Note (return) — Chapter VII · - RIYŌBU, OR MIXED BUDDHISM

This reclaiming and kidnapping of gods and transferring them from one camp to another, has been especially active since 1870, when, under government auspices, the Riyōbu temples were purged of all Buddhist idols, furniture and influences. The term Dai Miō Jin, or Great Illustrious Spirit, is no longer officially permitted to be used of the old kami or gods of Shintō, who were known to have existed before the days of Kōbō. In some cases these gods have lost much of the esteem in which they were held for centuries. Especially is this true of the infamous rebel of the tenth century, Masakado.26 On the entrance into Yedo of the Imperial army, in 1868, his idol was torn from its shrine and hacked to pieces by the patriots. His place as a deity (Kanda Dai Miō Jin, or Great Illustrious Spirit of Kanda) was taken by another deified being, a brother to the aboriginal earth-god who, in the ages of the Kami, "resigned his throne in favor of the Mikado's ancestors when they descended from Heaven." The apotheosis of the rebel Masakado had been resorted to by the Buddhist canonizers because the unquiet spirit of the dead man troubled the people. This method of laying a ghost by making a god of him, was for centuries a favorite one in Japanese Buddhism. Indeed, a large part of the practical and parochial duties of the bonzes consists in quieting the restless spirits of the departed.