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 down to the lowest of his subjects, and continued to hold that position until the period of the Tokugawa Shôguns, when it was supplanted in the intellects of the educated class by the philosophy of Choo He. The practise of pure Shintô was kept alive for one or two centuries at the Mikado’s court, and at a few Shintô temples which might be counted on one’s fingers, but finally degenerated into a mere thing of forms, the meaning of which was forgotten, while the forms themselves were perverted.

In addition to the Riôbu Shintô, there arose at least three other schools; namely the Yui-itsu Shintô invented by Yoshida Kanetomi about the end of the 15th century, that of Deguchi Nobuyoshi, Kannushi of the Gekû temple in Ise, about 1660, and the Suiga Shintô of Yamazaki Ansai (b. 1618-d. 1682). The first of these is chiefly founded on the Buddhism of the Shingonshiu, the second explains the phenomena of the divine age by means of the Book of Changes (eki or I-king); the third is a combination of the Yoshida Shintô and Choo He’s philosophy.

From these few remarks it may be inferred that the successive waves of Buddhist and Chinese doctrine which had passed over Japan during a period of more than a thousand years had considerably transformed the belief of the people, and if the only means of discovering its original nature were an analysis of the teaching of the above-mentioned sects, and the rejection of whatever bore traces of a foreign origin, the task would necessitate a wide knowledge of Buddhism in both India and China, as well as of the Confucian philosophy, and perhaps of Taouism. But fortunately, there exist independently in the Kojiki, the Manyôshiu, the Nihongi, the Kogo-Shiui and the Norito, abundant materials for the student of the divine age, and it was to these hooks that Mabuchi, Motoöri and Hirata devoted their attention. Together with Kada they form the revivalist school of pure Shintô. I propose to give some account of their lives and works, and the views held by them as to the essence of Shintô.