Chapter 8 Japan 315No Japanese could read the sutras, but the Buddha image aroused intense
interest and controversy. Here was a god whose form could be seen. No one had
ever “seen” a kami or made an image of one; they were visible only as natural
spaces of great imagined power or in mysterious symbols like the bronze mirror
of Amaterasu, but here was a serene, human-like deity, a halo around his head
and sitting cross-legged on a lotus blossom. This god’s origin in a great civiliza-
tion to the west added to his appeal, as did his association with sacred texts and
beautiful works of art. The kami had no sacred texts and no art but nature.
But—would the kami be angry?
The emperor was uncertain what to do about the Buddha image and the
religion that came with it. He consulted his courtiers. The heads of the two
most powerful clans, the Nakatomi and the Mononobe, were dead set against
it. The Nakatomi were chief ritualists at court, and the military Mononobe
were closely aligned with them. But they had a competing clan in the Soga,
who administered the crown estates and had begun marrying their daughters
to emperors. Looking for more opportunities to advance themselves, they
seized on the new religion. The emperor presented the Buddha image to them,
and they set it up in a shrine in their palace. But shortly after the enshrinement
of the foreign god, there was a smallpox epidemic, and people had second
thoughts about the stranger-god. The angry kami were getting their revenge.
The image was thrown into a canal near modern Osaka.
But the Soga had now thrown their fortunes in with Buddhism. The next
emperor, Yomei, brought in more holy relics from Korea, and with the political
support of the Soga clan, temples and monasteries began to be built. The first
worship of Buddha was mostly empty of actual spiritual or philosophical con-
tent. The Buddha was treated like a powerful foreign kami who could be peti-
tioned for things. Sutras were recited like magical formulas, and the most lavish
ceremonies were to heal sick kings or bring rain. Yakushi, the “King of Medi-
cine,” was the most popular bodhisattva in the beginning.
If Japan had its King Ashoka, it was probably Prince Shotoku. He was
never emperor himself but was regent under Empress Suiko after her hus-
band—and Shotoku’s father by a different wife—was murdered in 593. It was
he who sent the first several embassies to China, beginning in 607, but long
before that, he had been raised with Korean tutors who had taught him the
Buddhist sutras and the Chinese classics in, of course, Chinese. He was among
the first to truly grasp the depth of both Buddhist and Confucian thought, and
the first to make serious efforts at restructuring Japanese society along Chinese
lines. There still exists a commentary on the Lotus Sutra thought to be in the
prince’s own handwriting with the introductory remark: “This is compiled by
the crown prince of the country of Yamato. It is not a foreign book,” and it con-
tains his own comments on the Chinese commentaries, like: “My own inter-
pretation differs slightly,” or “This view is no longer accepted” (Sansom
1952:119). He lectured on the scriptures, patronized Buddhist art, and spon-
sored the building of temples.