ABSTRACT
The new conditions in the beginning of the ninth century, especially concerning religion, marked the climax of Chinese influence. The establishment of a centralized government and the organization of a bureaucracy on Chinese models had been fully achieved; Buddhism had imported innovations in abundance from the Asiatic continent; in arts and literature Japan had learned much from the glorious culture of the Tang Dynasty. Growth and change gave place to rest and peace, vigour and aspiration to refinement and elaboration, and stagnation set in. In contrast to the frequent despatch of scholars and monks to China in the preceding centuries, we see only a few isolated cases of Japanese Buddhists going across the sea, and none of the officials went. The Buddhist pantheon in general was thought to represent the Indestructibles, while the deities of the Shinto pantheon were interpreted as their partial appearances.
