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8
II. The Second Period.

date usually assigned to this introduction in 552, when an image of Buddha was set up in the court of the Mikado; but evidence[1] has been found which leads to the belief that in the sixteenth year of Ketai Tenno (an emperor who reigned in Japan from 507 to 531), that is in the year 522, a certain man named Szŭ-ma Ta[2] came from Nan-Liang[3] in China, and set up a shrine in the province of Yamato, and in it placed an image of Buddha, and began to expound his religion. Be this as it may, Buddhism secured a foothold in Japan not far from the traditional date of 552, and two years later[4] Wang Pao-san, a master of the calendar,[5] and Wang Pao-liang, doctor of chronology,[6] an astrologer, crossed over from Korea and made known the Chinese chronological system. A little later a Korean priest named Kanroku[7] crossed from his native country and presented to the Empress Suiko a set of books upon astrology and the calendar.[8] In the twelfth year of her reign (604) almanacs were first used in Japan, and at this period Prince Shōtoku Taishi proved himself such a fosterer of Buddhism and of learning that his memory is still held in high esteem. Indeed, so great was the fame of Shōtoku Taishi that tradition makes him the father of Japanese arithmetic and even the inventor of the abacus.[9] (Fig. 1.)

A little later the Chinese system of measures was adopted, and in general the influence of China seems at once to have

  1. ↑ See Sumner, loc. cit., p. 78.
  2. ↑ In Japanese, Shiba Tatsu.
  3. ↑ I. e., South Liang, Liang being one of the southern monarchies.
  4. ↑ I. e., in 554, or possibly 553.
  5. ↑ In Europe he would have had charge of the Compotus, the science of the Church calender, in a Western monastery.
  6. ↑ Also called a Doctor of Yih. The doctrine of Yih (changes) is set forth in the Yih King (Book of Changes), one of the ancient Five Classics of the Chinese. There is a very extensive literature upon this subject.
  7. ↑ Or Ch’ūan-lo.
  8. ↑ Sumner, loc. cit., p. 80, gives the date as 593. Endō, who is the leading Japanese authority, gives it as 602.
  9. ↑ That this is without foundation will appear in Chapter III. The soroban which he holds in the illustration here given is an anachronism.
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