A History of the Japanese People. Kikuchi Dairoku
concentrated his forces, endeavouring, at the same time, to enlist by magic rites the assistance of the Kami against the disciples of the foreign faith. Meanwhile the Emperor's malady ended fatally. His reign had lasted only one year. At the point of death he was comforted by an assurance that the son of Shiba Tachito would renounce the world to revere his Majesty's memory and would make an image of the Buddha sixteen feet high.
Buddhism had now gained a firm footing at the Yamato Court, but its opponents were still active. Their leader, the o-muraji, thought that his best chance of success was to contrive the accession of Prince Anahobe, whose attempt to take precedence of his elder brother, the Emperor Yomei, has been already noted. The conspiracy was discovered, and the Soga forces, acting under the nominal authority of the deceased Emperor's consort, Umako's niece, moved against Anahobe and Moriya, who had not been able to combine their strength. The destruction of Prince Anahobe was easily effected, but the work of dealing with the o-muraji taxed the resources of the Soga to the utmost. Moriya himself ascended a tree and by skill of archery held his assailants long at bay. Archery had been practised assiduously by the Yamato warrior from time immemorial, and arrows possessing remarkable power of penetration had been devised. During the reign of Nintoku, when envoys from Koma presented to the Court iron shields and iron targets, a Japanese archer, Tatebito, was able to pierce them; and in the time of Yuryaku, a rebel named Iratsuko shot a shaft which, passing through his adversary's shield and twofold armour, entered the flesh of his body to the depth of an inch. There was an archery hall within the enclosure of the palace; whenever envoys or functionaries from foreign countries visited Yamato they were invited to shoot there; frequent trials of skill took place, and when oversea sovereigns applied for military aid, it was not unusual to send some bundles of arrows in lieu of soldiers.
Thus, the general of the Mononobe, perched among the branches of a tree, with an unlimited supply of shafts and with highly trained skill as a bowman, was a formidable adversary. Moriya and his large following of born soldiers drove back the Soga forces three times. Success seemed to be in sight for the champion of the Kami. At this desperate stage Prince Shotoku—then a lad of sixteen—fastened to his helmet images of the "Four Guardian Kings of Heaven"* and vowed to build a temple in their honour if victory was vouchsafed to his arms. At the same time, the o-omi, Umako, took oath to dedicate temples and propagate Buddhism. The combat had now assumed a distinctly religious character. Shotoku and Umako advanced again to the attack; Moriya was shot down; his family and followers fled, were put to the sword or sent into slavery, and all his property was confiscated.
*The "Four Guardian Kings" (Shi-Tenno) are the warriors who guard the world against the attacks of demons.
An incident of this campaign illustrates the character of the Japanese soldier as revealed in the pages of subsequent history: a character whose prominent traits were dauntless courage and romantic sympathy. Yorozu, a dependent of the o-muraji, was reduced to the last straits after a desperate fight. The Chronicles say: "Then he took the sword which he wore, cut his bow into three pieces, and bending his sword, flung it into the river. With a dagger which he had besides, he stabbed himself in the throat and died. The governor of Kawachi having reported the circumstances of Yorozu's death to the Court, the latter gave an order by a stamp* that his body should be cut into eight pieces and distributed among the eight provinces."** In accordance with this order the governor was about to dismember the corpse when thunder pealed and a great rain fell. "Now there was a white dog which had been kept by Yorozu. Looking up and looking down, it went round, howling beside the body, and at last, taking up the head in its mouth, it placed it on an ancient mound, lay down close by, and starved to death. When this was reported to the Court, the latter, moved by profound pity, issued an order that the dog's conduct should be handed down to after ages, and that the kindred of Yorozu should be allowed to construct a tomb and bury his remains."
*A stamp in red or black on the palm of the hand.
**This custom of dismembering and distributing the remains was practised in Korea until the time, at the close of the nineteenth century, when the peninsula came under Japanese protection. It was never customary in Japan.
BUILDING OF TEMPLES
After order had been restored, Prince Shotoku fulfilled his vow by building in the province of Settsu a temple dedicated to the Four Guardian Kings of Heaven (Shitenno-ji), and by way of endowment there were handed over to it one-half of the servants of the o-muraji, together with his house and a quantity of other property. The o-omi, Umako, also erected a temple called Hoko-ji in Asuka near Kara. It has been shown above that Soga no Iname converted one of his houses into a temple to receive the Buddhist image sent by Myong in 552, and that his son, Umako, erected a temple on the east of his residence to enshrine a stone image of Miroku, in 584. But these two edifices partook largely of the nature of private worship. The first public temples for the service of Buddhism were Shotoku's Shitenno-ji and Umako's Hoko-ji erected in 587.
AMOUNT OF THE O-MURAJI'S PROPERTY
In the Annals of Prince Shotoku (Taishi-deri) it is recorded that the parts of the o-muraji's estate with which the temple of the Four Kings was endowed were 273 members of his family and household; his three houses and movable property, together with his domain measuring 186,890 shiro, and consisting of two areas of 128,640 shiro and 58,250 shiro in Kawachi and Settsu, respectively. The shiro is variously reckoned at from 5% to 7.12 tsubo (1 tsubo = 36 square feet). Taking the shiro as 6 tsubo, the above three areas total 1000 acres approximately. That this represented a part only of the o-muraji's property is held by historians, who point to the fact that the o-omi's wife, a younger sister of the o-muraji, incited her husband to destroy Moriya for the sake of getting possession of his wealth.
THE EMPEROR SUSHUN
The deaths of Prince Anahobe and Moriya left the Government completely in the hands of Soga no Umako. There was no o-muraji; the o-omi was supreme. At his instance the crown was placed upon the head of his youngest nephew, Sushun. But Sushun entertained no friendship for Umako nor any feeling of gratitude for the latter's action in contriving his succession to the throne. Active, daring, and astute, he judged the o-omi to be swayed solely by personal ambition, and he placed no faith in the sincerity of the great official's Buddhist propaganda. Meanwhile, the fortunes of the new faith prospered. When the dying Emperor, Yomei, asked to be qualified for Nirvana, priests were summoned from Kudara. They came in 588, the first year of Sushun's reign, carrying relics (sarira), and they were accompanied by ascetics, temple-architects, metal-founders, potters, and a pictorial artist.
The Indian creed now began to present itself to the Japanese people, not merely as a vehicle for securing insensibility to suffering in this life and happiness in the next, but also as a great protagonist of refined progress, gorgeous in paraphernalia, impressive in rites, eminently practical in teachings, and substituting a vivid rainbow of positive hope for the negative pallor of Shinto. Men began to adopt the stole; women to take the veil, and people to visit the hills in search of timbers suited for the frames of massive temples. Soga no Umako, the ostensible leader of this great movement, grew more and more arrogant and arbitrary. The youthful Emperor unbosomed himself to Prince Shotoku, avowing his aversion to the o-omi and his uncontrollable desire to be freed from the incubus of such a minister. Shotoku counselled patience, but Sushun's impetuosity could not brook delay, nor did he reflect that he was surrounded by partisans of the Soga.
A Court lady betrayed his designs to the o-omi, and the latter decided that the Emperor must be destroyed. An assassin was found in the person of Koma, a naturalized Chinese, suzerain of the Aya uji, and, being introduced into the palace by the o-omi under pretence of offering textile fabrics from the eastern provinces, he killed the Emperor. So omnipotent was the Soga chief that his murderous envoy was not even questioned. He received open thanks from his employer and might have risen to high office had he not debauched a daughter of the o-omi. Then Umako caused him to be hung from a tree and made a target of his body, charging him with having taken the Emperor's life. "I knew only that there was an o-omi," retorted the man. "I did not know there was an Emperor." Many others shared Koma's comparative ignorance when the Soga were in power. At the Emperor Yomei's death, only one person honoured his memory by entering the Buddhist priesthood. When