Page "Emperor Kimmei" Paragraph 11

With the introduction of a new religion to the court, a deep rift developed between the Mononobe clan, who supported the worship of Japan's traditional deities, and the Soga clan, who supported the adoption of Buddhism.

According to one famous episode, shortly after the Soga's began worshipping the new Buddha statue, a plague broke out, which the Mononobe's promptly attributed to a curse by Japan's traditional deities as punishment for worshipping the foreign god.

Mononobe no Okoshi and his men promptly threw the statue into a river in Naniwa and burned the temple that the Soga's had built to hold it.