Among the various sects of Buddhism, however, the understanding of the doctrine of Nirvana varies greatly. Some believe in the total nonentity of the human soul, the utter annihilation of consciousness; while others, on the contrary, hold that, as part of the divine whole, the human soul enjoys a measure of conscious personality. Persecution and opposition at first united together the adherents of the new faith, but success and prosperity gave rise to schisms. New sects were founded in Japan, while many priests traveled abroad to Korea and China, and came back as new lights and reformers, to found new schools of thought and worship. Of these the most illustrious was Kobo, famed not only as a scholar, but as an eminently holy bonze, or priest, and the compiler of the Japanese alphabet, which, with diacritical points, may be increased to the number of seventy.
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From General Nelson A. Miles
Thrilling Stories of The Russian-Japanese War, 1904
