Note (return) — Chapter VI · - THE BUDDHISM OF NORTHERN ASIA

All accounts in the vernacular Japanese agree, that their Butsu-dō or Buddhism was imported from Korea. In the sixteenth year of Kéitai, the twenty-seventh Mikado (of the list made centuries after, and the eleventh after the impossible line of the long-lived or mythical Mikados), A.D. 534, it is said that a man from China brought with him an image of Buddha into Yamato, and setting it up in a thatched cottage worshipped it. The people called it "foreign-country god." Visitors discussed with him the religion of Shaka, as the Japanese call Shakyamuni, and some little knowledge of Buddhism was gained, but no notable progress was made until A.D. 552, which is generally accepted and celebrated as the year of the introduction of the faith into Japan. Then a king of Hiaksai in Korea, sent over to the court and to the Mikado golden images of the Buddha and of the triad of "precious ones," with Sutras and sacred books. These holy relics are believed to be still preserved in the famous temple of Zenkōji,32 belonging to the temple of the Tendai Sect at Nagano in Northern Japan, this shrine being dedicated to Amida and his two followers Kwannon (Avalokitesvara) and Dai-séi-shi (Mahastanaprapta). This group of idols, as the custodian of the shrine will tell you, was made by Shaka himself out of gold, found at the base of the tree which grows at the centre of the universe. After remaining in Korea for eleven hundred and twelve years, it was brought to Japan. Mighty is the stream of pilgrims which continually sets toward the holy place. A common proverb declares that even a cow can find her way thither.