all other Japanese Buddhists in caring for the Eta, even as they
probably excel in preaching the true spiritual democracy of all
believers, yes, even of women.[16] "According to the earlier and general
view of Buddhism, women are condemned, in virtue of the pollution of
their nature, to look forward to rebirth in other forms. By no
possibility can they, in their existence as women, reach the higher
grades of holiness which lead to Nirvana. According to the Shin Shu
system, on the other hand, a believing woman may hope to attain the goal
of the Buddhist at the close of her present life."[17] This doctrine
seems to be founded on that passage in the eleventh chapter of the
Saddharma Pundarika, in which the daughter of S[=a]gara, the
N[=a]ga-king, loses her sex as female and reappears as a Bodhisattva of
male sex.[18]

The Shin sect is the largest in Japan, having more than twice as many
temples as any four of the great sects, and five thousand more than the
So-d[=o] or sub-sect of J[=o]-d[=o], which is the next largest; or, over
nineteen thousand in all. It is also supposed to be one of the richest
and most powerful of all the Japanese sects. In reality, however, it
possesses no fixed property, and is dependent entirely upon the
voluntary contributions of its adherents. To-day, it is probably the
most active of them all in education, learning and missionary operations
in Yezo, China and Korea.

Interesting as is the development of the J[=o]-d[=o] and Shin sects,
which became popular largely through their promulgation of dogmas
founded on the Western Paradise, we must not forget that both of them
preached a new Buddha--not the real figure in history, but an unhistoric
and unreal phantom, the creation and dream of the speculator and
visionary. Amida, the personification of boundless light, is one of the