Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/73

 In the same context may be placed another class of men about whose origin and habits various accounts have been published. The Tokugawa Government not only employed Buddhist priests as aids in the suppression of Christianity, but also made use of them as political detectives. The religionists that thus combined sacred with secular duties were adherents of the Fuke-shu, or "sect of universal mutability," which, founded by a Chinese bonze, was introduced during the thirteenth century into Japan, where, owing to the propagandism of Rōan and Kiusen, its temples of Myōan-ji in Kyōtō and Kogane in Shimosa attained some celebrity. The creed was based on the philosophy of Laotsze and Chuang Tsu, who taught the doctrine of abstraction from all worldly affairs, and held that were there no such implements as rule and measure in the world, neither would there be any sin. Hence the representatives of the sect called themselves kyōmu-so (generally pronounced kōmuso), or "priests of nothingness." However sincere they may have been originally, their ranks gradually became a refuge for men who, from motives of expediency rather than piety, desired to segregate themselves from society without observing the forms preliminary to entering the ordinary priesthood and without publishing the fact of their anchoritism. They carried a sword, and wore a sacerdotal scarf as well as a peculiar large hat in the shape of an inverted basket which completely concealed the