ABSTRACT
LIVING in the temples, as we did during the greater part of the time we were in Japan, we grew familiar with the images of the saints and heroes and the gods and goddesses whom the temples honour. This familiarity did not breed contempt, but gave us a personal interest and a feeling akin to reverence. Certainly we could reverence some of the ideas for which, in Buddhist minds, those strange images stood. The gods had their humorous side, too.
