In Japan the place of Kwan-ti, the God of War, as a protector of Buddhist monasteries, is taken by the War-God Hachiman, the “God of the Eight Banners” of pure Shintō extraction. But what is of still greater importance than the protection accorded to Buddhism by Chinese and Japanese native deities of war, is the fact … that already in Indian Buddhism we meet, besides the merciful Bodhisattva, the pitiless Myōō, besides the mild Avalokiteśvara, (the Japanese Kwannon) who graciously looks down on the sinner and endeavors to save him, the revengeful Acala, (the Japanese Fudō) who is unmoved by prayers and wants to surrender the transgressor to his well-merited desert. Both are supplementing each other, both are foreseen in the Buddhist plan of salvation. Though the Myōō or “Lord of Magic Powers” is considered of a lower rank than the Bodhisattva, the “Being of Enlightenment,” they are nevertheless both cooperating in the great work of reaching the living beings—only by opposite methods. The method used by the Bodhisattva and the method used by the Myōō and their striking contrast are brought out by two of the most famous Mahāyāna sūtras, the Bommō-kyō and the Dainehan-gyō.

The tenth of the forty-eight light precepts of the Bommō-kyō says: When one is a child of Buddha, he must not have in his possession any sword or knife, stick, bow, arrows, lance, hatchet or any fighting weapon whatever, nor any net or snare. One must not have in his possession any object destined to put to death living beings, whatever it may be. A Bodhisattva must not revenge a murder, not even one committed against his father or his mother; how much less would it be permitted to him, to kill any living being: He must not have in his possession any instrument destined to kill living beings, and if nevertheless he has one, with his own knowledge and will, he makes himself culpable of a secondary sin causing pollution.”

Diametrically opposite is the injunction of the Dainehan-gyō, as quoted by Nichiren in his Risshō-ankokuron where Buddha says: “Good boy! One who wants to protect and keep the proper dharma [shōbō], ought to keep swords, bows, arrows and halberds without accepting the five śīlas and without studying the igi,” i.e. “the dignified forms” or practical ceremonies, not included in the vinaya. In the same text this sūtra is quoted as saying: “If there is one who wants to accept and to keep the five śīlas, he cannot be called a man of Mahāyāna. If one protects the proper dharma, although he has not received the five śīlas, he is called a man of Mahāyāna. The one who protects the proper dharma, ought to hold swords and sticks. And although he possesses swords and sticks, I [Buddha] will call him a keeper of śīlas.”