ke-ki[=o], which is considered the consummate white flower of Buddhist doctrine and literature.  This is the Japanese name for that famous sutra, the Saddharma Pundarika, so often mentioned in these chapters but a thousand-fold more so in Japanese literature.  The Ten-dai and the Nichiren sects are allied, in that both lay supreme emphasis upon this sutra; but the former interprets it with an intellectual, and the latter with an emotional emphasis.  Philosophically, the two bodies have much in common.  Outwardly they are very far apart.  One has but to read their favorite scripture, to see the norm upon which the gorgeous art of Japan has been developed.  Probably no single book in the voluminous canon of the Greater Vehicle gives one so masterful a key to Japanese Buddhism.  Its pages are crowded with sensuous descriptions of all that is attractive to both the reason and the understanding.  Its descriptions of Paradise are those which would suit also the realistic Mussulman.  Its rhetoric and visions seem to be those of some oriental De Quincey, who, out of the dreams of an opium-eater, has made the law-book of a religion.  Translated into matter-of-fact Chinese, none better than Nichiren knew how to present its realism to his people.

In its ethical standards, which are two, this sect, like most others, prescribes one course of life for the monk, which is difficult, and another for the laity, which is easy.  The central dogma is that every part of the universe, including not only gods and men, but animals, plants and the very mud itself, is capable, by successive transmigrations, of attaining to Buddhaship.  In one sense, Nichirenism is the transfiguration of atheistic evolution.  In its teachings there are also two forms:  the one, largely in symbol, is intended to attract followers; the other, the pure truth, is employed to convert the obstinately ignorant, against their wills.  As in the history of the papal organization in Europe, a materialistic interpretation has been given to the canons of dogma and discipline.