THE HEIAN EPOCH
Buddhism, but its credit was greatly enhanced by the latter, for the Buddhist priests attributed all their important acts to heavenly inspiration. The most vital affairs of State were regulated by these revelations. Even the title of an usurper to displace the legitimate line of emperors was thus determined. Confucianism with its Book of Changes, to which the great philosopher had devoted profoundest study, gave a new impetus to divination. At the beginning of the eighth century—in other words, at the very time when radical reforms, legislative, administrative, fiscal, and social, were being introduced from China, an office called the Bureau of the Two Principles was organised in the Department of Home Affairs, and placed under the direction of six diviners who undertook to read the will of heaven by reference to the operations of the male and female principles of nature—the yo (yang) and the in (ying). Faith in this form of divination increased constantly. It replaced almost completely the process of burning tortoise-shell, which ultimately was limited to religious services held in the Imperial Court or at the great Shintô shrine. The people, of course, resorted to simpler methods in the affairs of every day. Listening for the first words of a wayfarer at cross-roads or beyond the gate of a dwelling; planting a post, approaching it with steps adapted to a formula and constructing an omen from the word coincident with the last step; raising the first
175
