A gift from Baekje
The Nihon Shoki, Japan's official chronicle completed in 720, says that in 552 King Seong of Baekje sent the Japanese emperor Kinmei a gilt bronze image of the Buddha, banners and scriptures, praising the teaching as the most excellent of all. Other early records give the year 538, which many historians prefer.
A court divided
The court split. The powerful Soga clan wanted to honour the new god, while the Mononobe and Nakatomi clans, who were in charge of the traditional rites to the native kami, feared their anger. When an epidemic broke out, the image was blamed and thrown into a canal.
The dispute was settled by force. In 587 the Soga defeated the Mononobe in battle, and within a few years the first great Buddhist temple, Asukadera, was being built. Buddhism was now the religion of the Japanese court.
Why it matters
Buddhism eventually becomes one of the defining forces of Japanese philosophy, art and culture.
History and tradition
What historians can say
Buddhism was very likely known in Japan earlier, among immigrant families from the Korean peninsula; 538 and 552 mark its official reception at court. The Nihon Shoki was compiled more than a century and a half later, and its account is shaped by later politics.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
The chronicle tells that the discarded image was later recovered, and that the building of temples brought an end to the sickness.