on the altars, beside the central image, be it that of Shaka or of Amida, are Bodhisattvas or Buddhas by brevet, beings in every state of existence, as well as deities of many names and forms.  Abstract ideas and attributes are expressed in the art language not only of Japan, Korea and China, but also in that of India and even of Persia and Greece,[27] until one wonders how an Aryan religion, like Buddhism, could have so conquered and unified the many nations of Chinese Asia.  He wonders, indeed, until he remembers how it has itself been transformed and changed in popular substance, from lofty metaphysics and ethics into pantheism for the shorn, and into polytheism for the unshorn.

Looking at early Japanese pictures with the eye of the historian, as well as of the connoisseur of art, one will see that the first real school of Japanese art was Buddhistic.  The modern school of pictorial art, named from the monkish phrase, Ukioye—­pictures of the Passing World—­is indeed very interesting to the western student, because it seems to be more in touch with the human nature of the whole world, as distinct from what is local, Chinese, or sectarian.  Yet, casting a glance back of the mediaeval Kano, Chinese and Yamato-Tosa styles, he finds that Buddhism gave Japan her first examples of and stimulus to pictorial art.[28] He sees further that instead of the monochrome of Chinese exotic art, or the first rude attempts of the native pencil, Buddhism began Japanese sculpture, carving and nearly every other form of plastic or pictorial representation, in which are all the elements of Northern Buddhism, as so lavishly represented, for example, in that great sutra which is the book, par excellence, of Japanese Buddhism, the Saddharma Pundarika.

Turning from text to art, we behold the golden lakes of joy, the mountain of gems, the floating female angels with their marvellous drapery and lovely faces, the gentle benignity of the goddesses of mercy, the rays of light and the glory streaming from face and head of the holy ones, the splendors of costume, the varied beauties of the lotus, the hosts of ministering intelligences, the luxuriant symbolism, the purple clouds, the wheel of the law, the swastika[29] or double cross, and the vagra,[30] or diamond trefoil.  All that color, perfume, sensuous delights, art and luxury can suggest, are here, together with all the various orders of beings that inhabit the Buddhist universe; and these are set forth in their fulness and detail.  In the six conditions of sentient existence are devas or gods, men, asuras or monsters, pretas or demons, beasts, and beings in hell.  In portraying these, the artists and sculptors do not always slavishly follow tradition or uniformity.  The critical eye notes nearly as much genius, wit and variety as in the mediaeval cathedral architecture of Europe.  Probably the most popular groups of idols are those of the seven or the thirty-three Kuannon, of the six Jizo[31] or compassionate helpers, and of the sixteen or the five hundred Rakan[32] or circles of primitive disciples of Gautama.  The angelic beings and sweetly singing birds of Paradise are also favorite subjects of the artists.