Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/114

 of Japanese history to the last, there is no instance of a radical reform effected, or a novel system inaugurated, without official guidance. The people's part has always been to follow; the Government's to lead. It may therefore be said with truth that Buddhism was planted officially in Japan, though a few unfruitful seeds had been previously scattered by private enterprise.

How came it that the Government showed a liberal attitude towards an alien faith? Was there genuine conviction of the excellence of the Buddhist doctrine, or did some other cause operate?

Both questions may be answered in the affirmative with reservations. The first Japanese Emperor (Kimmei) who listened to the new gospel seems to have found it mysterious, lofty, and attractive. Its doctrine of metempsychosis, its law of causation, its theory of a future of supreme rest, charmed and startled him. But the argument most potent in winning his support was the ambassador's assurance that Buddhism had become the faith of civilised Asia. Japan of the sixth century was just as ambitious to stand on the highest level of civilisation as Japan of the nineteenth. She turned to Buddhism for the sake of the converts it had already won rather than for the sake of her own conversion. At first, the attitude of the Court was tentative. When the Sovereign summoned a Council of Ministers, as was customary in those days of pa