popular. Salvation along this route is a case of being "carried to the
skies on flowery beds of ease, while others sought to win the prize and
sailed through bloody seas."

Largely through the influence of J[=o]-d[=o] Shu and of those sects most
closely allied to it, the technical terms, peculiar phraseology and
vocabulary of Buddhism became part of the daily speech of the Japanese.
When one studies their language he finds that it is a complicated
organism, including within itself several distinct systems. Just as the
human body harmonizes within itself such vastly differing organized
functions as the osseous, digestive, respiratory, etc., so, embedded in
what is called the Japanese language, there are, also, a Chinese
vocabulary, a polite vernacular, one system of expression for superiors,
another for inferiors, etc. Last of all, there is, besides a peculiar
system of pronunciation taught by the priests, a Buddhist language,
which suggests a firmament of starry and a prairie of flowery metaphors,
with intermediate deeps of space full of figurative expressions.

In our own mother tongue we have something similar. The dialect of
Canaan, the importations of Judaism, the irruptions of Hebraic idioms,
phrases and names into Puritanism, and the ejaculations of the
camp-meeting, which vein and color our English speech, may give some
idea of the variegated strains which make up the Japanese language.
Further, the peculiar nomenclature of the Fifth Monarchy men, is fully
paralleled in the personal names of priests and even of laymen in Japan.


Characteristics of the J[=o]-d[=o] Sect.