H AVING glanced through your letter, I feel as relieved as if the day had finally broken after a long night, or as if I had returned home after a long journey.
Buddhism primarily concerns itself with victory or defeat, while secular authority is based on the principle of reward and punishment. For this reason, a Buddha is looked up to as the Hero of the World,1 while a king is called the one who rules at his will. India is called the Land of the Moon,2 and our country, the Land of the Sun. Of the eighty thousand countries in the land of Jambudvipa, India is one of the largest, and Japan, one of the smallest. When it comes to the auspiciousness of their names, however, India ranks second and Japan first. Buddhism began in the Land of the Moon; it will reside in the Land of the Sun. It is in the natural course of events that the moon appears in the west3 and travels eastward while the sun proceeds from east to west. This truth is as inalterable as the fact that a magnet attracts iron, or that the ivory plant4 is nourished by the sound of thunder. Who could possibly deny it?
Let us examine how Buddhism came to Japan. Our country was first under the seven reigns of the heavenly deities and then under the five reigns of the earthly deities. Their reigns were fol
lowed by the age of human sovereigns, the first being Emperor Jimmu. The thirtieth emperor was Kimmei, who reigned for thirty-two years. In those days there was a state called Paekche5 to the west of this country. It was under the suzerainty of the Japanese emperor and was governed by a king named Syöngmyöng. When the king made his annual tribute to Japan on the thirteenth day, with the cyclical sign kanoto-tori, of the tenth month in the thirteenth year of Emperor Kimmei’s reign (552), the year with the cyclical sign mizunoe-saru, he sent along with it a gilded bronze image of Shakyamuni Buddha, a number of Buddhist scriptures, and also priests and nuns. Overjoyed, the emperor sought counsel from his ministers as to whether or not the nation should worship the Buddha of the western countries.
The Great Minister Iname6 of the Soga clan said, “All the countries of the west worship this Buddha. Why should Japan alone deny him?” However, the Chief Minister Okoshi of the Mononobe clan, Nakatomi no Kamako,7 and others advised the emperor, saying: “The sovereign who rules over our nation has traditionally performed rites throughout the four seasons of the year in honor of heaven and earth, the gods of the land and of grain, and numerous other deities. If we alter this
