2
B. C., or fifteen centuries back. An even stronger ground for disbelieving the accuracy of the early chronology is the extraordinary longevity assigned by it to the early Mikados. Of the fifteen Mikados from Jimmu Tennô down to Ôjin Tennô’s predecessor, eleven are said to have lived considerably over one hundred years. One of them, Suinin Tennô, reached the age of one hundred and forty-one years, and his successor Keikô Tennô lived to the age of one hundred and forty-three, while to Ôjin Tennô and his successor Nintoku Tennô are given one hundred and eleven, and one hundred and twenty-three years respectively. They are however surpassed in longevity by the famous Takeuchi no Sukune, who is reported to have died in A.D. 390 at the age of three hundred and fifty-six years. A further reason for doubting the statement is that the Kojiki names the “Thousand character Composition” (Senji-mon) as one of the books brought over in A. D. 285, although it is certain that it could not have reached Japan much earlier than the middle of the 6th century.[1] All that can safely be said is that Confucianism probably preceded Buddhism.
The first Buddhist images and Sûtras were brought to Japan from Corea in the year 552, if we can believe the Nihongi, but it was long before the religion obtained much hold on the people. In the begining of the ninth century the priest Kûkai (b. 774, d. 835, better known by his posthumous name of Kôbô Daishi) compounded out of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shintô a system of doctrine called Riôbu Shintô. Its most prominent characteristic was the theory that Shintô deities were nothing more than transmigrations of Buddhist divinities, and Kûkai is accused of perpetrating various forgeries in order to obtain credit for his teaching. The alliance thus effected between the native belief and the foreign religion enabled the latter to obtain the ascendancy to which it was entitled on account of its superior adaptation to man’s sense of his own shortcomings and longing for perfection. Buddhism became the religion of the whole nation, from the Mikado
- ↑ Kojiki Den, vol. XXXIII., p. 27.
