At the time of their adoption of the great Indian faith, the Japanese were already in possession of a system of superstition which has held its own to this day.

In fact, as the state religion of the land, it has just experienced a revival, a regalvanizing of its old-time energy, at the hands of some of the native archaeologists.

Its sacred mirror, held up to Nature, has been burnished anew.

Formerly this body of belief was the national faith, the Mikado, the direct descendant of the early gods, being its head on earth.

His reinstatement to temporal power formed a very fitting first step toward reinvesting the cult with its former prestige; a curious instance, indeed, of a religious revival due to archaeological, not to religious zeal.
This cult is the mythological inheritance of the whole eastern seaboard of Asia, from Siam to Kamtchatka.