Shinzaburo was dead—hideously dead;—and his face was the face of a man who had died in the uttermost agony of fear;—and lying beside him in the bed were the bones of a woman! And the bones of the arms, and the bones of the hands, clung fast about his neck.

Xl

Hakuodo Yusai, the fortune-teller, went to view the corpse at the prayer of the faithless Tomozo. The old man was terrified and astonished at the spectacle, but looked about him with a keen eye. He soon perceived that the o-fuda had been taken from the little window at the back of the house; and on searching the body of Shinzaburo, he discovered that the golden mamori had been taken from its wrapping, and a copper image of Fudo put in place of it. He suspected Tomozo of the theft; but the whole occurrence was so very extraordinary that he thought it prudent to consult with the priest Ryoseki before taking further action. Therefore, after having made a careful examination of the premises, he betook himself to the temple Shin-Banzui-In, as quickly as his aged limbs could bear him.

Ryoseki, without waiting to hear the purpose of the old man's visit, at once invited him into a private apartment.

"You know that you are always welcome here," said Ryoseki. "Please seat yourself at ease.... Well, I am sorry to tell you that Hagiwara Sama is dead."

Yusai wonderingly exclaimed:—"Yes, he is dead;—but how did you learn of it?"

The priest responded:—

"Hagiwara Sama was suffering from the results of an evil karma; and his attendant was a bad man. What happened to Hagiwara Sama was unavoidable;—his destiny had been determined from a time long before his last birth. It will be better for you not to let your mind be troubled by this event."

Yusai said:—

"I have heard that a priest of pure life may gain power to see into the future for a hundred years; but truly this is the first time in my existence that I have had proof of such power.... Still, there is another matter about which I am very anxious...."

"You mean," interrupted Ryoseki, "the stealing of the holy mamori, the Kai-On-Nyorai. But you must not give yourself any concern about that. The image has been buried in a field; and it will be found there and returned to me during the eighth month of the coming year. So please do not be anxious about it."

More and more amazed, the old ninsomi ventured to observe:—

"I have studied the In-Yo,(1) and the science of divination; and I make my living by telling peoples' fortunes;—but I cannot possibly understand how you know these things."

Ryoseki answered gravely:—

"Never mind how I happen to know them.... I now want to speak to you about Hagiwara's funeral. The House of Hagiwara has its own family-cemetery, of course; but to bury him there would not be proper. He must be buried beside O-Tsuyu, the Lady Iijima; for his karma-relation to her was a very deep one. And it is but right that you should erect a tomb for him at your own cost, because you have been indebted to him for many favors."

Thus it came to pass that Shinzaburo was buried beside O-Tsuyu, in the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In, in Yanaka-no-Sasaki.

—Here ends the story of the Ghosts in the Romance of the Peony- Lantern.—

1 The Male and Female principles of the universe, the Active and Passive forces of Nature. Yusai refers here to the old Chinese nature-philosophy,—better known to Western readers by the name FENG-SHUI.

***

My friend asked me whether the story had interested me; and I answered by telling him that I wanted to go to the cemetery of Shin-Banzui-In,—so as to realize more definitely the local color of the author's studies.

"I shall go with you at once," he said. "But what did you think of the personages?"

"To Western thinking," I made answer, "Shinzaburo is a despicable creature. I have been mentally comparing him with the true lovers of our old ballad-literature. They were only too glad to follow a dead sweetheart into the grave; and nevertheless, being Christians, they believed that they had only one human life to enjoy in this world. But Shinzaburo was a Buddhist,—with a million lives behind him and a million lives before him; and he was too selfish to give up even one miserable existence for the sake of the girl that came back to him from the dead. Then he was even more cowardly than selfish. Although a samurai by birth and training, he had to beg a priest to save him from ghosts. In every way he proved himself contemptible; and O-Tsuyu did quite right in choking him to death."

"From the Japanese point of view, likewise," my friend responded, "Shinzaburo is rather contemptible. But the use of this weak character helped the author to develop incidents that could not otherwise, perhaps, have been so effectively managed. To my thinking, the only attractive character in the story is that of O-Yone: type of the old-time loyal and loving servant,— intelligent, shrewd, full of resource,—faithful not only unto death, but beyond death.... Well, let us go to Shin-Banzui-In."

We found the temple uninteresting, and the cemetery an abomination of desolation. Spaces once occupied by graves had been turned into potato-patches. Between were tombs leaning at all angles out of the perpendicular, tablets made illegible by scurf, empty pedestals, shattered water-tanks, and statues of Buddhas without heads or hands. Recent rains had soaked the black soil,—leaving here and there small pools of slime about which swarms of tiny frogs were hopping. Everything—excepting the potato-patches—seemed to have been neglected for years. In a shed just within the gate, we observed a woman cooking; and my companion presumed to ask her if she knew anything about the tombs described in the Romance of the Peony-Lantern.

"Ah! the tombs of O-Tsuyu and O-Yone?" she responded, smiling;—" you will find them near the end of the first row at the back of the temple—next to the statue of Jizo."

Surprises of this kind I had met with elsewhere in Japan.

We picked our way between the rain-pools and between the green ridges of young potatoes,—whose roots were doubtless feeding on the sub-stance of many another O-Tsuyu and O-Yone;—and we reached at last two lichen-eaten tombs of which the inscriptions seemed almost obliterated. Beside the larger tomb was a statue of Jizo, with a broken nose.

"The characters are not easy to make out," said my friend—"but wait!".... He drew from his sleeve a sheet of soft white paper, laid it over the inscription, and began to rub the paper with a lump of clay. As he did so, the characters appeared in white on the blackened surface.

"Eleventh day, third month—Rat, Elder Brother, Fire—Sixth year of Horeki [A. D. 1756].'... This would seem to be the grave of some innkeeper of Nedzu, named Kichibei. Let us see what is on the other monument."

With a fresh sheet of paper he presently brought out the text of a kaimyo, and read,—

"En-myo-In, Ho-yo-I-tei-ken-shi, Ho-ni':—'Nun-of-the-Law, Illustrious, Pure-of-heart-and-will, Famed-in-the-Law,— inhabiting the Mansion-of-the-Preaching-of-Wonder.'.... The grave of some Buddhist nun."

"What utter humbug!" I exclaimed. "That woman was only making fun of us."

"Now," my friend protested, "you are unjust to the, woman! You came here because you wanted a sensation; and she tried her very best to please you. You did not suppose that ghost-story was true, did you?"

Footprints of the Buddha

I

I was recently surprised to find, in Anderson's catalogue of Japanese and Chinese paintings in the British Museum, this remarkable statement:—"It is to be noted that in Japan the figure of the Buddha is never represented by the feet, or pedestal alone, as in the Amravati remains, and many other Indian art-relics." As a matter of fact the representation is not even rare in Japan. It is to be found not only upon stone monuments, but also in religious paintings,—especially certain kakemono suspended in temples. These kakemono usually display the footprints upon a very large scale, with a multitude of mystical symbols and characters. The sculptures may be less common; but in Tokyo alone there are a number of Butsu-soku-seki, or "Buddha- foot stones," which I have seen,—and probably several which I have not seen. There is one at the temple of Eko-In, near Ryogoku-bashi; one at the temple of Denbo-In, in Koishikawa; one at the temple of Denbo-In, in Asakusa; and a beautiful example at Zojoji in Shiba. These are not cut out of a single block, but are composed of fragments cemented into the irregular traditional shape, and capped with a heavy slab of Nebukawa granite, on the polished surface of which the design is engraved in lines about one-tenth of an inch in depth. I should judge the average height of these pedestals to be about two feet four inches, and their greatest diameter about three feet. Around the footprints there are carved (in most of the examples) twelve little bunches of leaves and buds of the Bodai-ju ("Bodhidruma"), or Bodhi-tree of Buddhist legend. In all cases the footprint design is about the same; but the monuments are different in quality and finish. That of Zojoji,—with figures of divinities cut in low relief on its sides,—is the most ornate and costly of the four. The specimen at Eko-In is very poor and plain.

The first Butsu-soku-seki made in Japan was that erected at Todaiji, in Nara. It was designed after a similar monument in China, said to be the faithful copy of an Indian original. Concerning this Indian original, the following tradition is given in an old Buddhist book(1):—"In a temple of the province of Makada [Maghada] there is a great stone. The Buddha once trod upon this stone; and the prints of the soles of his feet remain upon its surface. The length of the impressions is one foot and eight inches,(2) and the width of them a little more than six inches. On the sole-part of each footprint there is the impression of a wheel; and upon each of the prints of the ten toes there is a flower-like design, which sometimes radiates light. When the Buddha felt that the time of his Nirvana was approaching, he went to Kushina [Kusinara], and there stood upon that stone. He stood with his face to the south. Then he said to his disciple Anan [Ananda]: 'In this place I leave the impression of my feet, to remain for a last token. Although a king of this country will try to destroy the impression, it can never be entirely destroyed.' And indeed it has not been destroyed unto this day. Once a king who hated Buddhism caused the top of the stone to be pared off, so as to remove the impression; but after the surface had been removed, the footprints reappeared upon the stone."

Concerning the virtue of the representation of the footprints of the Buddha, there is sometimes quoted a text from the Kwan-butsu- sanmai-kyo ["Buddha-dhyana-samadhi-sagara-sutra"], thus translated for me:—"In that time Shaka ["Sakyamuni"] lifted up his foot.... When the Buddha lifted up his foot all could perceive upon the sole of it the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes.... And Shaka said: 'Whosoever beholds the sign upon the sole of my foot shall be purified from all his faults. Even he who beholds the sign after my death shall be delivered from all the evil results of all his errors." Various other texts of Japanese Buddhism affirm that whoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha "shall be freed from the bonds of error, and conducted upon the Way of Enlightenment."

An outline of the footprints as engraved on one of the Japanese pedestals(3) should have some interest even for persons familiar with Indian sculptures of the S'ripada. The double-page drawing, accompanying this paper [Fig.1], and showing both footprints, has been made after the tracing at Dentsu-In, where the footprints have the full legendary dimension, It will be observed that there are only seven emblems: these are called in Japan the Shichi-So, or "Seven Appearances." I got some information about them from the Sho-Eko-Ho-Kwan,—a book used by the Jodo sect. This book also contains rough woodcuts of the footprints; and one of them I reproduce here for the purpose of calling attention to the curious form of the emblems upon the toes. They are said to be modifications of the manji, or svastika, but I doubt it. In the Butsu-soku-seki-tracings, the corresponding figures suggest the "flower-like design" mentioned in the tradition of the Maghada stone; while the symbols in the book-print suggest fire. Indeed their outline so much resembles the conventional flamelet-design of Buddhist decoration, that I cannot help thinking them originally intended to indicate the traditional luminosity of the footprints. Moreover, there is a text in the book called Ho-Kai- Shidai that lends support to this supposition:—"The sole of the foot of the Buddha is flat,—like the base of a toilet-stand.... Upon it are lines forming the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes.... The toes are slender, round, long, straight, graceful, and somewhat luminous." [Fig. 3]

The explanation of the Seven Appearances which is given by the Sho-Eko-Ho-Kwan cannot be called satisfactory; but it is not without interest in relation to Japanese popular Buddhism. The emblems are considered in the following order:—

I.—The Svastika. The figure upon each toe is said to be a modification of the manji (4); and although I doubt whether this is always the case, I have observed that on some of the large kakemono representing the footprints, the emblem really is the svastika,—not a flamelet nor a flower-shape.(5) The Japanese commentator explains the svastika as a symbol of "everlasting bliss." II.—The Fish (Gyo). The fish signifies freedom from all restraints. As in the water a fish moves easily in any direction, so in the Buddha-state the fully-emancipated knows no restraints or obstructions. III.—The Diamond-Mace (Jap. Kongo-sho;—Sansc. "Vadjra"). Explained as signifying the divine force that "strikes and breaks all the lusts (bonno) of the world." IV.—The Conch-Shell (Jap. "Hora ") or Trumpet. Emblem of the preaching of the Law. The book Shin-zoku-butsu-ji-hen calls it the symbol of the voice of the Buddha. The Dai-hi-kyo calls it the token of the preaching and of the power of the Mahayana doctrine. The Dai-Nichi-Kyo says:—" At the sound of the blowing of the shell, all the heavenly deities are filled with delight, and come to hear the Law." V.—The Flower-Vase (Jap. "Hanagame"). Emblem of muro,—a mystical word which might be literally rendered as "not- leaking,"—signifying that condition of supreme intelligence triumphant over birth and death. VI.—The Wheel-of-a-Thousand-Spokes (Sansc. "Tchakra "). This emblem, called in Japanese Senfuku-rin-so, is curiously explained by various quotations. The Hokke-Monku says:—"The effect of a wheel is to crush something; and the effect of the Buddha's preaching is to crush all delusions, errors, doubts, and superstitions. Therefore preaching the doctrine is called, 'turning the Wheel.'"... The Sei-Ri-Ron says: "Even as the common wheel has its spokes and its hub, so in Buddhism there are many branches of the Hasshi Shodo ('Eight-fold Path,' or eight rules of conduct)." VII.—The Crown of Brahma. Under the heel of the Buddha is the Treasure-Crown (Ho-Kwan) of Brahma (Bon-Ten-O),—in symbol of the Buddha's supremacy above the gods.

But I think that the inscriptions upon any of these Butsu-soku- seki will be found of more significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems. The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical. On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there are engraved five Sanscrit characters which are symbols of the Five Elemental Buddhas, together with scriptural and commemorative texts. These latter have been translated for me as follows:—

The HO-KO-HON-NYO-KYO says:—"In that time, from beneath his feet, the Buddha radiated a light having the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes. And all who saw that radiance became strictly upright, and obtained the Supreme Enlightenment."

The KWAN-BUTSU-SANMAI-KYO says:—"Whosoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha shall be freed from the results even of innumerable thousands of imperfections."

The BUTSU-SETSU-MU-RYO-JU-KYO says:—"In the land that the Buddha treads in journeying, there is not even one person in all the multitude of the villages who is not benefited. Then throughout the world there is peace and good will. The sun and the moon shine clear and bright. Wind and rain come only at a suitable time. Calamity and pestilence cease. The country prospers; the people are free from care. Weapons become useless. All men reverence religion, and regulate their conduct in all matters with earnestness and modesty."

[Commemorative Text.]

—The Fifth Month of the Eighteenth Year of Meiji, all the priests of this temple made and set up this pedestal-stone, bearing the likeness of the footprints of the Buddha, and placed the same within the main court of Dentsu-In, in order that the seed of holy enlightenment might be sown for future time, and for the sake of the advancement of Buddhism.

TAIJO, priest,—being the sixty-sixth chief-priest by succession of this temple,—has respectfully composed.

JUNYU, the minor priest, has reverentially inscribed.

1 The Chinese title is pronounced by Japanese as Sei-iki-ki. "Sei-iki"(the Country of the West) was the old Japanese name for India; and thus the title might be rendered, "The Book about India." I suppose this is the work known to Western scholars as Si-yu-ki.

2 "One shaku and eight sun." But the Japanese foot and inch are considerably longer than the English.

3 A monument at Nara exhibits the S'ripada in a form differing considerably from the design upon the Tokyo pedestals.

4 Lit.: "The thousand-character" sign.

5 On some monuments and drawings there is a sort of disk made by a single line in spiral, on each toe,—together with the image of a small wheel.

II

Strange facts crowd into memory as one contemplates those graven footprints,—footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human personality of which they remain the symbol. Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy regarding the secret unity of life, the endless illusions of matter and of mind, and the birth and death of universes. He, by pure reason,—and he alone before our time,— found answers of worth to the questions of the Whence, the Whither, and the Why;—and he made with these answers another and a nobler faith than the creed of his fathers. He spoke, and returned to his dust; and the people worshipped the prints of his dead feet, because of the love that he had taught them. Thereafter waxed and waned the name of Alexander, and the power of Rome and the might of Islam;—nations arose and vanished;— cities grew and were not;—the children of another civilization, vaster than Romes, begirdled the earth with conquest, and founded far-off empires, and came at last to rule in the land of that pilgrim's birth. And these, rich in the wisdom of four and twenty centuries, wondered at the beauty of his message, and caused all that he had said and done to be written down anew in languages unborn at the time when he lived and taught. Still burn his foot- prints in the East; and still the great West, marvelling, follows their gleam to seek the Supreme Enlightenment. Even thus, of old, Milinda the king followed the way to the house of Nagasena,—at first only to question, after the subtle method of the Greeks; yet, later, to accept with noble reverence the nobler method of the Master.

Ululation

SHE is lean as a wolf, and very old,—the white bitch that guards my gate at night. She played with most of the young men and women of the neighborhood when they were boys and girls. I found her in charge of my present dwelling on the day that I came to occupy it. She had guarded the place, I was told, for a long succession of prior tenants—apparently with no better reason than that she had been born in the woodshed at the back of the house. Whether well or ill treated she had served all occupants faultlessly as a watch. The question of food as wages had never seriously troubled her, because most of the families of the street daily contributed to her support.

She is gentle and silent,—silent at least by day; and in spite of her gaunt ugliness, her pointed ears, and her somewhat unpleasant eyes, everybody is fond of her. Children ride on her back, and tease her at will; but although she has been known to make strange men feel uncomfortable, she never growls at a child. The reward of her patient good-nature is the friendship of the community. When the dog-killers come on their bi-annual round, the neighbors look after her interests. Once she was on the very point of being officially executed when the wife of the smith ran to the rescue, and pleaded successfully with the policeman superintending the massacres. "Put somebody's name on the dog," said the latter: "then it will be safe. Whose dog is it?" That question proved hard to answer. The dog was everybody's and nobody's—welcome everywhere but owned nowhere. "But where does it stay?" asked the puzzled constable. "It stays," said the smith's wife, "in the house of the foreigner." "Then let the foreigner's name be put upon the dog," suggested the policeman.

Accordingly I had my name painted on her back in big Japanese characters. But the neighbors did not think that she was sufficiently safeguarded by a single name. So the priest of Kobudera painted the name of the temple on her left side, in beautiful Chinese text; and the smith put the name of his shop on her right side; and the vegetable-seller put on her breast the ideographs for "eight-hundred,"—which represent the customary abbreviation of the word yaoya (vegetable-seller),—any yaoya being supposed to sell eight hundred or more different things. Consequently she is now a very curious-looking dog; but she is well protected by all that calligraphy.

I have only one fault to find with her: she howls at night. Howling is one of the few pathetic pleasures of her existence. At first I tried to frighten her out of the habit; but finding that she refused to take me seriously, I concluded to let her howl. It would have been monstrous to beat her.

Yet I detest her howl. It always gives me a feeling of vague disquiet, like the uneasiness that precedes the horror of nightmare. It makes me afraid,—indefinably, superstitiously afraid. Perhaps what I am writing will seem to you absurd; but you would not think it absurd if you once heard her howl. She does not howl like the common street-dogs. She belongs to some ruder Northern breed, much more wolfish, and retaining wild traits of a very peculiar kind.

And her howl is also peculiar. It is incomparably weirder than the howl of any European dog; and I fancy that it is incomparably older. It may represent the original primitive cry of her species,—totally unmodified by centuries of domestication. It begins with a stifled moan, like the moan of a bad dream,— mounts into a long, long wail, like a wailing of wind,—sinks quavering into a chuckle,—rises again to a wail, very much higher and wilder than before,—breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter,—and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ghastliness of the performance is chiefly—though not entirely—in the goblin mockery of the laughing tones as contrasted with the piteous agony of the wailing ones: an incongruity that makes you think of madness. And I imagine a corresponding incongruity in the soul of the creature. I know that she loves me,—that she would throw away her poor life for me at an instant's notice. I am sure that she would grieve if I were to die. But she would not think about the matter like other dogs,—like a dog with hanging ears, for ex- ample. She is too savagely close to Nature for that. Were she to find herself alone with my corpse in some desolate place, she would first mourn wildly for her friend; but, this duty per- formed, she would proceed to ease her sorrow in the simplest way possible,—by eating him,—by cracking his bones between those long wolf's-teeth of hers. And thereafter, with spotless conscience, she would sit down and utter to the moon the funeral cry of her ancestors.

It fills me, that cry, with a strange curiosity not less than with a strange horror,—because of certain extraordinary vowellings in it which always recur in the same order of sequence, and must represent particular forms of animal speech,— particular ideas. The whole thing is a song,—a song of emotions and thoughts not human, and therefore humanly unimaginable. But other dogs know what it means, and make answer over the miles of the night,—sometimes from so far away that only by straining my hearing to the uttermost can I detect the faint response. The words—(if I may call them words)—are very few; yet, to judge by their emotional effect, they must signify a great deal. Possibly they mean things myriads of years old,—things relating to odors, to exhalations, to influences and effluences inapprehensible by duller human sense,—impulses also, impulses without name, bestirred in ghosts of dogs by the light of great moons.

Could we know the sensations of a dog,—the emotions and the ideas of a dog, we might discover some strange correspondence between their character and the character of that peculiar disquiet which the howl of the creature evokes. But since the senses of a dog are totally unlike those of a man, we shall never really know. And we can only surmise, in the vaguest way, the meaning of the uneasiness in ourselves. Some notes in the long cry,—and the weirdest of them,—oddly resemble those tones of the human voice that tell of agony and terror. Again, we have reason to believe that the sound of the cry itself became associated in human imagination, at some period enormously remote, with particular impressions of fear. It is a remarkable fact that in almost all countries (including Japan) the howling of dogs has been attributed to their perception of things viewless to man, and awful,—especially gods and ghosts;—and this unanimity of superstitious belief suggests that one element of the disquiet inspired by the cry is the dread of the supernatural. To-day we have ceased to be consciously afraid of the unseen;—knowing that we ourselves are supernatural,—that even the physical man, with all his life of sense, is more ghostly than any ghost of old imagining: but some dim inheritance of the primitive fear still slumbers in our being, and wakens perhaps, like an echo, to the sound of that wail in the night.

Whatever thing invisible to human eyes the senses of a dog may at times perceive, it can be nothing resembling our idea of a ghost. Most probably the mysterious cause of start and whine is not anything seen. There is no anatomical reason for supposing a dog to possess exceptional powers of vision. But a dog's organs of scent proclaim a faculty immeasurably superior to the sense of smell in man. The old universal belief in the superhuman perceptivities of the creature was a belief justified by fact; but the perceptivities are not visual. Were the howl of a dog really—as once supposed—an outcry of ghostly terror, the meaning might possibly be, "I smell Them!"— but not, "I see Them!" No evidence exists to support the fancy that a dog can see any forms of being which a man cannot see.

But the night-howl of the white creature in my close forces me to wonder whether she does not mentally see something really terrible,—something which we vainly try to keep out of moral consciousness: the ghoulish law of life. Nay, there are times when her cry seems to me not the mere cry of a dog, but the voice of the law itself,—the very speech of that Nature so inexplicably called by poets the loving, the merciful, the divine! Divine, perhaps, in some unknowable ultimate way,—but certainly not merciful, and still more certainly not loving. Only by eating each other do beings exist! Beautiful to the poet's vision our world may seem,—with its loves, its hopes, its memories, its aspirations; but there is nothing beautiful in the fact that life is fed by continual murder,—that the tenderest affection, the noblest enthusiasm, the purest idealism, must be nourished by the eating of flesh and the drinking of blood. All life, to sustain itself, must devour life. You may imagine yourself divine if you please,—but you have to obey that law. Be, if you will, a vegetarian: none the less you must eat forms that have feeling and desire. Sterilize your food; and digestion stops. You cannot even drink without swallowing life. Loathe the name as we may, we are cannibals;—all being essentially is One; and whether we eat the flesh of a plant, a fish, a reptile, a bird, a mammal, or a man, the ultimate fact is the same. And for all life the end is the same: every creature, whether buried or burnt, is devoured,—and not only once or twice,—nor a hundred, nor a thousand, nor a myriad times! Consider the ground upon which we move, the soil out of which we came;—think of the vanished billions that have risen from it and crumbled back into its latency to feed what becomes our food! Perpetually we eat the dust of our race,—the substance of our ancient selves.

But even so-called inanimate matter is self-devouring. Substance preys upon substance. As in the droplet monad swallows monad, so in the vast of Space do spheres consume each other. Stars give being to worlds and devour them; planets assimilate their own moons. All is a ravening that never ends but to recommence. And unto whomsoever thinks about these matters, the story of a divine universe, made and ruled by paternal love, sounds less persuasive than the Polynesian tale that the souls of the dead are devoured by the gods.

Monstrous the law seems, because we have developed ideas and sentiments which are opposed to this demoniac Nature,—much as voluntary movement is opposed to the blind power of gravitation. But the possession of such ideas and sentiments does but aggravate the atrocity of our situation, without lessening in the least the gloom of the final problem.

Anyhow the faith of the Far East meets that problem better than the faith of the West. To the Buddhist the Cosmos is not divine at all—quite the reverse. It is Karma;—it is the creation of thoughts and acts of error;—it is not governed by any providence;—it is a ghastliness, a nightmare. Likewise it is an illusion. It seems real only for the same reason that the shapes and the pains of an evil dream seem real to the dreamer. Our life upon earth is a state of sleep. Yet we do not sleep utterly. There are gleams in our darkness,—faint auroral wakenings of Love and Pity and Sympathy and Magnanimity: these are selfless and true;—these are eternal and divine;—these are the Four Infinite Feelings in whose after-glow all forms and illusions will vanish, like mists in the light of the sun. But, except in so far as we wake to these feelings, we are dreamers indeed,— moaning unaided in darkness,—tortured by shadowy horror. All of us dream; none are fully awake; and many, who pass for the wise of the world, know even less of the truth than my dog that howls in the night.

Could she speak, my dog, I think that she might ask questions which no philosopher would be able to answer. For I believe that she is tormented by the pain of existence. Of course I do not mean that the riddle presents itself to her as it does to us,— nor that she can have reached any abstract conclusions by any mental processes like our own. The external world to her is "a continuum of smells." She thinks, compares, remembers, reasons by smells. By smell she makes her estimates of character: all her judgments are founded upon smells. Smelling thousands of things which we cannot smell at all, she must comprehend them in a way of which we can form no idea. Whatever she knows has been learned through mental operations of an utterly unimaginable kind. But we may be tolerably sure that she thinks about most things in some odor-relation to the experience of eating or to the intuitive dread of being eaten. Certainly she knows a great deal more about the earth on which we tread than would be good for us to know; and probably, if capable of speech, she could tell us the strangest stories of air and water. Gifted, or afflicted, as she is with such terribly penetrant power of sense, her notion of apparent realities must be worse than sepulchral. Small wonder if she howl at the moon that shines upon such a world!

And yet she is more awake, in the Buddhist meaning, than many of us. She possesses a rude moral code—inculcating loyalty, submission, gentleness, gratitude, and maternal love; together with various minor rules of conduct;—and this simple code she has always observed. By priests her state is termed a state of darkness of mind, because she cannot learn all that men should learn; but according to her light she has done well enough to merit some better condition in her next rebirth. So think the people who know her. When she dies they will give her an humble funeral, and have a sutra recited on behalf of her spirit. The priest will let a grave be made for her somewhere in the temple- garden, and will place over it a little sotoba bearing the text,—Nyo-ze chikusho hotsu Bodai-shin (1): "Even within such as this animal, the Knowledge Supreme will unfold at last."

1 Lit., "the Bodhi-mind;"—that is to say, the Supreme Enlightenment, the intelligence of Buddhahood itself.

Bits of Poetry

I

Among a people with whom poetry has been for centuries a universal fashion of emotional utterance, we should naturally suppose the common ideal of life to be a noble one. However poorly the upper classes of such a people might compare with those of other nations, we could scarcely doubt that its lower classes were morally and otherwise in advance of our own lower classes. And the Japanese actually present us with such a social phenomenon.

Poetry in Japan is universal as the air. It is felt by everybody. It is read by everybody. It is composed by almost everybody,— irrespective of class and condition. Nor is it thus ubiquitous in the mental atmosphere only: it is everywhere to be heard by the ear, and seen by the eye!

As for audible poetry, wherever there is working there is singing. The toil of the fields and the labor of the streets are performed to the rhythm of chanted verse; and song would seem to be an expression of the life of the people in about the same sense that it is an expression of the life of cicadae.... As for visible poetry, it appears everywhere, written or graven,—in Chinese or in Japanese characters,—as a form of decoration. In thousands and thousands of dwellings, you might observe that the sliding- screens, separating rooms or closing alcoves, have Chinese or Japanese decorative texts upon them;—and these texts are poems. In houses of the better class there are usually a number of gaku, or suspended tablets to be seen,—each bearing, for all design, a beautifully written verse. But poems can be found upon almost any kind of domestic utensil,—for example upon braziers, iron kettles, vases, wooden trays, lacquer ware, porcelains, chopsticks of the finer sort,—even toothpicks! Poems are painted upon shop-signs, panels, screens, and fans. Poems are printed upon towels, draperies, curtains, kerchiefs, silk- linings, and women's crepe-silk underwear. Poems are stamped or worked upon letter-paper, envelopes, purses, mirror-cases, travelling-bags. Poems are inlaid upon enamelled ware, cut upon bronzes, graven upon metal pipes, embroidered upon tobacco- pouches. It were a hopeless effort to enumerate a tithe of the articles decorated with poetical texts. Probably my readers know of those social gatherings at which it is the custom to compose verses, and to suspend the compositions to blossoming frees,— also of the Tanabata festival in honor of certain astral gods, when poems inscribed on strips of colored paper, and attached to thin bamboos, are to be seen even by the roadside,—all fluttering in the wind like so many tiny flags.... Perhaps you might find your way to some Japanese hamlet in which there are neither trees nor flowers, but never to any hamlet in which there is no visible poetry. You might wander,—as I have done,—into a settlement so poor that you could not obtain there, for love or money, even a cup of real tea; but I do not believe that you could discover a settlement in which there is nobody capable of making a poem.

II

Recently while looking over a manuscript-collection of verses,— mostly short poems of an emotional or descriptive character,—it occurred to me that a selection from them might serve to illustrate certain Japanese qualities of sentiment, as well as some little-known Japanese theories of artistic expression,—and I ventured forthwith, upon this essay. The poems, which had been collected for me by different persons at many different times and places, were chiefly of the kind written on particular occasions, and cast into forms more serried, if not also actually briefer, than anything in Western prosody. Probably few Of my readers are aware of two curious facts relating to this order of composition. Both facts are exemplified in the history and in the texts of my collection,—though I cannot hope, in my renderings, to reproduce the original effect, whether of imagery or of feeling.

The first curious fact is that, from very ancient times, the writing of short poems has been practised in Japan even more as a moral duty than as a mere literary art. The old ethical teaching was somewhat like this:—"Are you very angry?—do not say anything unkind, but compose a poem. Is your best-beloved dead?— do not yield to useless grief, but try to calm your mind by making a poem. Are you troubled because you are about to die, leaving so many things unfinished?—be brave, and write a poem on death! Whatever injustice or misfortune disturbs you, put aside your resentment or your sorrow as soon as possible, and write a few lines of sober and elegant verse for a moral exercise." Accordingly, in the old days, every form of trouble was encountered with a poem. Bereavement, separation, disaster called forth verses in lieu of plaints. The lady who preferred death to loss of honor, composed a poem before piercing her throat The samurai sentenced to die by his own hand, wrote a poem before performing hara-kiri. Even in this less romantic era of Meiji, young people resolved upon suicide are wont to compose some verses before quitting the world. Also it is still the good custom to write a poem in time of ill-fortune. I have frequently known poems to be written under the most trying circumstances of misery or suffering,—nay even upon a bed of death;-and if the verses did not display any extraordinary talent, they at least afforded extraordinary proof of self-mastery under pain.... Surely this fact of composition as ethical practice has larger interest than all the treatises ever written about the rules of Japanese prosody.

The other curious fact is only a fact of aesthetic theory. The common art-principle of the class of poems under present consideration is identical with the common principle of Japanese pictorial illustration. By the use of a few chosen words the composer of a short poem endeavors to do exactly what the painter endeavors to do with a few strokes of the brush,—to evoke an image or a mood,—to revive a sensation or an emotion. And the accomplishment of this purpose,—by poet or by picture-maker,— depends altogether upon capacity to suggest, and only to suggest. A Japanese artist would be condemned for attempting elaboration of detail in a sketch intended to recreate the memory of some landscape seen through the blue haze of a spring morning, or under the great blond light of an autumn after-noon. Not only would he be false to the traditions of his art: he would necessarily defeat his own end thereby. In the same way a poet would be condemned for attempting any completeness of utterance in a very short poem: his object should be only to stir imagination without satisfying it. So the term ittakkiri—meaning "all gone," or "entirely vanished," in the sense of "all told,"— is contemptuously applied to verses in which the verse-maker has uttered his whole thought;—praise being reserved for compositions that leave in the mind the thrilling of a something unsaid. Like the single stroke of a temple-bell, the perfect short poem should set murmuring and undulating, in the mind of the hearer, many a ghostly aftertone of long duration.

III

But for the same reason that Japanese short poems may be said to resemble. Japanese pictures, a full comprehension of them requires an intimate knowledge of the life which they reflect. And this is especially true of the emotional class of such poems,—a literal translation of which, in the majority of cases, would signify almost nothing to the Western mind. Here, for example, is a little verse, pathetic enough to Japanese comprehension:—

ChochO ni!.. Kyonen shishitaru Tsuma koishi!

Translated, this would appear to mean only,—"Two butterflies!... Last year my dear wife died!" Unless you happen to know the pretty Japanese symbolism of the butterfly in relation to happy marriage, and the old custom of sending with the wedding-gift a large pair of paper-butterflies (ocho-mecho), the verse might well seem to be less than commonplace. Or take this recent composition, by a University student, which has been praised by good judges:—

Furusato ni Fubo ari—mushi no Koe-goe! (1)

—"In my native place the old folks [or, my parents] are—clamor of insect-voices!"

1 I must observe, however, that the praise was especially evoked by the use of the term koe-goe—(literally meaning "voice after voice" or a crying of many voices);—and the special value of the syllables here can be appreciated only by a Japanese poet.

The poet here is a country-lad. In unfamiliar fields he listens to the great autumn chorus of insects; and the sound revives for him the memory of his far-off home and of his parents. But here is something incomparably more touching,—though in literal translation probably more obscure,—than either of the preceding specimens;—

Mi ni shimiru Kaze ya I Shoji ni Yubi no ato!

—"Oh, body-piercing wind!—that work of little fingers in the shoji!" (2).... What does this mean? It means the sorrowing of a mother for her dead child. Shoji is the name given to those light white-paper screens which in a Japanese house serve both as windows and doors, admitting plenty of light, but concealing, like frosted glass, the interior from outer observation, and excluding the wind. Infants delight to break these by poking their fingers through the soft paper: then the wind blows through the holes. In this case the wind blows very cold indeed,—into the mother's very heart;—for it comes through the little holes that were made by the fingers of her dead child.

2 More literally:—"body-through-pierce wind—ah! —shoji in the traces of [viz.: holes made by] fingers!"

The impossibility of preserving the inner quality of such poems in a literal rendering, will now be obvious. Whatever I attempt in this direction must of necessity be ittakkiri;—for the unspoken has to be expressed; and what the Japanese poet is able to say in seventeen or twenty-one syllables may need in English more than double that number of words. But perhaps this fact will lend additional interest to the following atoms of emotional expression:—

A MOTHER'S REMEMBRANCE Sweet and clear in the night, the voice of a boy at study, Reading out of a book.... I also once had a boy!

A MEMORY IN SPRING She, who, departing hence, left to the flowers of the plum-tree, Blooming beside our eaves, the charm of her youth and beauty, And maiden pureness of heart, to quicken their flush and fragrance,— Ah! where does she dwell to-day, our dear little vanished sister?

FANCIES OF ANOTHER FAITH (1) I sought in the place of graves the tomb of my vanished friend: From ancient cedars above there rippled a wild doves cry.

(2) Perhaps a freak of the wind-yet perhaps a sign of remembrance,— This fall of a single leaf on the water I pour for the dead.

(3)I whispered a prayer at the grave: a butterfly rose and fluttered— Thy spirit, perhaps, dear friend!...

IN A CEMETERY AT NIGHT This light of the moon that plays on the water I pour for the dead, Differs nothing at all from the moonlight of other years.

AFTER LONG ABSENCE The garden that once I loved, and even the hedge of the garden,— All is changed and strange: the moonlight only is faithful;— The moon along remembers the charm of the time gone by!

MOONLIGHT ON THE SEA O vapory moon of spring!—would that one plunge into ocean Could win me renewal of life as a part of thy light on the waters!

AFTER FAREWELL Whither now should! look?—where is the place of parting? Boundaries all have vanished;—nothing tells of direction: Only the waste of sea under the shining moon!

HAPPY POVERTY Wafted into my room, the scent of the flowers of the plum-tree Changes my broken window into a source of delight.

AUTUMN FANCIES

(1) Faded the clover now;—sere and withered the grasses: What dreams the matsumushi(1) in the desolate autumn-fields?

(2) Strangely sad, I thought, sounded the bell of evening;— Haply that tone proclaimed the night in which autumn dies!

(3)Viewing this autumn-moon, I dream of my native village Under the same soft light,—and the shadows about my home.

1 A musical cricket—calyptotryphus marmoratus.

IN TIME OF GRIEF, HEARING A SEMI (CICADA) Only "I," "I,"—the cry of the foolish semi! Any one knows that the world is void as its cast-off shell.

ON THE CAST-OFF SHELL OF A SEMI Only the pitiful husk!... O poor singer of summer, Wherefore thus consume all thy body in song?

SUBLIMITY OF INTELLECTUAL POWER The mind that, undimmed, absorbs the foul and the pure together— Call it rather a sea one thousand fathoms deep!(2)

2. This is quite novel in its way,—a product of the University: the original runs thus:—

Nigoreru mo Sumeru mo tomo ni Iruru koso Chi-hiro no umi no Kokoro nari-kere!

SHINTO REVERY

Mad waves devour The rocks: I ask myself in the darkness, "Have I become a god?" Dim is The night and wild!

"Have I become a god?"—that is to say, "Have I died?—am I only a ghost in this desolation?" The dead, becoming kami or gods, are thought to haunt wild solitudes by preference.

IV

The poems above rendered are more than pictorial: they suggest something of emotion or sentiment. But there are thousands of pictorial poems that do not; and these would seem mere insipidities to a reader ignorant of their true purpose. When you learn that some exquisite text of gold means only, "Evening- sunlight on the wings of the water-fowl,"—or,"Now in my garden the flowers bloom, and the butterflies dance,"—then your first interest in decorative poetry is apt to wither away. Yet these little texts have a very real merit of their own, and an intimate relation to Japanese aesthetic feeling and experience. Like the pictures upon screens and fans and cups, they give pleasure by recalling impressions of nature, by reviving happy incidents of travel or pilgrimage, by evoking the memory of beautiful days. And when this plain fact is fully understood, the persistent attachment of modern Japanese poets—notwithstanding their University training—to the ancient poetical methods, will be found reasonable enough.

I need offer only a very few specimens of the purely pictorial poetry. The following—mere thumb-nail sketches in verse—are of recent date.

LONESOMENESS Furu-dera ya: Kane mono iwazu; Sakura chiru. —"Old temple: bell voiceless; cherry-flowers fall."

MORNING AWAKENING AFTER A NIGHT'S REST IN A TEMPLE Yamadera no Shicho akeyuku: Taki no oto. —"In the mountain-temple the paper mosquito-curtain is lighted by the dawn: sound of water-fall."

WINTER-SCENE Yuki no mura; Niwatori naite; Ake shiroshi. "Snow-village;—cocks crowing;—white dawn."

Let me conclude this gossip on poetry by citing from another group of verses—also pictorial, in a certain sense, but chiefly remarkable for ingenuity—two curiosities of impromptu. The first is old, and is attributed to the famous poetess Chiyo. Having been challenged to make a poem of seventeen syllables referring to a square, a triangle, and a circle, she is said to have immediately responded,—

Kaya no te wo Hitotsu hazushite, Tsuki-mi kana! —"Detaching one corner of the mosquito-net, lo! I behold the moon!" The top of the mosquito-net, suspended by cords at each of its four corners, represents the square;—letting down the net at one corner converts the square into a triangle;—and the moon represents the circle.

The other curiosity is a recent impromptu effort to portray, in one verse of seventeen syllables, the last degree of devil-may- care-poverty,—perhaps the brave misery of the wandering student;—and I very much doubt whether the effort could be improved upon:—

Nusundaru Kagashi no kasa ni Ame kyu nari. —"Heavily pours the rain on the hat that I stole from the scarecrow!"



Japanese Buddhist Proverbs

As representing that general quality of moral experience which remains almost unaffected by social modifications of any sort, the proverbial sayings of a people must always possess a special psychological interest for thinkers. In this kind of folklore the oral and the written literature of Japan is rich to a degree that would require a large book to exemplify. To the subject as a whole no justice could be done within the limits of a single essay. But for certain classes of proverbs and proverbial phrases something can be done within even a few pages; and sayings related to Buddhism, either by allusion or derivation, form a class which seems to me particularly worthy of study. Accordingly, with the help of a Japanese friend, I have selected and translated the following series of examples,— choosing the more simple and familiar where choice was possible, and placing the originals in alphabetical order to facilitate reference. Of course the selection is imperfectly representative; but it will serve to illustrate certain effects of Buddhist teaching upon popular thought and speech.

1.—Akuji mi ni tomaru. All evil done clings to the body.*

*The consequence of any evil act or thought never,—so long as karma endures,—will cease to act upon the existence of the person guilty of it.

2.—Atama soru yori kokoro wo sore. Better to shave the heart than to shave the head.*

*Buddhist nuns and priests have their heads completely shaven. The proverb signifies that it is better to correct the heart,—to conquer all vain regrets and desires,—than to become a religious. In common parlance the phrase "to shave the head" means to become a monk or a nun.

3.—Au wa wakare no hajime. Meeting is only the beginning of separation.*

*Regret and desire are equally vain in this world of impermanency; for all joy is the beginning of an experience that must have its pain. This proverb refers directly to the sutra- text,—Shoja bitsumetsu e-sha-jori,—" All that live must surely die; and all that meet will surely part."

4.—Banji wa yume. All things* are merely dreams.

*Literally, "ten thousand things."

5.—Bonbu mo satoreba hotoke nari. Even a common man by obtaining knowledge becomes a Buddha.*

*The only real differences of condition are differences In knowledge of the highest truth.

6.—Bonno kuno. All lust is grief.*

*All sensual desire invariably brings sorrow.

7—Buppo to wara-ya no ame, dete kike. One must go outside to hear Buddhist doctrine or the sound of rain on a straw roof.*

*There is an allusion here to the condition of the sbuhhl (priest): literally, "one who has left his house." The proverb suggests that the higher truths of Buddhism cannot be acquired by those who continue to live in the world of follies and desires.

8.—Bussho en yori okoru. Out of karma-relation even the divine nature itself grows.*

*There is good as well as bad karma. Whatever hap-piness we enjoy is not less a consequence of the acts and thoughts of previous lives, than is any misfortune that comes to us. Every good thought and act contributes to the evolution of the Buddha-nature within each of us. Another proverb [No. 10],—En naki shujo wa doshi gatashi,—further illustrates the meaning of this one.

9.—Enko ga tsuki wo toran to suru ga gotoshi. Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon's reflection on water.*

*Allusion to a parable, said to have been related by the Buddha himself, about some monkeys who found a well under a tree, and mistook for reality the image of the moon in the water. They resolved to seize the bright apparition. One monkey suspended himself by the tail from a branch overhanging the well, a second monkey clung to the first, a third to the second, a fourth to the third, and so on,—till the long chain of bodies had almost reached the water. Suddenly the branch broke under the unaccustomed weight; and all the monkeys were drowned.

10.—En naki shujo wa doshi gatashi. To save folk having no karma-relation would be difficult indeed!*

*No karma-relation would mean an utter absence of merit as well as of demerit.

11.—Fujo seppo suru hoshi wa, biratake ni umaru. The priest who preaches foul doctrine shall be reborn as a fungus.

12.—Gaki mo ninzu. Even gaki (pretas) can make a crowd.*

*Literally: "Even gaki are a multitude (or, 'population')." This is a popular saying used in a variety of ways. The ordinary meaning is to the effect that no matter how poor or miserable the individuals composing a multitude, they collectively represent a respectable force. Jocosely the saying is sometimes used of a crowd of wretched or tired-looking people,—sometimes of an assembly of weak boys desiring to make some demonstration,— sometimes of a miserable-looking company of soldiers.—Among the lowest classes of the people it is not uncommon to call a deformed or greedy person a "gaki."

13.—Gaki no me ni midzu miezu. To the eyes of gaki water is viewless.*

*Some authorities state that those pretas who suffer especially from thirst, as a consequence of faults committed in former lives, are unable to see water.—This proverb is used in speaking of persons too stupid or vicious to perceive a moral truth.

14.—Gosho wa daiji. The future life is the all-important thing.*

*The common people often use the curious expression "gosho-daiji" as an equivalent for "extremely important."

15.—Gun-mo no tai-zo wo saguru ga gotoshi. Like a lot of blind men feeling a great elephant.*

*Said of those who ignorantly criticise the doctrines of Buddhism.—The proverb alludes to a celebrated fable in the Avadanas, about a number of blind men who tried to decide the form of an elephant by feeling the animal. One, feeling the leg, declared the elephant to be like a tree; another, feeling the trunk only, declared the elephant to be like a serpent; a third, who felt only the side, said that the elephant was like a wall; a fourth, grasping the tail, said that the elephant was like a rope, etc.

16.—Gwai-men nyo-Bosatsu; nai shin nyo-Yasha. In outward aspect a Bodhisattva; at innermost heart a demon.*

*Yasha (Sanscrit Yaksha), a man-devouring demon.

17.—Hana wa ne ni kaeru. The flower goes back to its root.

*This proverb is most often used in reference to death,— signifying that all forms go back into the nothingness out of which they spring. But it may also be used in relation to the law of cause-and-effect.

18.—Hibiki no koe ni ozuru ga gotoshi. Even as the echo answers to the voice.*

*Referring to the doctrine of cause-and-effect. The philosophical beauty of the comparison will be appreciated only if we bear in mind that even the tone of the echo repeats the tone of the voice.

19.—Hito wo tasukeru ga sbukhe no yuku. The task of the priest is to save mankind.

20.—Hi wa kiyuredomo to-shin wa kiyedzu. Though the flame be put out, the wick remains.*

*Although the passions may be temporarily overcome, their sources remain. A proverb of like meaning is, Bonno no inn o?4omo sara u: "Though driven away, the Dog of Lust cannot be kept from coming back again."

21.—Hotoke mo motowa bonbu. Even the Buddha was originally but a common man.

22.—Hotoke ni naru mo shami wo beru. Even to become a Buddha one must first become a novice.

23.—Hotoke no kao mo sando. Even a Buddha's face,—only three times.*

*This is a short popular form of the longer proverb, Hotoke no kao mo sando nazureba, hara wo tatsu: "Stroke even the face of a Buddha three times, and his anger will be roused."

24.—Hotoke tanonde Jigoku e yuku. Praying to Buddha one goes to hell.*

*The popular saying, Oni no Nembutsu,—"a devil's praying,"—has a similar meaning.

25.—Hotoke tsukutte tamashii iredzu. Making a Buddha without putting in the soul.*

*That is to say, making an image of the Buddha without giving it a soul. This proverb is used in reference to the conduct of those who undertake to do some work, and leave the most essential part of the work unfinished. It contains an allusion to the curious ceremony called Kai-gen, or "Eye-Opening." This Kai-gen is a kind of consecration, by virtue of which a newly-made image is supposed to become animated by the real presence of the divinity represented.

26. Ichi-ju no kage, ichi-ga no nagare, tasho no en. Even [the experience of] a single shadow or a single flowing of water, is [made by] the karma-relations of a former life.*

*Even so trifling an occurrence as that of resting with another person under the shadow of a tree, or drinking from the same spring with another person, is caused by the karma-relations of some previous existence.

27. Ichi-mo shu-mo wo hiku. One blind man leads many blind men.*

*From the Buddhist work Dai-chi-do-ron.—The reader will find a similar proverb in Rhys-David's "Buddhist Suttas" (Sacred Books of the East), p. 173,—together with a very curious parable, cited in a footnote, which an Indian commentator gives in explanation.

28.—Ingwa na ko. A karma-child.*

*A common saying among the lower classes in reference to an unfortunate or crippled child. Here the word ingwa is used especially in the retributive sense. It usually signifies evil karma; kwaho being the term used in speaking of meritorious karma and its results. While an unfortunate child is spoken of as "a child of ingwa," a very lucky person is called a "kwaho-mono,"— that is to say, an instance, or example of kwaho.

29.—Ingwa wa, kuruma no wa. Cause-and-effect is like a wheel.*

*The comparison of karma to the wheel of a wagon will be familiar to students of Buddhism. The meaning of this proverb is identical with that of the Dhammapada verse:—"If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage."

30.—Innen ga fukai. The karma-relation is deep.*

*A saying very commonly used in speaking of the attachment of lovers, or of the unfortunate results of any close relation between two persons.

31.—Inochi wa fu-zen no tomoshibi. Life is a lamp-flame before a wind.*

*Or, "like the flame of a lamp exposed to the wind." A frequent expression in Buddhist literature is "the Wind of Death."

32.—Issun no mushi ni mo, gobu no tamashii. Even a worm an inch long has a soul half-an-inch long.*

*Literally, "has a soul of five bu,"—five bu being equal to half of the Japanese inch. Buddhism forbids all taking of life, and classes as living things (Ujo) all forms having sentiency. The proverb, however,—as the use of the word "soul" (tamashii) implies,—reflects popular belief rather than Buddhist philosophy. It signifies that any life, however small or mean, is entitled to mercy.

33.—Iwashi* no atama mo shinjin kara. Even the head of an iwashi, by virtue of faith, [will have power to save, or heal].

*The iwashi is a very small fish, much resembling a sardine. The proverb implies that the object of worship signifies little, so long as the prayer is made with perfect faith and pure intention.

34.—Jigo-jitoku.* The fruit of ones own deeds [in a previous state of existence].

*Few popular Buddhist phrases are more often used than this. Jigo signifies ones own acts or thoughts; jitoku, to bring upon oneself,—nearly always in the sense of misfortune, when the word is used in the Buddhist way. "Well, it is a matter of Jigo- jitoku," people will observe on seeing a man being taken to prison; meaning, "He is reaping the consequence of his own faults."

35.—Jigoku de hotoke. Like meeting with a Buddha in hell.*

*Refers to the joy of meeting a good friend in time of misfortune. The above is an abbreviation. The full proverb is, Jigoku de hotoke ni ota yo da.

36.—Jigoku Gokuraku wa kokoro ni ari. Hell and Heaven are in the hearts of men.*

*A proverb in perfect accord with the higher Buddhism.

37.—Jigoku mo sumika. Even Hell itself is a dwelling-place.*

*Meaning that even those obliged to live in hell must learn to accommodate themselves to the situation. One should always try to make the best of circumstances. A proverb of kindred signification is, Sumeba, My'ako: "Wheresoever ones home is, that is the Capital [or, imperial City]."

38.—Jigoku ni mo shirts bito. Even in hell old acquaintances are welcome.

39.—Kage no katachi ni shitagau gotoshi. Even as the shadow follows the shape.*

*Referring to the doctrine of cause-and-effect. Compare with verse 2 of the Dhammapada.

40.—Kane wa Amida yori bikaru. Money shines even more brightly than Amida.*

*Amitabha, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light. His image in the temples is usually gilded from head to foot.—There are many other ironical proverbs about the power of wealth,—such as Jigoku no sata mo kane shidai: "Even the Judgments of Hell may be influenced by money."

41.—Karu-toki no Jizo-gao; nasu-toki no Emma-gao. Borrowing-time, the face of Jizoe; repaying-time, the face of Emma.* [Figs. 2 & 3]

*Emma is the Chinese and Japanese Yama,—in Buddhism the Lord of Hell, and the Judge of the Dead. The proverb is best explained by the accompanying drawings, which will serve to give an idea of the commoner representations of both divinities.

42.—Kiite Gokuraku, mite Jigoku. Heard of only, it is Paradise; seen, it is Hell.*

*Rumor is never trustworthy.

43.—Koji mon wo idezu: akuji sen ni wo hashiru. Good actions go not outside of the gate: bad deeds travel a thousand ri.

44.—Kokoro no koma ni tadzuna wo yuru-suna. Never let go the reins of the wild colt of the heart.

45.—Kokoro no oni ga mi wo semeru. The body is tortured only by the demon of the heart.*

*Or "mind." That is to say that we suffer only from the consequences of our own faults.—The demon-torturer in the Buddhist hell says to his victim:—"Blame not me!—I am only the creation of your own deeds and thoughts: you made me for this!"— Compare with No. 36.

46.—Kokoro no shi to wa nare; kokoro wo shi to sezare. Be the teacher of your heart: do not allow your heart to become your teacher.

47.—Kono yo wa kari no yado. This world is only a resting-place.*

*"This world is but a travellers' inn," would be an almost equally correct translation. Yado literally means a lodging, shelter, inn; and the word is applied often to those wayside resting-houses at which Japanese travellers halt during a journey. Kari signifies temporary, transient, fleeting,—as in the common Buddhist saying, Kono yo kari no yo: "This world is a fleeting world." Even Heaven and Hell represent to the Buddhist only halting places upon the journey to Nirvana.

48.—Kori wo chiribame; midzu ni egaku. To inlay ice; to paint upon water.*

*Refers to the vanity of selfish effort for some merely temporary end.

49.—Korokoro to Naku wa yamada no Hototogisu, Chichi niteya aran, Haha niteya aran.

The bird that cries korokoro in the mountain rice-field I know to be a hototogisu;—yet it may have been my father; it may have been my mother.*

*This verse-proverb is cited in the Buddhist work Wojo Yosbu, with the following comment:—"Who knows whether the animal in the field, or the bird in the mountain-wood, has not been either his father or his mother in some former state of existence?"—The hototogisu is a kind of cuckoo.

50.—Ko wa Sangai no kubikase. A child is a neck-shackle for the Three States of Existence.*

*That is to say, The love of parents for their child may impede their spiritual progress—not only in this world, but through all their future states of being,—just as a kubikasi, or Japanese cangue, impedes the movements of the person upon whom it is placed. Parental affection, being the strongest of earthly attachments, is particularly apt to cause those whom it enslaves to commit wrongful acts in the hope of benefiting their offspring.—The term Sangai here signifies the three worlds of Desire, Form, and Formlessness,—all the states of existence below Nirvana. But the word is sometimes used to signify the Past, the Present, and the Future.

51.—Kuchi wa wazawai no kado. The mouth is the front-gate of all misfortune.*

*That is to say, The chief cause of trouble is unguarded speech. The word Kado means always the main entrance to a residence.

52.—Kwaho wa, nete mate. If you wish for good luck, sleep and wait.*

*Kwaho, a purely Buddhist term, signifying good fortune as the result of good actions in a previous life, has come to mean in common parlance good fortune of any kind. The proverb is often used in a sense similar to that of the English saying: "Watched pot never boils." In a strictly Buddhist sense it would mean, "Do not be too eager for the reward of good deeds."

53.—Makanu tane wa haenu. Nothing will grow, if the seed be not sown.*

*Do not expect harvest, unless you sow the seed. Without earnest effort no merit can be gained.

54.—Mateba, kanro no hiyori. If you wait, ambrosial weather will come.*

*Kanro, the sweet dew of Heaven, or amrita. All good things come to him who waits.

55.—Meido no michi ni O wa nashi. There is no King on the Road of Death.*

*Literally, "on the Road of Meido." The MeldS is the Japanese Hades,—the dark under-world to which all the dead must journey.

56.—Mekura hebi ni ojizu. The blind man does not fear the snake.*

*The ignorant and the vicious, not understanding the law of cause-and-effect, do not fear the certain results of their folly.

57.—Mitsureba, hakuru. Having waxed, wanes.*

*No sooner has the moon waxed full than it begins to wane. So the height of prosperity is also the beginning of fortunes decline.

58.—Mon zen no kozo narawanu kyo wo yomu. The shop-boy in front of the temple-gate repeats the sutra which he never learned.

*Kozo means "acolyte" as well as "shop-boy,""errand-boy," or "apprentice;" but in this case it refers to a boy employed in a shop situated near or before the gate of a Buddhist temple. By constantly hearing the sutra chanted in the temple, the boy learns to repeat the words. A proverb of kindred meaning is, Kangaku-In no suzume wa, Mogyu wo sayezuru: "The sparrows of Kangaku-In [an ancient seat of learning] chirp the Mogyu,"—a Chinese text formerly taught to young students. The teaching of either proverb is excellently expressed by a third:—Narau yori wa narero: "Rather than study [an art], get accustomed to it,"— that is to say, "keep constantly in contact with it." Observation and practice are even better than study.

59.—Mujo no kaze wa, toki erabazu. The Wind of Impermanency does not choose a time.*

*Death and Change do not conform their ways to human expectation.

60.—Neko mo Bussho ari. In even a cat the Buddha-nature exists.*

*Notwithstanding the legend that only the cat and the mamushi (a poisonous viper) failed to weep for the death of the Buddha.

61.—Neta ma ga Gokuraku. The interval of sleep is Paradise.*

*Only during sleep can we sometimes cease to know the sorrow and pain of this world. (Compare with No. 83.)

62.—Nijiu-go Bosatsu mo sore-sore no yaku. Even each of the Twenty-five Bodhisattvas has his own particular duty to perform.

63.—Nin mite, no toke. [First] see the person, [then] preach the doctrine.*

*The teaching of Buddhist doctrine should always be adapted to the intelligence of the person to be instructed. There is another proverb of the same kind,—Ki ni yorite, ho wo toke: "According to the understanding [of the person to be taught], preach the Law."

64.—Ninshin ukegataku Buppo aigatashi. It is not easy to be born among men, and to meet with [the good fortune of hearing the doctrine of] Buddhism.*

*Popular Buddhism teaches that to be born in the world of mankind, and especially among a people professing Buddhism, is a very great privilege. However miserable human existence, it is at least a state in which some knowledge of divine truth may be obtained; whereas the beings in other and lower conditions of life are relatively incapable of spiritual progress.

65.—Oni mo jiu-hachi. Even a devil [is pretty] at eighteen.*

*There are many curious sayings and proverbs about the oni, or Buddhist devil,—such as Oni no me ni mo namida, "tears in even a devil's eyes;"—Oni no kakuran, "devil's cholera" (said of the unexpected sickness of some very strong and healthy person), etc., etc.—The class of demons called Oni, properly belong to the Buddhist hells, where they act as torturers and jailers. They are not to be confounded with the Ma, Yasha, Kijin, and other classes of evil spirits. In Buddhist art they are represented as beings of enormous strength, with the heads of bulls and of horses. The bull-headed demons are called Go-zu; the horse-headed Me-zu.

66.—Oni mo mi, naretaru ga yoshi. Even a devil, when you become accustomed to the sight of him, may prove a pleasant acquaintance.

67.—Oni ni kanabo. An iron club for a demon.*

*Meaning that great power should be given only to the strong.

68.—Oni no nyobo ni kijin. A devil takes a goblin to wife.*

*Meaning that a wicked man usually marries a wicked woman.

69.—Onna no ke ni wa dai-zo mo tsunagaru. With one hair of a woman you can tether even a great elephant.

70.—Onna wa Sangai ni iye nashi. Women have no homes of their own in the Three States of Existence.

71.—Oya no ingwa ga ko ni mukuu. The karma of the parents is visited upon the child.*

*Said of the parents of crippled or deformed children. But the popular idea here expressed is not altogether in acco~l with the teachings of the higher Buddhism.

72.—Rakkwa eda ni kaerazu. The fallen blossom never returns to the branch.*

*That which has been done never can be undone: the past cannot be recalled.—This proverb is an abbreviation of the longer Buddhist text: Rakkwa eda ni kaerazu; ha-kyo futatabi terasazu: "The fallen blossom never returns to the branch; the shattered mirror never again reflects."

73.—Raku wa ku no tane; ku wa raku no tane. Pleasure is the seed of pain; pain is the seed of pleasure.

74.—Rokudo wa, me no mae. The Six Roads are right before your eyes.*

*That is to say, Your future life depends upon your conduct in this life; and you are thus free to choose for yourself the place of your next birth.

75.—Sangai mu-an. There is no rest within the Three States of Existence.

76.—Sangai ni kaki nashi;—Rokudo ni hotori nashi. There is no fence to the Three States of Existence;—there is no neighborhood to the Six Roads.*

*Within the Three States (Sangai), or universes, of Desire, Form, and Formlessness; and within the Six Worlds, or conditions of being,—Jigokudo (Hell), Gakido (Pretas), Chikushodo (Animal Life), Shurado (World of Fighting and Slaughter), Ningendo (Mankind), Tenjodo (Heavenly Spirits)—all existence is included. Beyond there is only Nirvana. "There is no fence," "no neighborhood,"—that is to say, no limit beyond which to escape, —no middle-path between any two of these states. We shall be reborn into some one of them according to our karma.—Compare with No. 74.

77.—Sange ni wa sannen no tsumi mo horobu. One confession effaces the sins of even three years.

78.—San nin yoreba, kugai. Where even three persons come together, there is a world of pain.*

*Kugai (lit.: "bitter world") is a term often used to describe the life of a prostitute.

79.—San nin yoreba, Monju no chie. Where three persons come together, there is the wisdom of Monju.*

*Monju Bosatsu [Mandjus'ri Bodhisattva] figures in Japanese Buddhism as a special divinity of wisdom.—The proverb signifies that three heads are better than one. A saying of like meaning is, Hiza to mo danko: "Consult even with your own knee;" that is to say, Despise no advice, no matter how humble the source of it.

80.—Shaka ni sekkyo. Preaching to Sakyamuni.

81.—Shami kara choro. To become an abbot one must begin as a novice.

82.—Shindareba, koso ikitare. Only by reason of having died does one enter into life.*

*I never hear this singular proverb without being re-minded of a sentence in Huxley's famous essay, On the Physical Basis of Life:—"The living protoplasm not only ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and, strange as the paradox may sound, could not live unless it died."

83.—Shiranu ga, hotoke; minu ga, Gokuraku. Not to know is to be a Buddha; not to see is Paradise.

84.—Shobo ni kidoku nashi. There is no miracle in true doctrine.*

*Nothing can happen except as a result of eternal and irrevocable law.

85.—Sho-chie wa Bodai no samatage. A little wisdom is a stumbling-block on the way to Buddhahood.*

*Bodai is the same word as the Sanscrit Bodhi, signifying the supreme enlightenment,—the knowledge that leads to Buddhahood; but it is often used by Japanese Buddhists in the sense of divine bliss, or the Buddha-state itself.

86.—Shoshi no kukai hetori nashi. There is no shore to the bitter Sea of Birth and Death.*

*Or, "the Pain-Sea of Life and Death."

87.—Sode no furi-awase mo tasho no en. Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by some relation in a former life.

88.—Sun zen; shaku ma. An inch of virtue; a foot of demon.*

*Ma (Sanscrit, Marakayikas) is the name given to a particular class of spirits who tempt men to evil. But in Japanese folklore the Ma have a part much resembling that occupied in Western popular superstition by goblins and fairies.

89.—Tanoshimi wa hanasimi no motoi. All joy is the source of sorrow.

90.—Tonde hi ni iru natsu no mushi. So the insects of summer fly to the flame.*

*Said especially in reference to the result of sensual indulgence.

91.—Tsuchi-botoke no midzu-asobi. Clay-Buddha's water-playing.*

*That is to say, "As dangerous as for a clay Buddha to play with water." Children often amuse themselves by making little Buddhist images of mud, which melt into shapelessness, of course, if placed in water.

92.—Tsuki ni murakumo, hana ni kaze. Cloud-wrack to the moon; wind to flowers.*

*The beauty of the moon is obscured by masses of clouds; the trees no sooner blossom than their flowers are scattered by the wind. All beauty is evanescent.

93.—Tsuyu no inochi. Human life is like the dew of morning.

94.—U-ki wa, kokoro ni ari. Joy and sorrow exist only in the mind.

95.—Uri no tsuru ni nasubi wa naranu. Egg-plants do not grow upon melon-vines.

96.—Uso mo hoben. Even an untruth may serve as a device.*

*That is, a pious device for effecting conversion. Such a device is justified especially by the famous parable of the third chapter of the Saddharma Pundarika.

97.—Waga ya no hotoke tattoshi. My family ancestors were all excellent Buddhas.*

*Meaning that one most reveres the hotoke—the spirits of the dead regarded as Buddhas—in one's own household-shrine. There is an ironical play upon the word hotoke, which may mean either a dead person simply, or a Buddha. Perhaps the spirit of this proverb may be better explained by the help of another: Nigeta sakana ni chisai wa nai; shinda kodomo ni warui ko wa nai—"Fish that escaped was never small; child that died was never bad."

98.—Yuki no hate wa, Nehan. The end of snow is Nirvana.*

*This curious saying is the only one in my collection containing the word Nehan (Nirvana), and is here inserted chiefly for that reason. The common people seldom speak of Nehan, and have little knowledge of those profound doctrines to which the term is related. The above phrase, as might be inferred, is not a popular expression: it is rather an artistic and poetical reference to the aspect of a landscape covered with snow to the horizon-line, —so that beyond the snow-circle there is only the great void of the sky.

99.—Zen ni wa zen no mukui; aku ni wa aku no mukui. Goodness [or, virtue] is the return for goodness; evil is the return for evil.*

*Not so commonplace a proverb as might appear at first sight; for it refers especially to the Buddhist belief that every kindness shown to us in this life is a return of kindness done to others in a former life, and that every wrong inflicted upon us is the reflex of some injustice which we committed in a previous birth.

100.—Zense no yakusoku-goto. Promised [or, destined] from a former birth.*

*A very common saying,—often uttered as a comment upon the unhappiness of separation, upon sudden misfortune, upon sudden death, etc. It is used especially in relation to shinju, or lovers' suicide. Such suicide is popularly thought to be a result of cruelty in some previous state of being, or the consequence of having broken, in a former life, the mutual promise to become husband and wife.



SUGGESTION

I had the privilege of meeting him in Tokyo, where he was making a brief stay on his way to India;—and we took a long walk together, and talked of Eastern religions, about which he knew incomparably more than I. Whatever I could tell him concerning local beliefs, he would comment upon in the most startling manner,—citing weird correspondences in some living cult of India, Burmah, or Ceylon. Then, all of a sudden, he turned the conversation into a totally unexpected direction.

"I have been thinking," he said, "about the constancy of the relative proportion of the sexes, and wondering whether Buddhist doctrine furnishes an explanation. For it seems to me that, under ordinary conditions of karma, human rebirth would necessarily proceed by a regular alternation."

"Do you mean," I asked, "that a man would be reborn as a woman, and a woman as a man?"

"Yes," he replied, "because desire is creative, and the desire of either sex is towards the other."

"And how many men," I said, "would want to be reborn as women?"

"Probably very few," he answered. "But the doctrine that desire is creative does not imply that the individual longing creates its own satisfaction,—quite the contrary. The true teaching is that the result of every selfish wish is in the nature of a penalty, and that what the wish creates must prove—to higher knowledge at least—the folly of wishing."

"There you are right," I said; "but I do not yet understand your theory."

"Well," he continued, "if the physical conditions of human rebirth are all determined by the karma of the will relating to physical conditions, then sex would be determined by the will in relation to sex. Now the will of either sex is towards the other. Above all things else, excepting life, man desires woman, and woman man. Each individual, moreover, independently of any personal relation, feels perpetually, you say, the influence of some inborn feminine or masculine ideal, which you call 'a ghostly reflex of countless attachments in countless past lives.' And the insatiable desire represented by this ideal would of itself suffice to create the masculine or the feminine body of the next existence."

"But most women," I observed, "would like to be reborn as men; and the accomplishment of that wish would scarcely be in the nature of a penalty."

"Why not?" he returned. "The happiness or unhappiness of the new existence would not be decided by sex alone: it would of necessity depend upon many conditions in combination."

"Your theory is interesting," I said;—"but I do not know how far it could be made to accord with accepted doctrine.... And what of the person able, through knowledge and practice of the higher law, to remain superior to all weaknesses of sex?"

"Such a one," he replied, "would be reborn neither as man nor as woman,—providing there were no pre-existent karma powerful enough to check or to weaken the results of the self-conquest."

"Reborn in some one of the heavens?" I queried,—"by the Apparitional Birth?"

"Not necessarily," he said. "Such a one might be reborn in a world of desire,—like this,—but neither as man only, nor as woman only."

"Reborn, then, in what form?" I asked.

"In that of a perfect being," he responded. "A man or a woman is scarcely more than half-a-being,—because in our present imperfect state either sex can be evolved only at the cost of the other. In the mental and the physical composition of every man, there is undeveloped woman; and in the composition of every woman there is undeveloped man. But a being complete would be both perfect man and perfect woman, possessing the highest faculties of both sexes, with the weaknesses of neither. Some humanity higher than our own,—in other worlds,—might be thus evolved."

"But you know," I observed, "that there are Buddhist texts,—in the Saddharma Pundarika, for example, and in the Vinayas,—which forbid...."

"Those texts," he interrupted, "refer to imperfect beings—less than man and less than woman: they could not refer to the condition that I have been supposing.... But, remember, I am not preaching a doctrine;—I am only hazarding a theory."

"May I put your theory some day into print?" I asked.

"Why, yes," he made answer,—"if you believe it worth thinking about."

And long afterwards I wrote it down thus, as fairly as I was able, from memory.



Ingwa-banashi(1)

The daimyo's wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei, —the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees were blossoming. She thought of the cherry-trees in her garden, and of the gladness of spring. She thought of her children. She thought of her husband's various concubines,—especially the Lady Yukiko, nineteen years old.

"My dear wife," said the daimyo, "you have suffered very much for three long years. We have done all that we could to get you well,—watching beside you night and day, praying for you, and often fasting for your sake, But in spite of our loving care, and in spite of the skill of our best physicians, it would now seen that the end of your life is not far off. Probably we shall sorrow more than you will sorrow because of your having to leave what the Buddha so truly termed 'this burning-house of the world. I shall order to be performed—no matter what the cost—every religious rite that can serve you in regard to your next rebirth; and all of us will pray without ceasing for you, that you may not have to wander in the Black Space, but nay quickly enter Paradise, and attain to Buddha-hood."

He spoke with the utmost tenderness, pressing her the while. Then, with eyelids closed, she answered him in a voice thin as the voice of in insect:—

"I am grateful—most grateful—for your kind words.... Yes, it is true, as you say, that I have been sick for three long years, and that I have been treated with all possible care and affection.... Why, indeed, should I turn away from the one true Path at the very moment of my death?... Perhaps to think of worldly matters at such a time is not right;—but I have one last request to make,—only one.... Call here to me the Lady Yukiko;—you know that I love her like a sister. I want to speak to her about the affairs of this household."

Yukiko came at the summons of the lord, and, in obedience to a sign from him, knelt down beside the couch. The daimyo's wife opened her eyes, and looked at Yukiko, and spoke:—"Ah, here is Yukiko!... I am so pleased to see you, Yukiko!... Come a little closer,—so that you can hear me well: I am not able to speak loud.... Yukiko, I am going to die. I hope that you will be faithful in all things to our dear lord;—for I want you to take my place when I am gone.... I hope that you will always be loved by him,—yes, even a hundred times more than I have been,—and that you will very soon be promoted to a higher rank, and become his honored wife.... And I beg of you always to cherish our dear lord: never allow another woman to rob you of his affection.... This is what I wanted to say to you, dear Yukiko.... Have you been able to understand?"

"Oh, my dear Lady," protested Yukiko, "do not, I entreat you, say such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and mean condition:—how could I ever dare to aspire to become the wife of our lord!"

"Nay, nay!" returned the wife, huskily,—"this is not a time for words of ceremony: let us speak only the truth to each other. After my death, you will certainly be promoted to a higher place; and I now assure you again that I wish you to become the wife of our lord—yes, I wish this, Yukiko, even more than I wish to become a Buddha!... Ah, I had almost forgotten!—I want you to do something for me, Yukiko. You know that in the garden there is a yae-zakura,(2) which was brought here, the year before last, from Mount Yoshino in Yamato. I have been told that it is now in full bloom;—and I wanted so much to see it in flower! In a little while I shall be dead;—I must see that tree before I die. Now I wish you to carry me into the garden—at once, Yukiko,—so that I can see it.... Yes, upon your back, Yukiko;—take me upon your back...."

While thus asking, her voice had gradually become clear and strong,—as if the intensity of the wish had given her new force: then she suddenly burst into tears. Yukiko knelt motionless, not knowing what to do; but the lord nodded assent.

"It is her last wish in this world," he said. "She always loved cherry-flowers; and I know that she wanted very much to see that Yamato-tree in blossom. Come, my dear Yukiko, let her have her will."

As a nurse turns her back to a child, that the child may cling to it, Yukiko offered her shoulders to the wife, and said:—

"Lady, I am ready: please tell me how I best can help you."

"Why, this way!"—responded the dying woman, lifting herself with an almost superhuman effort by clinging to Yukiko's shoulders. But as she stood erect, she quickly slipped her thin hands down over the shoulders, under the robe, and clutched the breasts of the girl,, and burst into a wicked laugh.

"I have my wish!" she cried-"I have my wish for the cherry- bloom,(3)—but not the cherry-bloom of the garden!... I could not die before I got my wish. Now I have it!—oh, what a delight!"

And with these words she fell forward upon the crouching girl, and died.

The attendants at once attempted to lift the body from Yukiko's shoulders, and to lay it upon the bed. But—strange to say!—this seemingly easy thing could not be done. The cold hands had attached themselves in some unaccountable way to the breasts of the girl,—appeared to have grown into the quick flesh. Yukiko became senseless with fear and pain.

Physicians were called. They could not understand what had taken place. By no ordinary methods could the hands of the dead woman be unfastened from the body of her victim;—they so clung that any effort to remove them brought blood. This was not because the fingers held: it was because the flesh of the palms had united itself in some inexplicable manner to the flesh of the breasts!

At that time the most skilful physician in Yedo was a foreigner, —a Dutch surgeon. It was decided to summon him. After a careful examination he said that he could not understand the case, and that for the immediate relief of Yukiko there was nothing to be done except to cut the hands from the corpse. He declared that it would be dangerous to attempt to detach them from the breasts. His advice was accepted; and the hands' were amputated at the wrists. But they remained clinging to the breasts; and there they soon darkened and dried up,—like the hands of a person long dead.

Yet this was only the beginning of the horror.

Withered and bloodless though they seemed, those hands were not dead. At intervals they would stir—stealthily, like great grey spiders. And nightly thereafter,—beginning always at the Hour of the Ox,(4)—they would clutch and compress and torture. Only at the Hour of the Tiger the pain would cease.

Yukiko cut off her hair, and became a mendicant-nun,—taking the religious name of Dassetsu. She had an ibai (mortuary tablet) made, bearing the kaimyo of her dead mistress,—"Myo-Ko-In-Den Chizan-Ryo-Fu Daishi";—and this she carried about with her in all her wanderings; and every day before it she humbly besought the dead for pardon, and performed a Buddhist service in order that the jealous spirit might find rest. But the evil karma that had rendered such an affliction possible could not soon be exhausted. Every night at the Hour of the Ox, the hands never failed to torture her, during more than seventeen years,— according to the testimony of those persons to whom she last told her story, when she stopped for one evening at the house of Noguchi Dengozayemon, in the village of Tanaka in the district of Kawachi in the province of Shimotsuke. This was in the third year of Kokwa (1846). Thereafter nothing more was ever heard of her.

1 Lit., "a tale of ingwa." Ingwa is a Japanese Buddhist term for evil karma, or the evil consequence of faults committed in a former state of existence. Perhaps the curious title of the narrative is best explained by the Buddhist teaching that the dead have power to injure the living only in consequence of evil actions committed by their victims in some former life. Both title and narrative may be found in the collection of weird stories entitled Hyaku-Monogatari.

2 Yae-zakura, yae-no-sakura, a variety of Japanese cherry-tree that bears double-blossoms.

3 In Japanese poetry and proverbial phraseology, the physical beauty of a woman is compared to the cherry-flower; while feminine moral beauty is compared to the plum-flower.

4 In ancient Japanese time, the Hour of the Ox was the special hour of ghosts. It began at 2 A.M., and lasted until 4 A.M.—for the old Japanese hour was double the length of the modern hour. The Hour of the Tiger began at 4 A.M.



Story of a Tengu (1)

In the days of the Emperor Go-Reizei, there was a holy priest living in the temple of Saito, on the mountain called Hiyei-Zan, near Kyoto. One summer day this good priest, after a visit to the city, was returning to his temple by way of Kita-no-Oji, when he saw some boys ill-treating a kite. They had caught the bird in a snare, and were beating it with sticks. "Oh, the, poor creature!" compassionately exclaimed the priest;—"why do you torment it so, children?" One of the boys made answer:—"We want to kill it to get the feathers." Moved by pity, the priest persuaded the boys to let him have the kite in exchange for a fan that he was carrying; and he set the bird free. It had not been seriously hurt, and was able to fly away.