On a stopover in Malacca on the way to Japan, reports by Portuguese traders greatly encouraged expedition leader Francis Xavier and his fellow Jesuit missionaries. Some Portuguese men, the report said, had been offered to stay at a ghost-infested house in some Japanese town. Having managed to chase away one ghost by means of a cross, servants installed crosses at various places, especially near doors. When the neighbors got wind of this new and powerful exorcist technique, crosses made of paper, wood, and other materials popped up at the doors of almost every house in town. Spurred on by such good tidings, Xavier exclaimed: "Thus I hurry [to Japan] in joyful hope, and my soul jubilates in trusting anticipation of the bountiful harvest that awaits us there."Indeed, if the sole sign of the cross could sweep a whole town, the Good News was surely destined to sweep the country!

Not long after their arrival in the Southern Japanese city of Kagoshima on August 15 of 1549, Xavier's interpreter and assistant Anjiro visited the nearby castle of the ruler of Satsuma, Shimazu Takahisa. The daimyo was delighted to meet Anjiro, a unique source of information on the customs, firearms, and trading potential of the Portuguese, The researcher of Xavier's life, Georg Schurhammer, describes this meeting as follows:

When Anjiro showed him a very touching altarpiece of Mary with the Christ Child [. . .] Takahisa was greatly taken with it. He knelt down and reverenced it with much respect and ordered all those present to do the same.

The daimyo's mother was so struck by the image that she requested a copy of it and a written account of the teachings of Christianity. After several days' work, Anjiro sent her an abstract of Christian doctrine. On September 29, Xavier went with Anjiro to pay a visit to the castle. This happened to be the day of Michael, the archangel, under whose wing Xavier put the whole missionary venture in Japan. Xavier's keen eye quickly discovered the coat of arms on the daimyo's belongings; as he had earlier heard from his interpreter Anjiro, it clearly showed a white cross in a circle. Was this a sign of the Lord, a proof that at some point in the past, Christianity had been brought to Japan? Interested in the treasures of the foreigner, the daimyo was shown a beautifully illuminated Bible and a Glossa ordinaria commentary. The word of Cod did not fail to impress the daimyo, as Xavier reported to Europe:

On the day of St. Michael we spoke with the duque of this land, and he honored us greatly by saying that we should very well guard the books of the Christian law and that the devil would have to suffer much through this law, if it were true and good. Few days later he gave his vassals the permission to become Christians if they wished so.

After a few days stay, Xavier brought in a rich harvest: he baptized not only the administrator of the castle and his young daughter but also the wife and children of the daimyo plus some others, about fifteen persons in all, and thus saved them from the certain eternity in hell that awaits all heathens. Now let us, for edifying purposes, convert this story. The daimyo of Satsuma, the fifteenth regent of the Shimazu family, whose crest had the shape of a round bitpiece of a horse with its cross-like shape in the middle, had heard of some strange-looking Buddhist bonzes who had come directly from Tenjiku, the homeland of Shaka and thus of the source of all traditions (shu) in Buddhist teaching (buppo). They had apparently brought along all sorts of interesting things that nobody had ever seen - maybe even some of those firearms that were creating such a stir among rival daimyos. The Japanese Anjiro, who had returned home on the same boat, had become the talk of the town in nearby Kagoshima. He was reported to not only speak the language of the monks from Tenjiku but also to be able to read their o-kyo and to translate their buppo. So the ruler invited Anjiro to his castle to learn what all the fuss was about. He questioned him about his travels and wanted to see some of those fascinating objects everybody raved about. Having foreseen this, Anjiro obliged by showing him an image of the Virgin with child that had so struck him when he first saw it. Sitting on his knees in the formal posture and leaning forward to see the object up close, as one does for example when admiring a precious tea bowl, the ruler was stunned: though this was a picture painted on wood, it looked so very real! The daimyo's mother immediately wanted to own this image of Kannon, the bodhisattva of mercy, and she was determined to find out more about this new transmission (shu) of the buppo from Tenjiku. The abstract of this teaching, written by Anjiro, explained that the monks were bringing the new buppo of Dainichi, the maker of all things who is also called butsu or hotoke, and that they were transmitting the law of the eternal tamashii which will either go to jodo, the Pure Land, or to jigoku where it is going to be tortured most horribly by the tengu.

The subsequent visit by Francis Xavier left little doubt that his jodomon constituted a new transmission (shu) of the buppo. The foreign bonzes from Tenjiku, the homeland of Shaka, wore long black robes, had a partly shaved head, were said to have no intercourse with women, refrained from eating animal meat, and kept speaking of the very things Buddhist priests were so fond of: jodo and jigoku, hotoke and tengu, buppo and jodomon. So why should he not allow them to spread their buppo and let both his vassals and his family profit from the merits of the new transmission?

If the foreign monks' teaching was not very new, their rituals certainly were: that magic sign the monk kept making, sometimes even with fingers wetted by a magic potion that was rumored to be the most powerful of all medicines, accompanied by the spells his mouth uttered. Why not do what he demanded with such desperate insistence: make the solemn vow to believe in Dainichi, to hate the Tengu&emdash;and then have him pour some of that magic potion over your head while uttering those strange, powerful mantras that assure the fulfillment of wishes, protection by invisible tennin, healing of illnesses, and especially eternal pleasures with the tennin and hotoke in the jodo after death!

This might seem to be a pretty farfetched interpretation of a minor event in the Japanese discovery of Christianity. However, before we discard it, we might consider the report of Luis d'Almeida who next visited this lonely flock of baptized Christians thirteen years later. While preaching, he was suddenly interrupted: "Is the Dios of which you speak the same as Dainichi about whom Father Magister Francisco [Xavier] taught us and whom he told us to worship?"

Now the worried reader might ask: what on earth has this to do with Francis Xavier's discovery of Japanese Buddhism? Well, it so happens that the Japanese discovery of Christianity and the European discovery of Japanese Buddhism have an identical set of protagonists. Further more, they constitute discoveries of a very similar kind. So their stories might actually have quite a few things in common. Let us look at another story:

Xavier had mixed feelings for Zen. His first reaction was negative: 'Among the nine sects, there is one which maintains that the souls of men are mortal like that of beasts [. . .] The follower of this sect are evil. They were impatient when they heard us say that there is a hell.' however, Xavier's respect for Zen increased after his encounter with the abbot of the Fukushoji, 'Ninxit'.

This account contains fragments of the biography of St. Francis Xavier by Schurhammer - probably the greatest scientific hagiography ever&emdash;and lines them up in the wrong order. Xavier met Ninxit in 1549, shortly after his arrival in Japan. The "first reaction" however, represents his feelings about Japanese religion in 1552, i.e., after having left Japan. This simple fact suggests that we are here in the fascinating realm of fiction. To allow more conscious juggling of fact and fiction, I will in this two-part article present some of the available evidence pasted on a bit of background information and supplemented by a concise chronology.

Stories of the Jesuits' encounter with Buddhism Usually start with the meeting between Xavier and the Japanese refugee Anjiro in Malacca around December 7 of 1547. However, at that time Anjiro spoke little Portuguese and could hardly furnish much information. Moreover, Xavier had already around April of 1547 met the Portuguese captain Jorge Alvares who had informed him that Japan would be a much more fruitful soil for the Christian faith than India "because its people is superior to others on account of its willingness to learn," Although Xavier had gained some earlier information on Japan from the Spanish captain Pero Diez, who had visited Japan in 1544, the missionary's first detailed impressions of the country's religions are likely to stem from a report that Alvares wrote on Xavier's request in the first half of December of 1547 and sent to Rome on January 21, 1548, a week after his return to India. Alvares was the captain of the ship that had saved Anjiro from his pursuers in Japan and had initially brought him to Malacca; he was thus crucial in spurring Anjiro's interest in the Christian faith. However, during that first trip, Anjiro's insufficient knowledge of Portuguese makes it unlikely that he passed much information to Alvares about Japanese religion.

AIvares reports that the Japanese are very devoted to their idols; they even have some in their house and pray to them every day for worldly benefit and protection. they use rosaries both at home and at pious houses, of which there are two kinds. Each padre (called bonzo) has his own cell and his books. In addition to rosaries, the padres use many Chinese books. During their daily prayers (midnight, Matins, Vespers, and Compline) and rituals they strike drums that Alvares had already observed in China, leading him to the conclusion that this religious order must have its origin in China. These padres are by threat of execution required to be celibate but engage in sodomy with boys. They do not eat meat or fish and are mendicants; however, they also are the people's doctors and command such high respect that even kings obey them. They can offer asylum for a limited time to criminals with the exception of robbers.

The pious houses have great and well-kept gardens. Their prayer hall is empty in the middle, with cushions arranged on the sides where priests line up for prayer. Lay people come too, particularly on Tuesday. The idols are covered in gold, and "the head of their god is like that of a Kaffir," ears pierced like those of the idols of Malabar, and diadems. Other idols resemble Catholic confessors and martyrs such as St. Lawrence or St. Stephen.

Several kinds of padres are distinguishable by their dress, but all go shaved with a razor. They wear a stole (kesa) held by a wooden ring over their breast. All have the same beliefs and read and write Chinese but do not speak it. The padres perform marriage ceremonies and elaborate funeral rites. Women have their own nunneries and have no intercourse with men; they often come from good families, dress like their male counterparts, and also shave their hair.

There is also another kind of padres with other idols; this appears to be the indigenous order. These padres are called Sho. They store their small idols in tabernacles in groves outside of town and take them out only on festive occasions. Alvares describes the attire of these priests and their ritual implements in detail; his description of these "great magicians" fits what we call Yamabushi rather than Shinto priests. However, the rituals for the sick and dead that Alvares also describes feature dances by women priestesses (miko) that hold spindles with bells.

In sum, Alvares thus informed the Jesuits of two reigning heathen cults in Japan, one probably imported from China with numerous and large idols and various pious houses, and the other an indigenous cult focused on magic with small idols in tabernacles in the countryside. In both cults, funerals are said to be important. In the course of the year 1548, while this report was on its way to Rome, Xavier reached the decision to travel to Japan in order to propagate his faith. While the report by Alvares might have played some role in this decision, the observation of Anjiro and the knowledge gained from this first native informant about Japanese religions appear to have been a major inspiration.

For Europeans, the second earliest source of information about Japanese religion was the Japanese refugee Anjiro whom Xavier met in December 1547 in Malacca and then sent on to India. He received intensive instruction from the Jesuits both before and after his baptism on the name of Paulo de Santa Fe (May 20, 1548). He reportedly had quickly gained considerable knowledge both of the Portuguese language and the Christian faith. In an introduction to his report on the information gained from Anjiro, the Jesuit missionary Lancilotto explains:

Even though he Anjiro did not receive higher education in the religion of his country and it appears that he relates things which stem from the views of the common man rather than their texts, I send this report because it contains many things worth knowing.

Xavier blamed Anjiro's ignorance not just on his lack of higher religious education but on his inability to read religious scriptures when he wrote on February 2 of the same year:

The religions of the Japanese are handed down in certain recondite letters unknown to the vulgar, such as among us are the Latin. On which account Paul, a homo idiota [uneducated man] and quite plainly unschooled in such manner of books, states that he is not equipped to give evidence on the religions of his native land.

The Jesuits should have believed Anjiro's confession of ignorance. But instead they pressed on, and Anjiro informed Xavier that the law (Portuguese: ley) of the Japanese was imported from a land called Chengico (Tenjiku) which is "situated beyond China and behind Tartao."

The word Tartao ("Tartary") is a symptom for a problem whose dimensions will soon become clearer. Of course, Japanese geography does not know any such region; and even for the Europeans it was still a hardly explored wonderland The famous Typus cosmographicus universalis world map of 1532 - which features Zipangri (Japan) as an island just to the West and about one-third the size of the Terra de Cuba (North America)&emdash;situates Tartaria Magna in the vast expanse Northwest of the Regnum Cathay (China). Its frontiers are unclear, but it roughly corresponds to today's East Siberia, Mongolia, and Northwestern China, while it possibly may reach as far south as what we now call the Taklamakan desert or even Tibet. On this map of 1532, "behind Tartao" would mean some region in central Siberia where, at the time, the huge expanse of Scythia was located.

For the Europeans of the Middle Ages, Tartary had been the fabled land of Prester John, the king of enormous masses of Christians that, it was hoped, would help defeat the Saracens (Muslims). For the Japanese, on the other hand, Tenjiku was the land of origin of the buppo, the Law or Teaching of the Buddha. Corresponding roughly to what we call the Indian subcontinent, Tenjiku had been described in detail by Chinese pilgrims such as Xuanzang. But such descriptions were out of Anjiro's reach since they formed part of the Chinese Buddhist Canon and thus of the ley that he felt unable to explain in detail. So, while standing right in Tenjiku, poor Anjiro had to somehow locate this important land on the maps of the Portuguese. Since everybody was telling him that they were now in India oriental and the maps showed not the slightest trace of Tenjiku, he simply put it in some place that his mentors were also unacquainted with, somewhere "beyond Tartao." Unaware of such problems, Xavier reported back to his superiors in Rome:

According to the report of Paul [Anjirol, the ley that is taught in Tenjiku is also prevalent in the whole of Tartao, China, and Japan. But since he does not understand the language in which the ley is written, which his countrymen possess written in books, and which corresponds to our Latin, he is also unable to give us complete information about that ley as it appears en sus libros de inpression [in their printed books].

Anjiro was probably less concerned about the exact location of Tenjiku than his Jesuit teachers. But, while he learnt soon after his return to Japan that he had actually been in Tenjiku, it would take the know-it-all Europeans another 300 years until they finally realized that the Buddhist religion had originated in India. Meanwhile, Xavier and Anjiro assumed that Tartao and Tenjiku were two large pieces of a single puzzle that we call "the world." Little did they know that they were not dealing with one but rather with two puzzles: two world views so fundamentally different that conflicting codes such as Tartao and Tenjiku were just the tip of the iceberg: at stake were not just some countries on a rapidly expanding globe, but rather the whole universe with sun and moon, paradise and hell.

Anjiro had lost his bearings in more than just the geographical sense. Having murdered a man prior to his escape from Japan, he was extremely interested in redemption. Xavier reported the following observations about Anjiro and his servant to the founder of the Jesuit order on June 22, 1549:

I often asked them what they found best in our ley. They always replied that it was confession and communion, and it seemed to them that nobody in his right mind could refuse to become Christian. And after our Holy Faith was explained to them, I heard Paul of the Holy Faith [Anjiro] say with many sighs; "O ye people of Japan! You unfortunate ones, worshiping creatures as Gods that were created by God to serve man!" I asked him why he said that, and he told me that he said it because his countrymen prayed to the sun and the moon, ignorant of the fact that the sun and the moon are, as it were, just servant~ of those who know Jesus Christ, since their only function consists in lighting up days and nights so that men can, bathed in their light, serve God by praising his son Jesus Christ on earth.

Xavier related such events with pride to Rome, explaining that these Japanese were not only very devout but also unbelievably rational. Indeed, they did not simply learn the ten commandments by heart in order to recite them like some stupid Indian mantra: rather, they kept asking questions and did not accept anything unless it satisfied their sharp intellect.

For Anjiro and his teachers, language instruction was the vehicle for the most important things man ought to know: the creation of the world in six days by an almighty God, man's fall from paradise, the great deluge, the Tower of Babel, the salvation through Jesus, the mystery of trinity, and of course the existence of an anima that arises with each person and is eternal, either to rejoice in heaven or fry in hell- that horrible place deep below ground. Unlike in modern language instruction, the process had a certain one-way nature: since there were no dictionaries and no third languages to resort to, everything depended on Anjiro's capability of grasping the ideas correctly. His adaptation seems to have been quite thorough; two extant letters of Anjiro are "completely Christian both in expression and conception" and show hardly any trace of the heathen Japanese.

While the Jesuit padres were surprised and enchanted by the fast progress their Japanese disciple made with regard to the Christian world view, the enthusiastic adoption of it by this Japanese Paulus might also have made them wonder whether there was, so to say, any thing left of Saulus.... In concrete terms: in view of the surprisingly large regions that purportedly adhered to the ley that had its origin in Tenjiku and was also prevalent in Japan, the Jesuits were of course interested in reliable and detailed information about it. Now let us examine what they learnt from Anjiro, the first native informant about the ley from Tenjiku, during the instruction before the baptism between January and May of 1548.

During this instruction period, the Italian Jesuit Lancilotto questioned Anjiro on Japanese religion, custom, and the country in general. From Lancilotto's letter we can gather the context in which this information was gained:

He [Anjirol has been instructed thoroughly in the mysteries of our faith and subsequently became Christian. In a brief compendium he translated the main tenets of our faith into his language. He diligently devotes himself to prayer and meditation, calling and sighing to our Lord Jesus Christ, and his attitude is indescribably good. When we asked him at the time of catechism instruction, he reported to us [. . .] about the religions of his land.

This information about Japanese religion made its way to Europe in a variety of forms and languages. On the basis of extensive research of all traces of extant and lost copies, Schurhammer established that Lancilotto wrote three different Japan reports. Lancilotto's first Japan report contains sixteen sections and was written for Goa governor Garcia de Sa; the second adds ten sections; and the third rearranges the

entire information while adding a single section at the end. Only the third report is extant in its original Italian from Lancilotto's hand. The fact that all translations by Anjiro are lost makes these reports by Lancilotto even more valuable.

When reading Lancilotto's reports, the context in which they were gained must not be overlooked: Anjiro was answering questions posed by the Jesuit Lancilotto, one of his teachers of Christian doctrine, who was of course familiar with Alvares' report and surely focused on some of the points raised in it. This may explain, for example, Anjiro's confusing attempt to distinguish between Japanese padres by the color of their dress&emdash;a distinction appropriate for European monastic orders with their distinctive garbs but hardly for Buddhist monks who often wear robes of different colors and designs depending on occasion and status. Furthermore, these questions and answers were part and parcel of Anjiro's preparation for Baptism. Anjiro was trying very hard to understand Christianity in preparation of this rite&emdash;an effort that involved translating what was unfamiliar into something familiar&emdash;for example, Christian hell into Japanese jigoku, or more generally, Christianity into Japanese religion. At the same time, Anjiro was also aware of his mentors' plan to missionize Japan&emdash;which was the reason for Lancilotto's questions. This necessitated a translation in the other direction: just as Tenjiku needed to be translated into a place found on a European map, Japanese religion had to be translated into Christianity. This latter translation defines the overall character of Anjiro's report.

Anjiro mentions three kinds of Japanese padres who all conform to the three vows of chastity, poverty and obedience and live in monasteries situated in towns or forests. Those in towns do not marry, live on alms, shave hair and beard, and refrain from eating meat. Their cassocks look almost like those of the Jesuits, and like them they eat in refectories and fast many times. They observe five regular prayer times, one of which is at midnight when they get up to pray and sing. The padres that are dressed in black are selectively admitted, very learned, obedient to their superior, and enjoy a good reputation; but though they praise chastity, they commit dreadful sins with boys whom they teach in their monasteries.

Other priests wear robes of ashen color; they also stay celibate. But next to their monasteries are those of nuns who are dressed in the same way and devoted to similar practices. They are rumored to have intercourse with the monks while preventing conception by some means. A third kind of padres is also dressed in black and follows severe ascetic practices. They pray three times per day. On one mountain there are 5,000 very rich padres with servants and nice clothes who observe chastity so strictly that no woman must approach closer than 3,000 feet. Describing how the Japanese people do penance, Anjiro gives a detailed description of some austerities that we now associate with the Yamabushi.

Anjiro told his questioners that the Japanese believers pray with folded hands like Christians, cued by bells and using rosaries with 108 beads representing the 108 sins; those who can read also use small booklets. In the morning they pronounce nine words and make signs in the form of the Andreas cross to protect themselves from demons. The padres pray in a language the people do not understand, just like the Latin of Christian priests. They preach often and move their audiences to tears. So far so good. But what is the essence of the teaching of these Japanese monks?

They preach that there is only one single God, the Creator of all things. They also preach that there is a paradise, a place of purification, and a hell; and they say that all souls when they depart from this world, go to the place of purification, both the good and the bad; and from there the good are sent to the place where God is and the evil to the place where the devil is. They also say that God sends the devil into this world to punish the bad.

When reading this explanation, one might think that missionizing such people might not be worth the risk of a long and dangerous journey; but, probably cued by a question about the custom of sexual intercourse with boys at these god-fearing Japanese monasteries, Anjiro volunteered another proof of his flawless adoption of Christian values:

He said that these religious would be leading a very good life except for the fact that they are known for that most ugly of all sins: they have, that is, many boys for instruction in the monastery, although they preach to the people that this is an extremely serious sin, and they praise chastity.

Anjiro's explanations of Japanese religious rites thus have distinct Christian hues: the faithful pray for redemption of sins, give alms, make pilgrimages, and fast at different times of the year. They sing and pray in front of an altar and ring bells to call for worship, prayer, and sermon. When a child is born, it is immediately washed; if it dies before that, the parents think they have committed a grave sin. When someone dies, they assemble with burning candles to bury or cremate the corpse. Priests burn incense on an altar-like stone while reciting prayers. The prayer-houses have sculpted or painted images of saints of both sexes, adorned with halos and crowns. One image, called Quaneuoa (Kannon), represents a woman with a child. Although people pray only to one God, namely, Dainichi, the creator of all things whom they represent with one body and three heads, they also address prayers to the saints in order to make them intervene with God.

Anjiro also told his Jesuit mentors the story of a man called Xaqua (Shaka) who is revered like a saint. Born in a country to the West of China called Chengico (Tenjiku) in miraculous circumstances which are explained in some detail, the baby boy could already walk after three months. Advancing three steps he pointed one hand toward heaven and the other toward earth and said: "I am the only one in heaven and the only one on earth." From age 18, instead of marrying according to his father's wish, he led the life of a hermit for six years and subsequently preached to the people. He became so revered and influential that he changed the laws of the country and taught the people how to pray to God. His 8,000 pupils imitated his way of life, and some of them went to China where these teachings were also accepted. When the teaching of Xaqua was introduced from Chengico (Tenjiku) via Tartary and China to Japan 500 or more years ago, idols were destroyed, so that to this day fragments of old idols are found like in Rome. But what was this very influential man's teaching? Lancilotto explains:

This Shaka taught all these peoples to worship one single God, the Creator of all things; and he ordered that he be painted, as has been said above, with one single body and three heads.

Apart from that most important teaching, he also gave five commandments: 1) Thou shall not kill; 2) Thou shall not steal; 3) Thou shall not fornicate; 4) Thou shall not get aggravated over things that cannot be changed; and 5) Thou shall forgive insults. Furthermore, he wrote many useful books about virtues and vices, wherein he taught that people should behave according to their status. He prescribed frequent fasting and taught that castigation of the body is very pleasing to God and powerful for the absolution from sins. He also taught that the souls of people were tortured in hell by devils and roasted in eternal fire; and he spoke of a purgatory and of angels in paradise who are busy adoring the glory of God. Japanese people believe that angels, created from a different substance, protect them, which is why they carry pictures of these angels on them.

Anjiro's mind set while he divulged all of this information to Lancilotto is described as follows:

He says it seems to him that the whole of Japan would be glad to become Christian, for they have written in their books that at some time there will be only one law, and none can be imagined better than ours. And he is therefore very happy, since it seems to him that God is granting him a great grace in that he will be the means for bringing people to Japan to preach this holy law. And although he is married, he has offered to go from two to four years in the company of the priests who will sail there, until Christianity has made a good beginning in that land and the priests have learned the language very well.

Indeed, Lancilotto's report paints the picture of a religion that is surprisingly similar to Christianity in many respects, particularly in the fundamental belief in a God (Dainichi) who is represented as a kind of trinity. This faith was preached by a saint from Tenjiku by the name of Xaqua and introduced a long time ago from Tenjiku to China and Japan, eliminating the old idols that were previously venerated. The teaching of Xaqua looks rather like a thin carbon copy of Christian doctrine, comprising everything from a creator God to the devils and from the purgatory to angels. In the third report, the founder of the religion of Shaka even gets his well-deserved resurrection and ascension to heaven:

This Shaka, who gave laws to these people of China and Japan, ended his life as follows. He called all of his disciples and the people in general together and preached to them and said at the end that he would soon die. And he stepped into a marble tomb which he had ordered to be built and died before the eyes of all. His disciples then burned his body, and as the were placing his ashes in the same tomb, Shaka himself, in the presence of all, appeared in the air above a white cloud with a cheerful countenance and a marvelous aspect and thus went up to heaven and was seen no more. He was ninety years old.

As described by Anjiro, the Japanese ritual also bears major marks of Catholicism: bells and rosaries, monasticism and veneration of saints, baptism and candle-lit burial. Judging from this report, one can conclude that the knowledge of Buddhist doctrine of Anjiro and his two Japanese companions was hardly commensurate with their fervor to become good Christians. Only the biography of Shaka and some Yamabushi rituals are described in any detail. No Buddhist sect is mentioned by name, and of the myriad buddhas and bodhisattvas, etc., only Kannon and Dainichi appear&emdash;though in rather strange roles.

Whatever the Jesuits might have thought about all this: it certainly fit right into their world view and plans. Almost everything Anjiro reported about the religion of Japan indicated that these people must once have been in the possession not just of faith in God&emdash;which of course all people of Asia originally embraced since, according to the European view of history, all are descendants of Noah's son Sem&emdash;but even of the true Christian faith. Anjiro gave further evidence supporting this idea when he reported, as mentioned in the introduction, that a ruler of Japan had a cross in his coat of arms. So the conclusions to the report are hardly surprising:

The Japanese do not distinguish between food and do not have circumcision. It seems that the Good News was already preached there but that its light first dimmed because of their sins and then was removed entirely because of a heretic like Mohammed. While I wrote this, an Armenian bishop came by who has spent over forty years in these regions. He told me that he had read that at the beginning of the Church, Armenians had preached in China and had converted the country to Christ. However, it would be very good if the light of the true faith were once again brought to these countries.

The task of missionizing Japan, then, would consist in reawakening that old holy knowledge buried under the heresy of the prophet from Tenjiku named Xaqua (Shaka) and his clergy. The Jesuits thus prepared themselves not so much for slashing and burning, as for example in Central America, but rather for gently interrupting the slumber of the True Faith in Japan and even studying its holy scriptures with a glance toward China. This might involve some problems with the clergy of the false prophet Shaka, true, but the basis was already laid through the apostle Thomas or Armenian missionaries or some unknown other route. The task of formulating the wake-up call, however, was destined for the author of all this information, Anjiro.

Before setting out from Malacca to Japan, Anjiro, who had undergone the severe meditations reserved only for the hardier characters in Jesuit seminaries, volunteered a piece of information to Xavier that was of such great interest to him that he included it in a letter to Europe. This information shows that Anjiro (and possibly his companions) was to some extent familiar with the practices at the large Soto-Zen temple called Fukushoji in Kagoshima:

Paulo de Santa Fee, the Japanese, our companion, told me one thing which consoled me much; and what he told me is that in the monastery of his land, where there are many frades and a school, they have among them a practice of meditating which is as follows: he who has charge of the house, their superior, who is the most learned, calls them all together and addresses them in the manner of a sermon; and then he says to each one of them that they should meditate for the space of an hour on the following: When a man is dying and cannot speak, since the soul is being separated from the body, if it could then speak in such a separation and withdrawal of the soul, what things would the soul say to the body? And also, of those who are in hell or purgatory, if they would return to this life, what would they say? And after the hour has passed, the superior of the house examines each one of them on what he experienced during that hour when he meditated; and if he says something good, he praises him; and, on the other hand, he reproaches him when he says things which are not worth remembering.

Concise Chronology of Events
1544	Pero Diez sails from the Chinese Ningpo Islands to Japan; later met Xavier on Ternate island and told him of his Japan visit (Schurhammer 1982, vol. 3, p. 265; Schurhammer is henceforth abbreviated as SH)
1546	Jorge Alvares spends some time in Japan (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 269, note 4)
1546	At the end of the year, Anjiro meets again Alvaro Vaz (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 270)
1547	Alvares welcomes Anjiro and a servant on his ship in Yamagawa harbor near Kagoshima and sails with them to Malacca (SH 1982, vol. 3, p 270)
1547/04	Xavier meets Alvares and hears about Japan (Haas 1902 vol. 1, pp. 59-60)
1547	Anjiro fails to get baptized in Malacca, wants to return to Japan but meets in China captain Alvaro Vaz who takes Anjiro back to Malacca where he meets Alvares again (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 271)
1547/12/07	In Malacea, Alvares introduces Anjiro to Xavier (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 269, note 2)
1547/12	Alvares writes his Japan report for Xavier in Malacca (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 273)
1547/12/15	Xavier sails from Malacca to Cochin in India (SH 1982, vol, 3, p. 273)
1547/12/15	Anjiro sails from Malacca to Cochin in lndia (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 273)
1548/01/20	Xavier writes a series of letters to Europe; writes about Anjiro (p. 273, note 1; Epistolas S. Francisci Xaverii I, 390-392) and mentions plans to have him translate the entire Christian doctrine (p. 336); considered going himself to Japan (SH 1982, vol 3, p. 337)
1548/01	After arrival in Goa, Anjiro, his servant, and another Japanese are instructed in Portuguese language & Christian faith (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 473)
1548/05/20	The three Japanese receive baptism in Goa (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 473); but instruction is continued by Lancilotto, Torres and Xavier
1548	Summer: Lancilotto writes his first Japan report on the request of the Portuguese governor of Goa, Garcia de Sa. Xavier translates this report into Spanish and Portuguese (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 480, Portuguese title as published by Pires is "Informaco sobre Japao" [Bourdon 1993, p. 128])
1548/11/25	Cosme de Torres sends Xavier's Spanish translation of Lancilotto's first Japan report to Europe, with his own introduction and conclusion (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 480); Portuguese translation of this in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, JapSin 4,18-21v.
1548/11/29	Anjiro's first letter to Europe (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 480, note 1)
1548?	Lancilotto sends his second Japan report ("Informazione dell' Isola chiamata Giapan," Bourdon 1993, p. 127) in Italian to Rome (SH 1982. vol. 3, p. 480). A copy of this report is in Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, JapSin 4, 4-8
1548/12/26	Lancilotto sends his third Japan report in Italian to Europe (SH 1982, vol. 3, p 480). This report is extant (Bibliotheca Nazionale Roma, Fondo Gesuitico 1384, no. 2)
1549/01/01	Xavier sends a second copy of his Spanish translation of Lancilotto's first Japan report to Ignatius of Loyola in Rome (copy of this extant in Bibliotheca Nazionale Roma, Fondo Gesuitico 1482, no. 32 (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 480)
1549/01/01	Xavier sends his Spanish translation of Lancilotto's second Japan report to Simon Rodrigues in Portugal (SH 1982, vol. 3, p. 480)
1549/01/12	Xavier sends Lancilotto's second Japan report to Ignatius of Loyola (Bourdon 1993, p. 127; Elpistolae S. Francisci Xaverii II, p. 12)
1549/04/15	Voyage of Xavier, Torres, Rodrigues and three Japanese incl. Anjiro from Goa to Malaccca (SH 1982, vol. 4, p. 3)
1549/05/31	Arrival in Malacca
1549/06/22	Xavier sends to Europe information gained from Anjiro about meditating frades in Japan (SH 1982, vol. 4, p. 68)
1549/06/24	From Malacca on a Pirate junk to Japan (SH 1982. vol. 4, p. 68)
1549/08/15	Arrival in Kagoshima, soon afterwards, Anjiro visits the daimyo Shimazu Takahisa in Ichiuji castle near Kagoshima
1549/09/29	Visit of the daimyo at Ichiuji castle by Xavier and Anjiro
1552	A French translation of Lancilotto's second report with a curious commentary is published in Guillaumc Postel's Des Merveilles du Monde, 1552 and thus becomes the first publicly accessible report on Japanese religion in the West.