ABSTRACT
The seventh century witnessed further progress in the reforms inaugurated by Prince Shotoku. The rights of the chiefs of the clans over the lives and properties of their respective clansmen were gradually suppressed by repeated measures, yet the distinction between nobility, free people, and serfs, remained. The fundamental principle was made clear and largely respected, that the unit composing the. nation was not the clan but the family and that the sole rulership rested with the Throne. The political and social reforms were supported by moral instruction, chiefly based on Confucian ethics, that the virtues of justice, propriety, faithfulness, harmony were to be observed by ruler and ruled alike. The most prominent leader of the Buddhist movements in the seventh century was Dosho who had studied in China under the greatest Buddhist scholar of that time, Yuan-chang, and brought back with him the new translations of Buddhist books produced by his master.
