Exotics and Retrospectives — IV The Literature of the Dead, Part 2

IV

Though not representing, nor even suggesting, the whole range of sotoba-literature, the foregoing texts will sufficiently indicate the quality of its philosophical interest.

The inscriptions of the _haka_, or tombs, have another kind of interest; but before treating of these, a few words should be said about the tombs themselves.

I cannot attempt detail, because any description of the various styles of such monuments would require a large and profusely illustrated volume; while the study of their sculptures belongs to the enormous subject of Buddhist iconography,--foreign to the purpose of this essay.

There are hundreds,--probably thousands,--of different forms of Buddhist funeral monuments,--ranging from the unhewn boulder, with a few ideographs scratched on it, of the poorest village-graveyard, to the complicated turret (_kagé-kio_) enclosing a shrine with images, and surmounted with a spire of umbrella-shaped disks or parasols (Sanscrit: _tchâtras_),--possibly representing the old Chinese stûpa.

The most common class of _haka_ are plain.

A large number of the better class have lotos-designs chiselled upon some part of them:--either the pedestal is sculptured so as to represent lotos-petals; or a single blossom is cut in relief or intaglio on the face of the tablet; or--(but this is rare)--a whole lotos-plant, leaves and flowers, is designed in relief upon one or two sides of the monument.

In the costly class of tombs symbolizing the Five Buddhist Elements, the eight-petalled lotos-symbol may be found repeated, with decorative variations, upon three or four portions of their elaborate structure.

Occasionally we find beautiful reliefs upon tombstones,--images of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas; and not unfrequently a statue of Jizō may be seen erected beside a grave.

But the sculptures of this class are mostly old;--the finest pieces in the Kobudera cemetery, for example, were executed between two and three hundred years ago.

Finally I may observe that the family crest or _mon_ of the dead is cut upon the front of the tomb, and sometimes also upon the little stone tank set before it.

* * * * * The inscriptions very seldom include any texts from the holy books.

On the front of the monument, below the chiselled crest, the kaimyō is graven, together, perhaps, with a single mystical character--Sanscrit or Chinese; on the left side is usually placed the record of the date of death; and on the right, the name of the person or family erecting the tomb.

Such is now, at least, the ordinary arrangement; but there are numerous exceptions; and as the characters are most often disposed in vertical columns, it is quite easy to put all the inscriptions upon the face of a very narrow monument.

Occasionally the real name is also cut upon some part of the stone,--together, perhaps, with some brief record of the memorable actions of the dead.

Excepting the kaimyō, and the sect-invocation often accompanying it, the inscriptions upon the ordinary class of tombs are secular in character; and the real interest of such epigraphy is limited to the kaimyō.

By _kai_-myō (_sîla_-name) is meant the Buddhist name given to the spirit of the dead, according to the custom of all sects except the Ikkō or Shinshū.

In a special sense the term _kai_, or sîla, refers to precepts of conduct[63]; in a general sense it might be rendered as “salvation by works.

” But the Shinshū allows no _kai_ to any mortal; it does not admit the doctrine of immediate salvation by works, but only by faith in Amida; and the posthumous appellations which it bestows are therefore called not _kai_-myō, but _hō-myō_, or “Law-names.

” Before Meiji the social rank occupied by any one during life was suggested by the kaimyō.

The use, with a kaimyō, of the two characters reading _in den_, and signifying “temple-dweller,” or “mansion-dweller,”--or of the more common single character _in_, signifying “temple” or “mansion,” was a privilege reserved to the nobility and gentry.

Class-distinctions were further indicated by suffixes.

_Koji_,--a term partly corresponding to our “lay-brother,”--and _Daishi_, “great elder-sister,” were honorifically attached to the kaimyō of the samurai and the aristocracy; while the simpler appellations of _Shinshi_ and _Shinnyo_, respectively signifying “faithful [believing] man,” “faithful woman,” followed the kaimyō of the humble.

These forms are still used; but the distinctions they once maintained have mostly passed away, and the privilege of the knightly “_in den_,” and its accompaniments, is free to any one willing to pay for it.

At all times the words _Dōji_ and _Dōnyo_ seem to have been attached to the kaimyō of children.

_Dō_, alone, means a lad, but when combined with _ji_ or _nyo_ it means “child” in the adjectival sense;--so that we may render _Dōji_ as “Child-son,” and _Dōnyo_ as “Child-daughter.

” Children are thus called who die before reaching their fifteenth year,--the majority-year by the old samurai code; a lad of fifteen being deemed fit for war-service.

In the case of children who die within a year after birth, the terms _Gaini_ and _Gainyo_ occasionally replace _Dōji_ and _Dōnyo_.

The syllable _Gai_ here represents a Chinese character meaning “suckling.

” Different Buddhists sects have different formulas for the composition of the kaimyō and its addenda;--but this subject would require a whole special treatise; and I shall mention only a few sectarian customs.

The Shingon sect sometimes put a Sanscrit character--the symbol of a Buddha--before their kaimyō;--the Shin head theirs with an abbreviation of the holy name Sakyamuni;--the Nichiren often preface their inscriptions with the famous invocation, _Namu myō hō rengé kyō_ (“Hail to the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law!

”),--sometimes followed by the words _Senzo daidai_ (“forefathers of the generations”);--the Jōdo, like the Ikkō, use an abbreviation of the name Sakyamuni, or, occasionally, the invocation _Namu Amida Butsu!

_--and they compose their four-character kaimyō with the aid of two ideographs signifying “honour” or “fame;”--the Zen sect contrive that the first and the last character of the kaimyō, when read together, shall form a particular Buddhist term, or mystical phrase,--except when the kaimyō consists of only two characters.

Probably the word “mansion” in kaimyō-inscriptions would suggest to most Western readers the idea of heavenly mansions.

But the fancy would be at fault.

The word has no celestial signification; yet the history of its epitaphic use is curious enough.

Anciently, at the death of any illustrious man, a temple was erected for the special services due to his spirit, and also for the conservation of relics or memorials of him.

Confucianism introduced into Japan the _ihai_, or mortuary tablet, called by the Chinese _shin-shu_;[64] and a portion of the temple was set apart to serve as a chapel for the _ihai_, and the ancestral cult.

Any such memorial temple was called _in_, or “mansion,”--doubtless because the august spirit was believed to occupy it at certain periods;--and the term yet survives in the names of many celebrated Buddhist temples,--such as the Chion-In, of Kyōtō.

With the passing of time, this custom was necessarily modified; for as privileges were extended and aristocracies multiplied, the erection of a separate temple to each notable presently became impossible.

Buddhism met the difficulty by conferring upon every individual of distinction the posthumous title of _in-den_,--and affixing to this title the name of an imaginary temple or “mansion.

” So to-day, in the vast majority of kaimyō, the character _in_ refers only to the temple that would have been built had circumstance permitted, but now exists only in the pious desire of those who love and reverence the departed.

[Illustration: TOMB IN KOBUDERA CEMETERY (The relief represents Seishi Bosatsu--Bodhisattva Mahâsthâma--in meditation.

It is 187 years old.

The white patches on the surface are lichen growths)] Nevertheless the poetry of these _in_-names does possess some real meaning.

They are nearly all of them names such as would be given to real Buddhist temples,--names of virtues and sanctities and meditations,--names of ecstasies and powers and splendors and luminous immeasurable unfoldings,--names of all ways and means of escape from the Six States of Existence and the sorrow of “peopling the cemeteries again and again.

” * * * * * The general character and arrangement of kaimyō can best be understood by the aid of a few typical specimens.

The first example is from a beautiful tomb in the cemetery of Kobudera, which is sculptured with a relief representing the Bodhisattva Mahâsthâma (Seishi Bosatsu) meditating.

All the text in this instance has been cut upon the face of the monument, to left and right of the icon.

Transliterated into Romaji it reads thus:-- (Kaimyō.

) _Tei-Shō-In_, HŌ-SŌ MYŌ-SHIN, _Daishi_.

(Record.

) --Shōtoku Ni, Jin shin Shimotsuki, jiu-ku nichi.

[Translation:-- --_Great Elder-Sister_, WONDERFUL-REALITY-APPEARING-AT-THE-WINDOW-OF-LAW, _dwelling in the Mansion of the Pine of Chastity_.

--The nineteenth day of the Month of Frost,[65] second year of Shōtoku,[66]--the year being under the Dragon of Elder Water.

] For the sake of clearness, I have printed the posthumous name proper (_Hō-sō Myō-shin_) in small capitals, and the rest in italics.

The first three characters of the inscription,--_Tei-Shō-In_,--form the name of the temple, or “mansion.

” The pine, both in religious and secular poetry, is a symbol of changeless conditions of good, because it remains freshly-green in all seasons.

The use of the term “Reality” in the kaimyō indicates the state of unity with the Absolute;--by “Window-of-Law” (Law here signifying the Buddha-state) must be understood that exercise of virtue through which even in this existence some perception of Infinite Truth may be obtained.

I have already explained the final word, _Daishi_ (“great elder-sister”).

Less mystical, but not less beautiful, is this Nichiren kaimyō sculptured upon the grave of a young samurai: _Ko-shin In, Ken-dō Nichi-ki, Koji.

_ [_Koji,-- Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise, in the Mansion of Luminous Mind.

_][67] On the same stone is carven the kaimyō of the wife:-- _Shin-kyō In, Myō-en Nichi-ko, Daishi.

_ [_Daishi,-- Spherically-Wondrous-Sunbeam, in the Mansion of the Mirror of the Heart.

_] Perhaps the reader will now be able to find interest in the following selection of kaimyō, translated for me by Japanese scholars.

The inscriptions are of various rites and epochs; but I have arranged them only by class and sex:-- [MASCULINE KAIMYŌ.

] _Koji,-- Law-Nature-Eternally-Complete, in the Mansion of the Mirror of Light.

_ _Koji,-- Lone-Moon-above-Snowy-Peak, in the Mansion of Quiet Light.

_ _Koji,-- Wonderful-Radiance-of-Luminous-Sound, in the Mansion of the Day-dawn of Mind.

_ _Koji,-- Pure-Lotos-bloom-of-the-Heart, in the Mansion of Shining Beginnings.

_ _Koji,-- Real-Earnestness-Self-sufficing-within, in the Mansion of Mystery-Penetration.

_ _Koji,-- Wonderful-Brightness-of-the-Clouds-of-Law, in the Mansion of Wisdom-Illumination.

_ _Koji,-- Law-Echo-proclaiming-Truth, in the Mansion of Real Zeal.

_ _Koji,-- Ocean-of-Reason-Calmly-Full, in the Mansion of Self-Nature.

_ _Koji,-- Effective-Benevolence-Hearing-with-Pure-Heart-the-Supplications-of- the-Poor,--dwelling in the Mansion of the Virtue of Pity.

_ _Koji,-- Perfect-Enlightenment-beaming-tranquil-Glory,--in the Mansion of Supreme Comprehension.

_ _Koji,-- Autumnal-Prospect-Clear-of-Cloud,--of the Household of Sakyamuni,--in the Mansion of the Obedient Heart.

_ _Koji,-- Illustrious-Brightness,--of the Household of the Buddha,--in the Mansion of Conspicuous Virtue.

_ _Koji,-- Daily-Peace-Home-Prospering, in the Mansion of Spherical Completeness.

_ * * * * * _Shinshi,-- Prosperity-wide-shining-as-the-Moon-of-Autumn.

_ _Shinshi,-- Vow-abiding-wondrously-without-fault.

_ _Shinshi,-- Vernal-Mountain-bathed-in-the-Light-of-the-Law.

_ _Shinshi,-- Waking-to-Dhyâna-at-the-Bell-Peal-of-the-Wondrous-Dawn.

_ _Shinshi,-- Winter-Mountain-Chastity-Mind.

_[68] [FEMININE KAIMYŌ]

_Daishi,-- Moon-Dawn-of-the-Mountain-of-Light, dwelling in the August Mansion of Self-witness.

_[69] _Daishi,-- Wondrous-Lotos-of-Fleckless-Light, in the Mansion of the Moonlike Heart.

_ _Daishi,-- Wonderful-Chastity-Responding-with-Pure-Mind-to-the-Summons-of- Duty,--in the Mansion of the Great Sea of Compassion.

_ _Daishi,-- Lotos-Heart-of-Wondrous-Apparition,--in the Mansion of Luminous Perfume.

_ _Daishi,-- Clear-Light-of-the-Spotless-Moon, in the Mansion of Spring-time-Eve.

_ _Kaishi,-- Pure-Mind-as-a-Sun-of-Compassion, in the Mansion of Real Light.

_ _Daishi,-- Wondrous-Lotos-of-Fragrance-Etherial, in the Mansion of Law-Nature.

_ _Shinnyo,-- Rejoicing-in-the-Way-of-the-Infinite.

_ _Shinnyo,-- Excellent-Courage-to-follow-Wisdom-to-the-End.

_ _Shinnyo,-- Winter-Moon-shedding-purest-Light.

_ _Shinnyo,-- Luminous-Shadow-in-the-Plumflower-Chamber.

_ _Shinnyo,-- Virtue-fragrant-as-the-Odor-of-the-Lotos.

_ [CHILDREN’S KAIMYŌ.

--MALE.

] _Dai-Dōji,[70]-- Instantly-Attaining-to-the-Perfect-Peace, dwelling in the August Mansion of Purity.

_ _Dai-Dōji,[71]-- Permeating-Lucidity-of-the-Pure-Grove, dwelling in the August Mansion of Blossom-Fragrance.

_ _Gaini,-- Frost-Glimmer.

_ _Dōji,-- Dewy-Light.

_ _Dōji,-- Dream-of-Spring.

_ _Dōji,-- Spring-Frost.

_ _Dōji,-- Ethereal-Nature.

_ _Dōji,-- Rain-of-the-Law-from-translucent-Clouds.

_ [CHILDREN’S KAIMYŌ.

--FEMALE.

] _Dai-Dōnyo,[72]-- Bright-Shining-Height-of-Wisdom, dwelling in the August Mansion of Fragrant Trees.

_ _Gainyo,-- Snowy-Bubble.

_ _Gainyo,-- Shining-Phantasm.

_ _Dōnyo,-- Plumflower-Light.

_ _Dōnyo,-- Dream-Phantasm.

_ _Dōnyo,-- Chaste-Spring.

_ _Dōnyo,-- Wisdom-Mirror-of-Flawless-Appearing.

_ _Dōnyo,-- Wondrous-Excellence-of-Fragrant-Snow.

_ After having studied the sotoba-texts previously cited, the reader should be able to divine the meaning of most of the kaimyō above given.

At all events he will understand such frequently-repeated terms as “Moon,” “Lotos,” “Law.

” But he may be puzzled by other expressions; and some further explanation will, perhaps, not be unwelcome.

Besides expressing a pious hope for the higher happiness of the departed, or uttering some assurance of special conditions in the spiritual world, a great number of kaimyō also refer, directly or indirectly, to the character of the vanished personality.

Thus a man of widely-recognized integrity and strong moral purpose, may--like my dead friend--be not unfitly named: “Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise.

” The child-daughter or the young wife, especially remembered for sweetness of character, may be commemorated by some such posthumous name as “Plumflower-Light,” or “Luminous-Shadow-of-the-Plumflower-Chamber;”--the word “plumflower” in either case at once suggesting the quality of the virtue of the dead, because this blossom in Japan is the emblem of feminine moral charm,--more particularly faithfulness to duty and faultless modesty.

Again, the memory of any person noted for deeds of charity may be honoured by such a kaimyō as, “Effective-Benevolence-Listening-with-Pure-Heart-to-the-Supplications- of-the-Poor.

” Finally I may observe that the kaimyō-terms expressing altitude, luminosity, and fragrance, have most often a moral-exemplary signification.

But in all countries epitaphic literature has its conventional hypocrisies or extravagances.

Buddhist kaimyō frequently contain a great deal of religious flattery; and beautiful posthumous names are often given to those whose lives were the reverse of beautiful.

When we find among feminine kaimyō such appellations as “Wondrous-Lotos,” or “Beautiful-as-the-Lotos-of-the-Dawn,” we may be sure in the generality of cases that the charm, to which reference is so made, was ethical only.

Yet there are exceptions; and the more remarkable of these are furnished by the kaimyō of children.

Names like “Dream-of-Spring,” “Radiant-Phantasm,” “Snowy-Bubble,” do actually refer to the lost form,--or at least to the supposed parental idea of vanished beauty and grace.

But such names also exemplify a peculiar consolatory application of the Buddhist doctrine of Impermanency.

We might say that through the medium of these kaimyō the bereaved are thus soothed in the loftiest language of faith:--“Beautiful and brief was the being of your child,--a dream of spring, a radiant passing vision,--a snowy bubble.

But in the order of eternal law all forms must pass; material permanency there is none: only the divine Absolute dwelling in every being,--only the Buddha in the heart of each of us,--forever endures.

Be this great truth at once your comfort and your hope!

” * * * * * Extraordinary examples of the retrospective significance sometimes given to posthumous names, are furnished by the kaimyō of the Forty-Seven Rōnin buried at Sengakuji in Tōkyō.

(Their story is now well-known to all the English-reading world through Mitford’s eloquent and sympathetic version of it in the “Tales of Old Japan.

”) The noteworthy peculiarity of these kaimyō is that each contains the two words, “dagger” and “sword,”--used in a symbolic sense, but having also an appropriate military suggestiveness.

Ōïshi Kuranosuké Yoshiwo, the leader, is alone styled _Koji_;--the kaimyō of his followers have the humbler suffix _Shinshi_.

Ōïshi’s kaimyō reads:--“_Dagger-of-Emptiness-and-stainless-Sword, in the Mansion of Earnest Loyalty_.

” I need scarcely call attention to the historic meaning of the mansion-name.

Three of the kaimyō of his followers will serve as examples of the rest.

That of Masé Kyudayu Masaake is:--“_Dagger-of-Fame-and-Sword-of-the-Way [or Doctrine.

]_” The kaimyō of Ōïshi Sezayémon Nobukiyo is:--“_Dagger-of-Magnanimity-and-Sword-of-Virtue.

_” And the kaimyō of Horibei Yasubei is:--“_Dagger-of-Cloud-and-Sword-of-Brightness.

_” The first and the last of these four kaimyō will be found obscure; and several more of the forty-seven inscriptions are equally enigmatic at first sight.

Usually in a kaimyō the word “Emptiness,” or “Void,” signifies the Buddhist state of absolute spiritual purity,--the state of Unconditioned Being.

But in the kaimyō of Ōïshi Kuranosuké the meaning of it, though purely Buddhist, is very different.

By “emptiness” here, we must understand “illusion,” “unreality,”--and the full meaning of the phrase “dagger-emptiness” is:--“_Wisdom that, seeing the emptiness of material forms, pierces through illusion as a dagger.

_” In Horibei Yasubei’s kaimyō we must similarly render the word “cloud” by illusion;

and “Dagger-of-Cloud” should be interpreted, “_Illusion-penetrating Dagger of Wisdom.

_” The wisdom that perceives the emptiness of phenomena, is the sharply-dividing, or distinguishing wisdom,--is _Myō-kwan-zatsu-chi_ (Pratyavekshana-gñâna).

V

Possibly I have presumed too much upon the patience of my readers; yet I feel that these studies can yield scarcely more than the glimpse of a subject wide and deep as a sea.

If they should arouse any Western interest in the philosophy and the poetry of Buddhist epitaphic literature, then they will certainly have accomplished all that I could reasonably hope.

Not improbably I shall be accused, as I have been on other occasions, of trying to make Buddhist texts “more beautiful than they are.

” This charge usually comes from persons totally ignorant of the originals, and betrays a spirit of disingenuousness with which I have no sympathy.

Whoever confesses religion to have been a developing influence in the social and moral history of races,--whoever grants that respect is due to convictions which have shaped the nobler courses of human conduct for thousands of years,--whoever acknowledges that in any great religion something of eternal truth must exist,--will hold it the highest duty of a translator to interpret the concepts of an alien faith as generously as he would wish his own thoughts or words interpreted by his fellow-men.

In the rendering of Chinese sentences this duty presents itself under a peculiar aspect.

Any attempt at literal translation would result in the production either of nonsense, or of a succession of ideas totally foreign to far-Eastern thought.

The paramount necessity in treating such texts is to discover and to expound the thought conveyed to Oriental minds by the original ideographs,--which are very different things indeed from “written words.

” The translations given in this essay were made by Japanese scholars, and, in their present form, have the approval of competent critics.

* * * * * As I write these lines a full moon looks into my study over the trees of the temple-garden, and brings me the recollection of a little Buddhist poem:-- “_From the foot of the mountain, many are the paths ascending in shadow;

but from the cloudless summit all who climb behold the self-same Moon.

_” * * * * * The reader who knows the truth shrined in this little verse will not regret an hour passed with me among the tombs of Kobudera.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Such figures are really elaborate tiles, and are called _onigawara_, or “demon-tiles.

” It may naturally be asked why demon-heads should be ever placed above Buddhist gate-ways.

Originally they were not intended to represent demons, in the Buddhist sense, but guardian-spirits whose duty it was to drive demons away.

The _onigawara_ were introduced into Japan either from China or Korea--not improbably Korea; for we read that the first roof-tiles made in Japan were manufactured shortly after the introduction of the new faith by Korean priests, and under the supervision of Shōtoku Taishi, the princely founder and supporter of Japanese Buddhism.

They were baked at Koizumi-mura, in Yamato;--but we are not told whether there were any of this extraordinary shape among them.

It is worth while remarking that in Korea to-day you can see hideous faces painted upon house-doors,--even upon the gates of the royal palace; and these, intended merely to frighten away evil spirits, suggest the real origin of the demon-tiles.

The Japanese, on first seeing such tiles, called them demon-tiles because the faces upon them resembled those conventionally given to Buddhist demons; and now that their history has been forgotten, they are popularly supposed to represent demon-guardians.

There would be nothing contrary to Buddhist faith in the fancy;--for there are many legends of good demons.

Besides, in the eternal order of divine law, even the worst demon must at last become a Buddha.

[17] _Osmanthus fragrans.

_ This is one of the very few Japanese plants having richly-perfumed flowers.

[18] The word “sotoba” is identical with the Sanscrit “stûpa.

” Originally a mausoleum, and later a simple monument--commemorative or otherwise,--the stûpa was introduced with Buddhism into China, and thence, perhaps by way of Korea, into Japan.

Chinese forms of the stone stûpa are to be found in many of the old Japanese temple-grounds.

The wooden _sotoba_ is only a symbol of the stûpa; and the more elaborate forms of it plainly suggest its history.

The slight carving along its upper edges represents that superimposition of cube, sphere, crescent, pyramid, and body-pyriform (symbolizing the Five Great Elements), which forms the design of the most beautiful funeral monuments.

[19] These relations of the elements to the Buddhas named are not, however, permanently fixed in the doctrine,--for obvious philosophical reasons.

Sometimes Sakyamuni is identified with Ether, and Amitâbha with Air, etc. , etc. In the above enumeration I have followed the order taken by Professor Bunyiu Nanjio, who nevertheless suggests that this order is not to be considered perpetual.

[20] The above prayer is customarily said after having read a sûtra, or copied a sacred text, or caused a Buddhist service to be performed.

[21] Dai-en-kyō-chi (Âdarsana-gñâna).

Amida is the Japanese form of the name Amitâbha.

[22] “Great (or Noble) Elder Sister” is the meaning of the title _dai-shi_ affixed to the _kaimyō_ of a woman.

In the rite of the Zen sect _dai-shi_ always signifies a married woman; _shin-nyo_, a maid.

[23] This _kaimyō_, or posthumous name, literally signifies: Radiant-Chastity-Beaming-Through-Luminous-Clouds.

[24] The Supreme Wisdom; the state of Buddhahood.

[25] _San-Akudō_,--the three unhappy conditions of Hell, of the World of Hungry Spirits (_Pretas_), and of Animal Existence.

[26] “Haijō Kongō” means “the Diamond of Universal Enlightenment:” it is the honorific appellation of Kūkai or Kobodaishi, founder of the Shingon-Shū.

[27] From a Zen sotoba.

[28] In Japanese “Sanbodai.

” The term “tower” refers of course to the _sotoba_, the symbol of a real tower, or at least of the desire to erect such a monument, were it possible.

[29] In Japanese, _Anuka-tara-sanmaku-sanbodai_,--the supreme form of Buddhist enlightenment.

[30] From a sotoba of the Jodo sect.

[31] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

The Amida-Kyō, or Sûtra of Amida, is the Japanese [Chinese] version of the smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha Sûtra.

[32] _Gokuraku_ is the common word in Japan for the Buddhist heaven.

The above inscription, translated for me from a sotoba of the Jōdo sect, is an abbreviated form of a verse in the Smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha (see _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East”), which Max Müller has thus rendered in full:--“In that world Sukhâvatî, O Sâriputra, there is neither bodily nor mental pain for living beings.

The sources of happiness are innumerable there.

For that reason is that world called Sukhâvatî, the happy.

” [33] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[34] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[35] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[36] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[37] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[38] Tathâgata.

[39] From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[40] Avatamsaka Sûtra.

--This text is also from a Zen sotoba.

[41] From a tombstone of the Jōdo sect.

The text is evidently from the Chinese version of the Amitâyur-Dhyâna-Sûtra (see _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East”).

It reads in the English version thus:--“In fine, it is your mind that becomes Buddha;--nay, it is your mind that is indeed Buddha.

” [42] Pratyeka-Buddha sastra?

--From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[43] _San-zé_, or _mitsu-yo_,--the Past, Present, and Future.

[44] “Mind” is here expressed by the character _shin_ or _kokoro_.

--The text is from a Zen sotoba, but is used also, I am told, by the mystical sects of Tendai and Shingon.

[45] Krityânushthâna-gñâna.

--The text is from a sotoba of the Shingon sect.

[46] More literally, “Self and Other:” i. e. , the Ego and the Non-Ego in the meaning of “I” and “Thou.

” There is no “I” and “Thou” in Buddhahood.

--This text was copied from a Zen sotoba.

[47] From a Zen sotoba.

[48] The Chinese word literally means “void,”--as in the expression “Void Supreme,” to signify the state of Nirvana.

But the philosophical reference here is to the ultimate substance, or primary matter; and the rendering of the term by “Ether” (rather in the Greek than the modern sense, of course) has the sanction of Bunyiu Nanjio, and the approval of other eminent Sanscrit and Chinese scholars.

[49] Literally, “illuminates the Zenjō-mind.

” Zenjō is the Sanscrit _Dhyâna_.

It is believed that in real _Dhyâna_ the mind can hold communication with the Absolute.

--From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[50] From a sotoba of the Tendai sect.

[51] From a Jōdo sotoba.

[52] Literally, “the Great-Round-Mirror-Wisdom-Sûtra.

” Sansc.

, _Adarsana-gñâna_.

--From a Zen sotoba.

[53] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[54] _Pratyavekshana-gñâna.

_ [55] From a Zen sotoba.

[56] _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East,” vol. xlix.

p. 180. [57] From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[58] Lit.

: “the Inscription of the Tower of Diamond,”--name of a Buddhist text.

[59] The Six States of Existence are Heaven, Man, Demons, Hell, Hungry Spirits (_Pretas_), and Animals.

--The above is from a Zen sotoba.

[60] Sotoba of the Nichiren sect.

[61] _San-doku_ or _Mitsu-no-doku_, viz.

:--Anger, Ignorance, and Desire.

--From a Zen sotoba.

[62] Japanese title of the Saddhârma-Pundarika Sûtra.

See, for legend, chap.

xi.

of Kern’s translation in the _Sacred Books of the East_ series.

[63] There is a great variety of _sîla_;--five, eight, and ten for different classes of laity; two hundred and fifty for priests;--five hundred for nuns, etc. , etc. --Be it here observed that the posthumous Buddhist name given to the dead must not be studied as referring always to conduct in this world, but rather as referring to _sîla_ in another world.

The _kaimyō_ is thus a title of spiritual initiation.

--Some Japanese Buddhist sects hold what are called _Ju-Kai-E_ (“_sîla_-giving assemblies”), at which the initiated are given _kaimyō_ of another sort,--_sîla_-names of admission as neophytes.

[64] That is, according to the Japanese reading of the Chinese characters.

[65] By the old calendar, the eleventh month was the Month of Frost.

[66] The second year of the period Shōtoku corresponds to 1712 A.

D.

--(For the meaning of the phrase “Dragon of Elder Water” the reader will do well to consult Professor Rein’s _Japan_, pp. 434-436. ) [67] This beautiful kaimyō is identical with that placed upon the monument of my dear friend Nishida, buried in the Nichiren cemetery of Chōmanji, in Matsué.

[68] Signifying:--“believing man of mind as chastely pure as the snow upon a peak in winter.

” [69] This is the kaimyō of the lady for whose sake the temple of Kobudera was built; and the words “Mansion of Self-witness” here refer to the temple itself, which is thus named (_Ji-Shō In_).

The Chinese text reads:--“Ji-Shō-In den, Kwo-zan Kyō-kei, Daishi,”--literally, “Great Elder-Sister, Dawn-Katsura-of-Luminous-Mountain, dwelling in the August Mansion of Self-witness.

” The katsura (_olea fragrans_) is a tree mysteriously connected, in Japanese poetical fancy, with the moon; and its name is often used, as here, to signify the moon.

_Katsura-no-hana_, or “katsura-flower” is a poetical term for moonlight.

--This kaimyō is remarkable in having the honorific term “August” prefixed to the name of the mansion or temple,--a sign of the high rank of the dead lady.

The full date inscribed is “twenty-eighth day of Mid-Autumn” (the old eighth month) “of the seventeenth year of Kwansei” (1640 A. D.

) [70] The prefix _dai_ (great) before the ordinary term _dōji_ (male child) is of rare occurrence.

Probably the lad was of princely birth.

The grave is in a reserved part of the Kobudera cemetery; and the year-date of death is “the fourth of Enkyō”--corresponding to 1747. [71] The tomb bearing this kaimyō is set beside that inscribed with the kaimyō preceding.

Probably the boys were brothers.

In both instances we have the honorific prefix “dai,” and the term “August” qualifying the mansion-name.

The year-date of death is “the second of Kwan-en” (1749).

[72] Probably a princely child,--sister apparently of the highborn boys before referred to.

She is buried beside them in Kobudera.

Observe here again the use of the prefix _dai_,--this time before the term _dōnyo_, “child-girl” or “child-daughter.

” Perhaps the _dai_ here would be better rendered by “grand” than by “great.

” Notice that the term “August” precedes the mansion-name in this case also.

The date of death is given as “the sixth year of Hōreki” (1756).

Frogs [Illustration] “With hands resting upon the floor, reverentially you repeat your poem, O frog!

” _Ancient Poem.

_