Called Toyoashihara-no-nakatsukuni (豊葦原の中津国) in the mythological age, Japan is described as a country where grass or trees and stones or rocks are fierce and vociferous. Japanese plants and minerals have feelings and express them just like human beings from time immemorial. Since then the Japanese have believed that a tama (soul) subsists in everything that exists on earth. This is the core of Japanese culture, which the Japanese keep still now.There is another system of belief which can never be compatible with this Japanese culture. That is the Buddhist system, which presupposes that minds "transmigrate." When a body dies, the mind leaves it and enters an embryonic germ, and a new life begins. It is only those endowed with a mind that can transmigrate and succeed in becoming a Buddha. Human beings and animals belong to one world and plants and menerals to another. There is a line of demarcation, impossible to get over between the two worlds.The Japanese refuse to accept this point. as it contradicts the principle of Japanese culture. All Japanese leaders of religion agree in removing the line between animals and plants. They deny the Buddhist system of Indian origin. And here appears an interesting character who was unique in maintaining the Japanese principle.Kenchi ( 顯智) was a leader of the followers of Shinran ( 親鸞) in Shimotsuke (下野) from the latter half of the 13th century to beginning of the 14th century. He said that plants are preachers as well as humans. He believed that plants are not different in their nature from human beings. In the view of Kenchi, this was a universal truth and there should be expressions in Buddhist scriptures to support it. He claimed to have found two relevant passages in the Dafodingshoulengyanjing (大佛頂首楞嚴經).In the first passage it is said that plants become humans and humans become plants. It follows that plants and humans are transformed into each other and that plants can become humans at will. In the second passage it is said that clods of earth raised by owls grow into owls and that plant seeds raised by birds grow into birds. It follows that minerals are transformed into animals and plant seeds are transformed into animals. So Kenchi asserted that plants and minerals are regardedas the same in their nature as humans in the Buddhist scripture.It is to be regretted that Kenchi's quotations are beside the point for two reasons. In the first place, the text of the Dafodingshoulengyanjing is not authentic as it was made up by a Chinese writer. The stories of owls raising clods and birds raising seeds have been handed down among the Chinese from the time of Simaqian (司馬遷145_86BC) Secondly, the passages quoted by Kenchi occur in the text as negatve examples. The first one demonstrates the view of the ignorant, and the second one introduces the view of followers of an anti-Buddhist cult.Japanese religious leaders who call themselves advocators of Buddhism are all faithful to their own tradition. In removing a the boundary between animals and plants, they are practical deniers of Buddhism. Among them Kenchi is worthy of our attention. He is so ignorant as to quote passages intended to give counter-examples in an unauthentic Chinese text. Unlike the others, he is unsophisticated and all the easier to understande. His case symbolizes straightforwardly the contradictive aspect observed in the Japanese tradition.
