The sciences and arts in Japan all owe much to the bonzes who from Korea personally introduced many useful appliances or articles of food. Several edible vegetables are still named after the priests, who first taught their use. The exact sciences, astronomy and mathematics, as well as the humanities, owe much of their cultivation and development to clerical scholars. In the monasteries, the brethren exercised their varied gifts in preaching study, calligraphy, carving, sculpture, or on object of ecclesiastical art.
The monuments by which the memory of many a saintly bonze is still kept green exists today as treasures on the altars, or in the temple or its shady precincts, in winged words or material substances. A copy of the Buddhist Scriptures, a sacred classic, in roll or bound volume, might occupy a holy penman before his brush and ink-stone for years The manuscript texts often seen in the hall of worship on silky paper bound in damask, in Japanese monasteries, could not be improved in elegance and accuracy by the painters art. The transcription of a sutra on silk, made to adorn the wall of a shrine, in many cases performed its mission for centuries.
Previous article Next article
From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
