Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/28

 the Japanese written language by means of Chinese ideographs dating only from the seventh century. Prior to that there are certain evidences that the peculiar Korean script was fitfully borrowed, although it never really took root.

It is learning, then, that forms the first bridge between China and Japan, and in this learning Buddhism plays a great and important part. Priests and scholars crossed in great numbers from China, giving religion, which had been hitherto expressed in the crude Shinto forest-rites, a new and more imposing significance. There was a constant stream of immigrants crossing by way of Korea; Chinese temples begin to be built; and the result of this cultural intercourse may be gathered from the fact that a census of the Japanese nobility, taken in 814, indicated 382 Korean and Chinese families against 796 of purely Japanese origin. The governmental institutions of China were likewise borrowed, the eight departments of state being copied from the Hang dynasty in China, which is famous in Japanese annals for its civilizing influence. At the beginning of the eighth century the first Japanese capital was built at Nara on the accepted Chinese plan of a metropolis, with nine gates and