Note (return) — Chapter X · - JAPANESE BUDDHISM IN ITS MISSIONARY DEVELOPMENT

Buddhism, like Roman Catholicism, and as compared to Confucianism which is protestant and masculine, is feminine in its type. In Japan the place of the holy Virgin Mary is taken by Kuannon, the goddess of mercy; and her shrine is one of the most popular of all. Much the same may be said of Benten, the queen of the heaven and mistress of the seas. The angels of Buddhism are always feminine, and, as in the unscriptural and pagan conception of Christian angels, have wings.58 So also in the legends of Gautama, in the Buddhist lives of the saints, and in legendary lore as well as in glyptic and pictorial art, the female being transfigured in loveliness is a striking figure. Nevertheless, after all is summed up that can possibly be said in favor of Buddhism, the position it accords to woman is not only immeasurably beneath that given by Christianity, but is below that conceded by Shintō, which knows not only goddesses and heroines, but also priestesses and empresses.59