{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_55681/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_55681","id":"gutenberg_55681","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55681","summary":null,"tags":["Americans -- Japan -- Biography","Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography","Buddhism","Buddhism -- Japan","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Travel Writing","Hearn, Lafcadio, 1850-1904 -- Homes and haunts -- Japan","Japan -- Civilization","Japan -- Description and travel","Japan -- Intellectual life -- 19th century"],"text":"GLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS\n\nSTUDIES OF HAND AND SOUL\nIN THE FAR EAST\n\nBY\n\nLAFCADIO HEARN\n\nLECTURER ON ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE\nIMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF JAPAN\n\n\n\nBOSTON AND NEW YORK\nHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n1897\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n       I. A LIVING GOD\n      II. OUT OF THE STREET\n     III. NOTES OF A TRIP TO KY\u014cTO\n      IV. DUST\n       V. ABOUT FACES EN JAPANESE ART\n      VI. NINGY\u014c-NO-HAKA\n     VII. IN \u014cSAKA\n    VIII. BUDDHIST ALLUSIONS IN JAPANESE FOLK-SONG\n      IX. NIRVANA\n       X. THE REBIRTH OF KATSUGOR\u014c\n      XI. WITHIN THE CIRCLE\n\n\n\nGLEANINGS IN BUDDHA-FIELDS\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nA LIVING GOD\n\n\nI\n\n\nOf whatever dimension, the temples or shrines of pure Shint\u014d are all\nbuilt in the same archaic style. The typical shrine is a windowless\noblong building of unpainted timber, with a very steep overhanging\nroof; the front is the gable end; and the upper part of the perpetually\nclosed doors is wooden lattice-work,--usually a grating of bars\nclosely set and crossing each other at right angles. In most cases\nthe structure is raised slightly above the ground on wooden pillars;\nand the queer peaked fa\u00e7ade, with its visor-like apertures and the\nfantastic projections of beam-work above its gable-angle, might remind\nthe European traveler of certain old Gothic forms of dormer. There is\nno artificial color. The plain wood[1] soon turns, under the action of\nrain and sun, to a natural grey, varying according to surface exposure\nfrom the silvery tone of birch bark to the sombre grey of basalt. So\nshaped and so tinted, the isolated country _yashiro_ may seem less like\na work of joinery than a feature of the scenery,--a rural form related\nto nature as closely as rocks and trees,--a something that came into\nexistence only as a manifestation of Ohotsuchi-no-Kami, the Earth-god,\nthe primeval divinity of the land.\n\nWhy certain architectural forms produce in the beholder a feeling of\nweirdness is a question about which I should like to theorize some\nday: at present I shall venture only to say that Shinto shrines evoke\nsuch a feeling. It grows with familiarity instead of weakening; and a\nknowledge of popular beliefs is apt to intensify it. We have no English\nwords by which these queer shapes can be sufficiently described,--much\nless any language able to communicate the peculiar impression which\nthey make. Those Shinto terms which we loosely render by the words\n\"temple\" and \"shrine\" are really untranslatable;--I mean that the\nJapanese ideas attaching to them cannot be conveyed by translation. The\nso-called \"august house\" of the Kami is not so much a temple, in the\nclassic meaning of the term, as it is a haunted room, a spirit-chamber,\na ghost-house; many of the lesser divinities being veritably\nghosts,--ghosts of great warriors and heroes and rulers and teachers,\nwho lived and loved and died hundreds or thousands of years ago. I\nfancy that to the Western mind the word \"ghost-house\" will convey,\nbetter than such terms as \"shrine\" and \"temple,\" some vague notion of\nthe strange character of the Shinto _miya_ or _yashiro,_--containing\nin its perpetual dusk nothing more substantial than symbols or tokens,\nthe latter probably of paper. Now the emptiness behind the visored\nfront is more suggestive than anything material could possibly be;\nand when you remember that millions of people during thousands of\nyears have worshipped their great dead before such _yashiro,--_that\na whole race still believes those buildings tenanted by viewless\nconscious personalities,--you are apt also to reflect how difficult\nit would be to prove the faith absurd. Nay! in spite of Occidental\nreluctances,--in spite of whatever you may think it expedient to say\nor not to say at a later time about the experience,--you may very\nlikely find yourself for a moment forced into the attitude of respect\ntoward possibilities. Mere cold reasoning will not help you far in the\nopposite direction. The evidence of the senses counts for little: you\nknow there are ever so many realities which can neither be seen nor\nheard nor felt, but which exist as forces,--tremendous forces. Then\nagain you cannot mock the conviction of forty millions of people while\nthat conviction thrills all about you like the air,--while conscious\nthat it is pressing upon your psychical being just as the atmosphere\npresses upon your physical being. As for myself, whenever I am alone in\nthe presence of a Shinto shrine, I have the sensation of being haunted;\nand I cannot help thinking about the possible apperceptions of the\nhaunter. And this tempts me to fancy how I should feel if I myself were\na god,--dwelling in some old Izumo shrine on the summit of a hill,\nguarded by stone lions and shadowed by a holy grove.\n\nElfishly small my habitation might be, but never too small, because I\nshould have neither size nor form. I should be only a vibration,--a\nmotion invisible as of ether or of magnetism; though able sometimes to\nshape me a shadow-body, in the likeness of my former visible self, when\nI should wish to make apparition.\n\nAs air to the bird, as water to the fish, so would all substance be\npermeable to the essence of me. I should pass at will through the walls\nof my dwelling to swim in the long gold bath of a sunbeam, to thrill in\nthe heart of a flower, to ride on the neck of a dragon-fly.\n\nPower above life and power over death would be mine,--and the power of\nself-extension, and the power of self-multiplication, and the power of\nbeing in all places at one and the same moment. Simultaneously in a\nhundred homes I should hear myself worshiped, I should inhale the vapor\nof a hundred offerings: each evening, from my place within a hundred\nhousehold shrines, I should see the holy lights lighted for me in\nlamplets of red clay, in lamplets of brass,--the lights of the Kami,\nkindled with purest fire and fed with purest oil.\n\nBut in my yashiro upon the hill I should have greatest honor: there\nbetimes I should gather the multitude of my selves together; there\nshould I unify my powers to answer supplication.\n\nFrom the dusk of my ghost-house I should look for the coming of\nsandaled feet, and watch brown supple fingers weaving to my bars the\nknotted papers which are records of vows, and observe the motion of the\nlips of my worshipers making prayer:--\n\n_--\"Harai-tamai kiyom\u00e9-tama\u00e9!_ ... We have beaten drums, we have\nlighted fires; yet the land thirsts and the rice fails. Deign out of\nthy divine pity to give us rain, O Daimy\u014djin!\"\n\n_--\"Harai-tamai kiyom\u00e9-tama\u00e9!_ ... I am dark, too dark, because I have\ntoiled in the field, because the sun hath looked upon me. Deign thou\naugustly to make me white, very white,--white like the women of the\ncity, O Daimy\u014djin!\"\n\n_--\"Harai-tamai kiyom\u00ea-tama\u00e9!_... For Tsukamoto Motokichi our son, a\nsoldier of twenty-nine: that he may conquer and come back quickly to\nus,--soon, very soon,--we humbly supplicate, O Daimy\u014djin!\"\n\nSometimes a girl would whisper all her heart to me: \"Maiden of eighteen\nyears, I am loved by a youth of twenty. He is good; he is true; but\npoverty is with us, and the path of our love is dark. Aid us with thy\ngreat divine pity!--help us that we may become united, O Daimy\u014djin!\"\nThen to the bars of my shrine she would hang a thick soft tress of\nhair,--her own hair, glossy and black as the wing of the crow, and\nbound with a cord of mulberry-paper. And in the fragrance of that\noffering,--the simple fragrance of her peasant youth,--I, the ghost and\ngod, should find again the feelings of the years when I was man and\nlover.\n\nMothers would bring their children to my threshold, and teach them\nto revere me, saying, \"Bow down before the great bright God; make\nhomage to the Daimy\u014djin.\" Then I should hear the fresh soft clapping\nof little hands, and remember that I, the ghost and god, had been a\nfather.\n\nDaily I should hear the plash of pure cool water poured out for me, and\nthe tinkle of thrown coin, and the pattering of dry rice into my wooden\nbox, like a pattering of rain; and I should be refreshed by the spirit\nof the water, and strengthened by the spirit of the rice.\n\nFestivals would be held to honor me. Priests, black-coiffed and\nlinen-vestured, would bring me offerings of fruits and fish and\nseaweed and rice-cakes and rice-wine,--masking their faces with\nsheets of white paper, so as not to breathe upon my food. And the\n_miko_ their daughters, fair girls in crimson _hakama_ and robes of\nsnowy white, would come to dance with tinkling of little bells, with\nwaving of silken fans, that I might be gladdened by the bloom of their\nyouth, that I might delight in the charm of their grace. And there\nwould be music of many thousand years ago,--weird music of drums and\nflutes,--and songs in a tongue no longer spoken; while the miko, the\ndarlings of the gods, would poise and pose before me:--... \"Whose\nvirgins are these,--the virgins who stand like flowers before the\nDeity? They are the virgins of the august Deity.\n\n\"The august music, the dancing of the virgins,--the Deity will be\npleased to hear, the Deity will rejoice to see.\n\n\"Before the great bright God the virgins dance,--the virgins all like\nflowers newly opened.\" ...\n\n*\n\nVotive gifts of many kinds I should be given: painted paper lanterns\nbearing my sacred name, and towels of divers colors printed with the\nnumber of the years of the giver, and pictures commemorating the\nfulfillment of prayers for the healing of sickness, the saving of\nships, the quenching of fire, the birth of sons.\n\nAlso my Karashishi, my guardian lions, would be honored. I should see\nmy pilgrims tying sandals of straw to their necks and to their paws,\nwith prayer to the Karashishi-Sama for strength of foot.\n\nI should see fine moss, like emerald fur, growing slowly, slowly, upon\nthe backs of those lions;--I should see the sprouting of lichens upon\ntheir flanks and upon their shoulders, in specklings of dead-silver, in\npatches of dead-gold;--I should watch, through years of generations,\nthe gradual sideward sinking of their pedestals under-mined by frost\nand rain, until at last my lions would lose their balance, and fall,\nand break their mossy heads off. After which the people would give me\nnew lions of another form,--lions of granite or of bronze, with gilded\nteeth and gilded eyes, and tails like a torment of fire.\n\nBetween the trunks of the cedars and pines, between the jointed\ncolumns of the bamboos, I should observe, season after season, the\nchanges of the colors of the valley: the falling of the snow of winter\nand the falling of the snow of cherry-flowers; the lilac spread of\nthe _miyakobana;_ the blazing yellow of the _natan\u00e9;_ the sky--blue\nmirrored in flooded levels,--levels dotted with the moon-shaped hats of\nthe toiling people who would love me; and at last the pure and tender\ngreen of the growing rice.\n\nThe muku-birds and the _uguisu_ would fill the shadows of my grove with\nripplings and purlings of melody;--the bell-insects, the crickets,\nand the seven marvelous cicadas of summer would make all the wood of\nmy ghost-house thrill to their musical storms. Betimes I should enter,\nlike an ecstasy, into the tiny lives of them, to quicken the joy of\ntheir clamor, to magnify the sonority of their song.\n\n*\n\nBut I never can become a god,--for this is the nineteenth century;\nand nobody can be really aware of the nature of the sensations of a\ngod--unless there be gods in the flesh. Are there? Perhaps--in very\nremote districts--one or two. There used to be living gods.\n\nAnciently any man who did something extraordinarily great or good or\nwise or brave might be declared a god after his death, no matter how\nhumble his condition in life. Also good people who had suffered great\ncruelty and injustice might be apotheosized; and there still survives\nthe popular inclination to pay posthumous honor and to make prayer\nto the spirits of those who die voluntary deaths under particular\ncircumstances,--to souls of unhappy lovers, for example. (Probably the\nold customs which made this tendency had their origin in the wish\nto appease the vexed spirit, although to-day the experience of great\nsuffering seems to be thought of as qualifying its possessor for divine\nconditions of being;--and there would be no foolishness whatever in\nsuch a thought.) But there were even more remarkable deifications.\nCertain persons, while still alive, were honored by having temples\nbuilt for their spirits, and were treated as gods; not, indeed, as\nnational gods, but as lesser divinities,--tutelar deities, perhaps, or\nvillage-gods. There was, for instance, Hamaguchi Gohei, a farmer of the\ndistrict of Arita in the province of Kishu, who was made a god before\nhe died. And I think he deserved it.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Usually _hinoki_ (Cham\u0153cyparis obtusa).]\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nBefore telling the story of Hamaguchi Gohei, I must say a few words\nabout certain laws--or, more correctly speaking, customs having all\nthe force of laws--by which many village communities were ruled in\npre-Meiji times. These customs were based upon the social experience of\nages; and though they differed in minor details according to province\nor district, their main signification was everywhere about the same.\nSome were ethical, some industrial, some religious; and all matters\nwere regulated by them,--even individual behavior. They preserved\npeace, and they compelled mutual help and mutual kindness. Sometimes\nthere might be serious fighting between different villages,--little\npeasant wars about questions of water supply or boundaries; but\nquarreling between men of the same community could not be tolerated in\nan age of vendetta, and the whole village would resent any needless\ndisturbance of the internal peace. To some degree this state of things\nstill exists in the more old-fashioned provinces: the people know\nhow to live without quarreling, not to say fighting. Any-where, as a\ngeneral rule, Japanese fight only to kill; and when a sober man goes so\nfar as to strike a blow, he virtually rejects communal protection, and\ntakes his life into his own hands with every probability of losing it.\n\nThe private conduct of the other sex was regulated by some remarkable\nobligations entirely outside of written codes. A peasant girl, before\nmarriage, enjoyed far more liberty than was permitted to city girls.\nShe might be known to have a lover; and unless her parents objected\nvery strongly, no blame would be given to her: it was regarded as an\nholiest union,--honest, at least, as to intention. But having once made\na choice, the girl was held bound by that choice. If it were discovered\nthat she met another admirer secretly, the people would strip her\nnaked, allowing her only a _shuro-leaf_ for apron, and drive her in\nmockery through every street and alley of the village. During this\npublic dis-grace of their daughter, the parents of the girl dared not\nshow their faces abroad; they were expected to share her shame, and\nthey had to remain in their house, with all the shutters fastened up.\nAfterward the girl was sentenced to banishment for five years. But at\nthe end of that period she was considered to have expiated her fault,\nand she could return home with the certainty of being spared further\nreproaches.\n\nThe obligation of mutual help in time of calamity or danger was\nthe most imperative of all communal obligations. In case of fire,\nespecially, everybody was required to give immediate aid to the best\nof his or her ability. Even children were not exempted from this duty.\nIn towns and cities, of course, things were differently ordered; but\nin any little country village the universal duty was very plain and\nsimple, and its neglect would have been considered unpardonable.\n\nA curious fact is that this obligation of mutual help extended to\nreligious matters: everybody was expected to invoke the help of the\ngods for the sick or the unfortunate, whenever asked to do so. For\nexample, the village might be ordered to make a _sendo-mairi_[1] on\nbehalf of some one seriously ill. On such occasions the Kumi-ch\u014d (each\nKumi-ch\u014d was responsible for the conduct of five or more families) would\nrun from house to house crying, \"Such and such a one is very sick:\nkindly hasten all to make a sendo-mairi!\" Thereupon, however occupied\nat the moment, every soul in the settlement was expected to hurry to\nthe temple,--taking care not to trip or stumble on the way, as a single\nmisstep during the performance of a sendo-mairi was believed to mean\nmisfortune for the sick....\n\n\n[Footnote 1: To perform a _sendo-mairi_ means to make one thousand\nvisits to a temple, and to repeat one thousand invocations to the\ndeity. But it is considered necessary only to go from the gate or\nthe torii of the temple-court to the place of prayer, and hack, one\nthousand times, repeating the invocation each time; and the task may\nbe divided among any number of persons,--ten visits by one hundred\npersons, for instance, being quite as efficacious as a thousand visits\nby a single person.]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nNow concerning Hamaguchi.\n\nFrom immemorial time the shores of Japan have been swept, at irregular\nintervals of centuries, by enormous tidal waves,--tidal waves caused by\nearthquakes or by submarine volcanic action. These awful sudden risings\nof the sea are called by the Japanese _tsunami._ The last one occurred\non the evening of June 17, 1896, when a wave nearly two hundred miles\nlong struck the northeastern provinces of Miyagi, Iwat\u00e9, and Aomori,\nwrecking scores of towns and villages, ruining whole districts, and\ndestroying nearly thirty thousand human lives. The story of Hamaguchi\nGohei is the story of a like calamity which happened long before the\nera of Meiji, on another part of the Japanese coast.\n\nHe was an old man at the time of the occurrence that made him famous.\nHe was the most influential resident of the village to which he\nbelonged: he had been for many years its _muraosa,_ or headman; and\nhe was not less liked than respected. The people usually called him\n_Ojiisan,_ which means Grandfather; but, being the richest member of\nthe community, he was sometimes officially referred to as the Ch\u014dja. He\nused to advise the smaller farmers about their interests, to arbitrate\ntheir disputes, to advance them money at need, and to dispose of their\nrice for them on the best terms possible.\n\nHamaguchi's big thatched farmhouse stood at the verge of a small\nplateau overlooking a bay. The plateau, mostly devoted to rice culture,\nwas hemmed in on three sides by thickly wooded summits. From its outer\nverge the land sloped down in a huge green concavity, as if scooped\nout, to the edge of the water; and the whole of this slope, some three\nquarters of a mile long, was so terraced as to look, when viewed from\nthe open sea, like an enormous flight of green steps, divided in the\ncentre by a narrow white zigzag,--a streak of mountain road. Ninety\nthatched dwellings and a Shint\u014d temple, composing the village proper,\nstood along the curve of the bay; and other houses climbed straggling\nup the slope for some distance on either side of the narrow road\nleading to the Ch\u014dja's home.\n\n*\n\nOne autumn evening Hamaguchi Gohei was looking down from the balcony of\nhis house at some preparations for a merry-making in the village below.\nThere had been a very fine rice-crop, and the peasants were going to\ncelebrate their harvest by a dance in the court of the _ujigami._[1]\nThe old man could see the festival banners (_nobori_) fluttering\nabove the roofs of the solitary street, the strings of paper lanterns\nfestooned between bamboo poles, the decorations of the shrine, and the\nbrightly colored gathering of the young people. He had nobody with him\nthat evening but his little grandson, a lad of ten; the rest of the\nhousehold having gone early to the village. He would have accompanied\nthem had he not been feeling less strong than usual.\n\nThe day had been oppressive; and in spite of a rising breeze there\nwas still in the air that sort of heavy heat which, according to the\nexperience of the Japanese peasant, at certain seasons precedes an\nearthquake. And presently an earthquake came. It was not strong enough\nto frighten anybody; but Hamaguchi, who had felt hundreds of shocks in\nhis time, thought it was queer,--a long, slow, spongy motion. Probably\nit was but the after-tremor of some immense seismic action very far\naway. The house crackled and rocked gently several times; then all\nbecame still again.\n\nAs the quaking ceased Hamaguchi's keen old eyes were anxiously turned\ntoward the village. It often happens that the attention of a person\ngazing fixedly at a particular spot or object is suddenly diverted by\nthe sense of something not knowingly seen at all,--by a mere vague\nfeeling of the unfamiliar in that dim outer circle of unconscious\nperception which lies beyond the field of clear vision. Thus it chanced\nthat Hamaguchi became aware of something unusual in the offing. He rose\nto his feet, and looked at the sea. It had darkened quite suddenly, and\nit was acting strangely. It seemed to be moving against the wind. _It\nwas running away from the land._\n\nWithin a very little time the whole village had noticed the phenomenon.\nApparently no one had felt the previous motion of the ground, but\nall were evidently astounded by the movement of the water. They were\nrunning to the beach, and even beyond the beach, to watch it. No such\nebb had been witnessed on that coast within the memory of living man.\nThings never seen before were making apparition; unfamiliar spaces\nof ribbed sand and reaches of weed-hung rock were left bare even as\nHamaguchi gazed. And none of the people below appeared to guess what\nthat monstrous ebb signified.\n\nHamaguchi Gohei himself had never seen such a thing before; but he\nremembered things told him in his childhood by his father's father, and\nhe knew all the traditions of the coast. He understood what the sea was\ngoing to do. Perhaps he thought of the time needed to send a message to\nthe village, or to get the priests of the Buddhist temple on the hill\nto, sound their big bell.... But it would take, very much longer to\ntell what he might have thought than it took him to think. He simply\ncalled to his grandson:--\n\n\"Tada!--quick,--very quick! ... Light me a torch.\"\n\n_Taimatsu,_ or pine-torches, are kept in many coast dwellings for\nuse on stormy nights, and also for use at certain Shinto festivals.\nThe child kindled a torch at once; and the old man hurried with it\nto the fields, where hundreds of rice-stacks, representing most of\nhis invested capital, stood awaiting transportation. Approaching\nthose nearest the verge of the slope, he began to apply the torch to\nthem,--hurrying from one to another as quickly as his aged limbs could\ncarry him. The sun-dried stalks caught like tinder; the strengthening\nsea-breeze blew the blaze landward; and presently, rank behind rank,\nthe stacks burst into flame, sending skyward columns of smoke that\nmet and mingled into one enormous cloudy whirl. Tada, astonished and\nterrified, ran after his grandfather, crying,--\n\n\"Ojiisan! why? Ojiisan! why?--why?\"\n\nBut Hamaguchi did not answer: he had no time to explain; he was\nthinking only of the four hundred lives in peril. For a while the\nchild stared wildly at the blazing rice; then burst into tears, and\nran back to the house, feeling sure that his grandfather had gone\nmad. Hamaguchi went on firing stack after stack, till he had reached\nthe limit of his field; then he threw down his torch, and waited. The\nacolyte of the hill-temple, observing the blaze, set the big bell\nbooming; and the people responded to the double appeal. Hamaguchi\nwatched them hurrying in from the sands and over the beach and up\nfrom the village, like a swarming of ants, and, to his anxious eyes,\nscarcely faster; for the moments seemed terribly long to him. The sun\nwas going down; the wrinkled bed of the bay, and a vast sallow speckled\nexpanse beyond it, lay naked to the last orange glow; and still the sea\nwas fleeing toward the horizon.\n\nReally, however, Hamaguchi did not have very long to wait before the\nfirst party of succor arrived,--a score of agile young peasants, who\nwanted to attack the fire at once. But the Ch\u014dja, holding out both\narms, stopped them.\n\n\"Let it burn, lads!\" he commanded, \"let it be! I want the whole _mura_\nhere. There is a great danger,--_taihen da!_\"\n\nThe whole village was coming; and Hamaguchi counted. All the young men\nand boys were soon on the spot, and not a few of the more active women\nand girls; then came most of the older folk, and mothers with babies\nat their backs, and even children,--for children could help to pass\nwater; and the elders too feeble to keep up with the first rush could\nbe seen well on their way up the steep ascent. The growing multitude,\nstill knowing nothing, looked alternately, in sorrowful wonder, at the\nflaming fields and at the impassive face of their Ch\u014dja. And the sun\nwent down.\n\n\"Grandfather is mad,--I am afraid of him!\" sobbed Tada, in answer to a\nnumber of questions. \"He is mad. He set fire to the rice on purpose: I\nsaw him do it!\"\n\n\"As for the rice,\" cried Hamaguchi, \"the child tells the truth. I set\nfire to the rice. ... Are all the people here?\"\n\nThe Kumi-ch\u014d and the heads of families looked about them, and down the\nhill, and made reply: \"All are here, or very soon will be.... _We_\ncannot understand this thing.\"\n\n_\"Kita!_\" shouted the old man at the top of his voice, pointing to the\nopen. \"Say now if I be mad!\"\n\nThrough the twilight eastward all looked, and saw at the edge of the\ndusky horizon a long, lean, dim line like the shadowing of a coast\nwhere no coast ever was,--a line that thickened as they gazed, that\nbroadened as a coast-line broadens to the eyes of one approaching it,\nyet incomparably more quickly. For that long darkness was the returning\nsea, towering like a cliff, and coursing more swiftly than the kite\nflies.\n\n\"_Tsunami!_\" shrieked the people; and then all shrieks and all sounds\nand all power to hear sounds were annihilated by a nameless shock\nheavier than any thunder, as the colossal swell smote the shore with\na weight that sent a shudder through the hills, and with a foam-burst\nlike a blaze of sheet-lightning. Then for an instant nothing was\nvisible but a storm of spray rushing up the slope like a cloud; and the\npeople scattered back in panic from the mere menace of it. When they\nlooked again, they saw a white horror of sea raving over the place of\ntheir homes. It drew back roaring, and tearing out the bowels of the\nland as it went. Twice, thrice, five times the sea struck and ebbed,\nbut each time with lesser surges: then it returned to its ancient bed\nand stayed,--still raging, as after a typhoon.\n\nOn the plateau for a time there was no word spoken. All stared\nspeechlessly at the desolation beneath,--the ghastliness of hurled\nrock and naked riven cliff, the bewilderment of scooped-up deep-sea\nwrack and shingle shot over the empty site of dwelling and temple. The\nvillage was not; the greater part of the fields were not; even the\nterraces had ceased to exist; and of all the homes that had been about\nthe bay there remained nothing recognizable except two straw roofs\ntossing madly in the offing. The after-terror of the death escaped and\nthe stupefaction of the general loss kept all lips dumb, until the\nvoice of Hamaguchi was heard again, observing gently,--\n\n_\"That was why I set fire to the rice.\"_\n\nHe, their Ch\u014dja, now stood among them almost as poor as the poorest;\nfor his wealth was gone--but he had saved four hundred lives by the\nsacrifice. Little Tada ran to him, and caught his hand, and asked\nforgiveness for having said naughty things. Whereupon the people woke\nup to the knowledge of why they were alive, and began to wonder at\nthe simple, unselfish foresight that had saved them; and the headmen\nprostrated themselves in the dust before Hamaguchi Gohei, and the\npeople after them.\n\nThen the old man wept a little, partly because he was happy, and partly\nbecause he was aged and weak and had been sorely tried.\n\n\"My house remains,\" he said, as soon as he could find words,\nautomatically caressing Tada's brown cheeks; \"and there is room for\nmany. Also the temple on the hill stands; and there is shelter there\nfor the others.\"\n\nThen he led the way to his house; and the people cried and shouted.\n\n*\n\nThe period of distress was long, because in those days there were no\nmeans of quick communication between district and district, and the\nhelp needed had to be sent from far away. But when better times came,\nthe people did not forget their debt to Hamaguchi Gohei. They could\nnot make him rich; nor would he have suffered them to do so, even\nhad it been possible. Moreover, gifts could never have sufficed as an\nexpression of their reverential feeling towards him; for they believed\nthat the ghost within him was divine. So they declared him a god, and\nthereafter called him Hamaguchi DAIMY\u014cJIN, thinking they could give him\nno greater honor;--and truly no greater honor in any country could be\ngiven to mortal man. And when they rebuilt the village, they built a\ntemple to the spirit of him, and fixed above the front of it a tablet\nbearing his name in Chinese text of gold; and they worshiped him there,\nwith prayer and with offerings. How he felt about it I cannot say;--I\nknow only that he continued to live in his old thatched home upon the\nhill, with his children and his children's children, just as humanly\nand simply as before, while his soul was being worshiped in the shrine\nbelow. A hundred years and more he has been dead; but his temple, they\ntell me, still stands, and the people still pray to the ghost of the\ngood old farmer to help them in time of fear or trouble.\n\n*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *\n\nI asked a Japanese philosopher and friend to explain to me how the\npeasants could rationally imagine the spirit of Hamaguchi in one place\nwhile his living body was in another. Also I inquired whether it was\nonly one of his souls which they had worshiped during his life, and\nwhether they imagined that particular soul to have detached itself from\nthe rest to receive homage.\n\n\"The peasants,\" my friend answered, \"think of the mind or spirit of a\nperson as something which, even during life, can be in many places at\nthe same instant.... Such an idea is, of course, quite different from\nWestern ideas about the soul.\"\n\n\"Any more rational?\" I mischievously asked.\n\n\"Well,\" he responded, with a Buddhist smile, \"if we accept the doctrine\nof the unity of all mind, the idea of the Japanese peasant would appear\nto contain at least some adumbration of truth. I could not say so much\nfor your Western notions about the soul.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Shinto parish temple.]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nOUT OF THE STREET\n\n\nI\n\n\n\"These,\" said Manyemon, putting on the table a roll of wonderfully\nwritten Japanese manuscript, \"are Vulgar Songs. If they are to be\nspoken of in some honorable book, perhaps it will be good to say that\nthey are Vulgar, so that Western people may not be deceived.\"\n\n*\n\nNext to my house there is a vacant lot, where washermen _(sentukaya)_\nwork in the ancient manner,--singing as they work, and whipping the wet\ngarments upon big flat stones. Every morning at daybreak their singing\nwakens me; and I like to listen to it, though I cannot often catch the\nwords. It is full of long, queer, plaintive modulations. Yesterday,\nthe apprentice--a lad of fifteen--and the master of the washermen were\nsinging alternately, as if answering each other; the contrast between\nthe tones of the man, sonorous as if boomed through a conch, and the\nclarion alto of the boy, being very pleasant to hear. Whereupon I\ncalled Manyemon and asked him what the singing was about.\n\n\"The song of the boy,\" he said, \"is an old song:--\n\n    _Things never changed since the Time of the Gods:_\n    _The flowing of water, the Way of Love._\n\nI heard it often when I was myself a boy.\"\n\n\"And the other song?\"\n\n\"The other song is probably new:--\n\n        _Three years thought of her,_\n        _Five years sought for her;_\n    _Only for one night held her in my arms._\n\nA very foolish song!\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" I said. \"There are famous Western romances containing\nnothing wiser. And what is the rest of the song?\"\n\n\"There is no more: that is the whole of the song. If it be honorably\ndesired, I can write down the songs of the washermen, and the songs\nwhich are sung in this street by the smiths and the carpenters and the\nbamboo-weavers and the rice-cleaners. But they are all nearly the same.\"\n\nThus came it to pass that Manyemon made for me a collection of Vulgar\nSongs.\n\n*\n\nBy \"vulgar\" Manyemon meant written in the speech of the common\npeople. He is himself an adept at classical verse, and despises the\n_hayari-uta,_ or ditties of the day; it requires something very\ndelicate to please him. And what pleases him I am not qualified to\nwrite about; for one must be a very good Japanese scholar to meddle\nwith the superior varieties of Japanese poetry. If you care to know\nhow difficult the subject is, just study the chapter on prosody in\nAston's Grammar of the Japanese Written Language, or the introduction\nto Professor Chamberlain's Classical Poetry of the Japanese. Her poetry\nis the one original art which Japan has certainly not borrowed either\nfrom China or from any other country; and its most refined charm is the\nessence, irreproducible, of the very flower of the language itself:\nhence the difficulty of representing, even partially, in any Western\ntongue, its subtler delicacies of sentiment, allusion, and color. But\nto understand the compositions of the people no scholarship is needed:\nthey are characterized by the greatest possible simplicity, directness,\nand sincerity.\n\nThe real art of them, in short, is their absolute artlessness. That was\nwhy I wanted them. Springing straight from the heart of the eternal\nyouth of the race, these little gushes of song, like the untaught\npoetry of every people, utter what belongs to all human experience\nrather than to the limited life of a class or a time; and even in their\nmelodies still resound the fresh and powerful pulsings of their primal\nsource.\n\n*\n\nManyemon had written down forty-seven songs; and with his help I\nmade free renderings of the best. They were very brief, varying from\nseventeen to thirty-one syllables in length. Nearly all Japanese\npoetical metre consists of simple alternations of lines of five and\nseven syllables; the frequent exceptions which popular songs offer to\nthis rule being merely irregularities such as the singer can smooth\nover either by slurring or by prolonging certain vowel sounds. Most of\nthe songs which Manyemon had collected were of twenty-six syllables\nonly; being composed of three successive lines of seven syllables each,\nfollowed by one of five, thus:--\n\n    Ka-mi-yo ko-no-ka-ta\n    Ka-wa-ra-nu mo-no wa:\n    Mi-dzu no na-ga-r\u00e9 to\n        Ko-i no mi-chi.[1]\n\nAmong various deviations from this construction I found 7-7-7-7-5, and\n5-7-7-7-5, and 7-5-7-5, and 5-7-5; but the classical five-line form\n(_tanka,_) represented by 5-7-5-7-7, was entirely absent.\n\nTerms indicating gender were likewise absent; even the expressions\ncorresponding to \"I\" and \"you\" being seldom used, and the words\nsignifying \"beloved\" applying equally to either sex. Only by the\nconventional value of some comparison, the use of a particular\nemotional tone, or the mention of some detail of costume, was the sex\nof the speaker suggested, as in this verse:--\n\n    _I am the water-weed drifting,--finding no place of attachment:_\n    _Where, I wonder, and when, shall my flower begin to bloom?_\n\nEvidently the speaker is a girl who wishes for a lover: the same simile\nuttered by masculine lips would sound in Japanese ears much as would\nsound in English ears a man's comparison of himself to a violet or to\na rose. For the like reason, one knows that in the following song the\nspeaker is not a woman:--\n\n    _Flowers in both my hands,--flowers of plum and cherry:_\n    _Which will be, I wonder, the flower to give me fruit?_\n\nWomanly charm is compared to the cherry flower and also to the plum\nflower; but the quality symbolized by the plum flower is moral always\nrather than physical.[2] The verse represents a man strongly attracted\nby two girls: one, perhaps a dancer, very fair to look upon; the other\nbeautiful in character. Which shall he choose to be his companion for\nlife? One more example:--\n\n    _Too long, with pen in hand, idling, fearing, and doubting,_\n    _I cast my silver pin for the test of the tatamizan._\n\nHere we know from the mention of the hairpin that the speaker is\na woman, and we can also suppose that she is a _geisha;_ the sort\nof divination called _tatamizan_ being especially popular with\ndancing-girls. The rush covering of floor-mats (_tatami,_) woven over\na frame of thin strings, shows on its upper surface a regular series\nof lines about three fourths of an inch apart. The girl throws her\npin upon a mat, and then counts the lines it touches. According to\ntheir number she deems herself lucky or unlucky. Sometimes a little\npipe--geishas' pipes are usually of silver--is used instead of the\nhairpin.\n\n*\n\nThe theme of all the songs was love, as indeed it is of the vast\nmajority of the Japanese _chansons des rues et des bois;_ even songs\nabout celebrated places usually containing some amatory suggestion.\nI noticed that almost every simple phase of the emotion, from its\nearliest budding to its uttermost ripening, was represented in the\ncollection; and I therefore tried to arrange the pieces according\nto the natural passional sequence. The result had some dramatic\nsuggestiveness.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Literally, \"_God-Age-since not-changed-things as-for:\nwater of flowing and love-of way._\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: See _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan,_ ii. 357.]\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe songs really form three distinct groups, each corresponding to a\nparticular period of that emotional experience which is the subject of\nall. In the first group of seven the surprise and pain and weakness of\npassion find utterance; beginning with a plaintive cry of reproach and\nclosing with a whisper of trust.\n\nI\n\n    _You, by all others disliked!--oh, why must my heart thus like you?_\n\nII\n\n    _This pain which I cannot speak of to any one in the world:_\n    _Tell me who has made it,--whose do you think the fault?_\n\n\nIII\n\n    _Will it be night forever?--I lose my way in this darkness:_\n    _Who goes by the path of Love must always go astray!_\n\n\nIV\n\n    _Even the brightest lamp, even the light electric,_\n    _Cannot lighten at all the dusk of the Way of Love._\n\n\nV\n\n    _Always the more I love, the more it is hard to say so:_\n    _Oh! how happy I were should the loved one say it first!_\n\n\nVI\n\n    _Such a little word!--only to say, \"I love you\"!_\n    _Why, oh, why do I find it hard to say like this?_[1]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Inimitably simple in the original:--\n\n    Horeta wai na to\n    Sukoshi no koto ga:\n    Naz\u00e9 ni kono y\u014d ni\n    Iinikui?\n]\n\n\n\nVII\n\n_Clicked-to[2] the locks of our hearts; let the keys remain in our\nbosoms._\n\nAfter which mutual confidence the illusion naturally deepens; suffering\nyields to a joy that cannot disguise itself, and the keys of the heart\nare thrown away: this is the second stage.\n\n\n[Footnote 2: In the original this is expressed by an onomatope,\n_pinto,_ imitating the sound of the fastening of the lock of a _tansu,_\nor chest of drawers:--\n\nPinto kokoro ni\nJ\u014dmai oroshi:\nKagi wa tagai no\nMun\u00e9 ni aru.\n]\n\n\n    I\n\n    _The person who said before, \"I hate my life since I saw you,\"_\n    _Now after union prays to live for a thousand years._\n\n\n    II\n\n    _You and I together--lilies that grow in a valley:_\n    _This is our blossoming-time--but nobody knows the fact._\n\n\n    III\n\n    _Receiving from his hand the cup of the wine of greeting,_\n    _Even before I drink, I feel that my face grows red._\n\n\n    IV\n\n    _I cannot hide in my heart the happy knowledge that fills it;_\n    _Asking each not to tell, I spread the news all round._[5]\n\n[Footnote 3: Much simpler in the original:--\n\nMun\u00e9 ni tsutsumenu\nUr\u00e9shii koto wa;--\nKuchidom\u00e9 shinagara\n      Fur\u00e9aruku.\n]\n\n\n    V\n\n    _All crows alike are black, everywhere under heaven._\n    _The person that others like, why should not I like too?_\n\n\n    VI\n\n    _Going to see the beloved, a thousand ri are as one ri;_[4]\n    _Returning without having seen, one ri is a thousand ri._\n\n\n[Footnote 4: One _ri_ is equal to about two and a half English miles.]\n\n\n    VII\n\n    _Going to see the beloved, even the water of rice-fields_[5]\n    _Ever becomes, as I drink, nectar of gods[6] to the taste._\n\n\n[Footnote 5: In the original _dorota;_ literally \"mud rice-fields,\"--\nmeaning rice-fields during the time of flushing, before the grain has\nfairly grown up. The whole verse reads:--\n\nHoret\u00e9 kayoyeba\nDorota no midzu mo\nNom\u00e9ba kanro no\n      Aji ga suru.\n]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Kanro,_ a Buddhist word, properly written with two\nChinese characters signifying \"sweet dew.\" The real meaning is\n_amrita,_ the drink of the gods.]\n\n\n    VIII\n\n    _You, till a hundred years; I, until nine and ninety;_\n    _Together we still shall be in the time when the hair turns white._\n\n\n    IX\n\n    _Seeing the face, at once the folly I wanted to utter_\n    _All melts out of my thought, and somehow the tears come first!_[7]\n\n\n[Footnote 7:\n\nIitai guchi say\u00e9\nKao miriya kiy\u00e9t\u00e9\nTokakii namida ga\n      Saki ni deru.\n\nThe use of _tokaku_ (\"somehow,\" for \"some reason or other\") gives a\npeculiar pathos to the utterance.]\n\n    X\n\n    _Crying for joy made wet my sleeve that dries too quickly;_\n    _'T is not the same with the heart,--that cannot dry so soon!_\n\n\n    XI\n\n    _To Heaven with all my soul I prayed to prevent your going;_\n    _Already, to keep you with me, answers the blessed rain._\n\nSo passes the period of illusion. The rest is doubt and pain; only the\nlove remains to challenge even death:--\n\n\n\n    I\n\n    _Parted from you, my beloved, I go alone to the pine-field;_\n    _There is dew of night on the leaves; there is also dew of tears._\n\n\n    II\n\n    _Even to see the birds flying freely above me_\n    _Only deepens my sorrow,--makes me thoughtful the more._\n\n    III\n\n    _Coming? or coming not? Far down the river gazing,_\n    _--Only yomogi shadows[8] astir in the bed of the stream._\n\n\n[Footnote 8: The plant _yomogi_ (_Artemisia vulgaris_) grows wild in\nmany of the half-dry beds of the Japanese rivers.]\n\n    IV\n\n    _Letters come by the post; photographs give me the shadow!_\n    _Only one thing remains which I cannot hope to gain._\n\n\n    V\n\n    _If I may not see the face, but only look at the letter,_\n    _Then it were better far only in dreams to see._\n\n\n    VI\n\n    _Though his body were broken to pieces, though his bones on the\n    shore were bleaching,_\n    _I would find my way to rejoin him, after gathering up the bones._[9]\n\n\n[Footnote 9:\n\nMi wa kuda kuda ni\nHon\u00e9 we isob\u00e9 ni\nSarasoto mama yo\nHiroi atsum\u00e9t\u00e9\n      S\u00f4t\u00e9 misho.\n\nThe only song of this form in the collection. The use of the verb _soi_\nimplies union as husband and wife.]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nThus was it that these little songs, composed in different generations\nand in different parts of Japan by various persons, seemed to shape\nthemselves for me into the ghost of a romance,--into the shadow of a\nstory needing no name of time or place or person, because eternally the\nsame, in all times and places.\n\n*\n\nManyemon asks which of the songs I like best; and I turn over his\nmanuscript again to see if I can make a choice. Without, in the bright\nspring air, the washers are working; and I hear the heavy _pon-pon_\nof the beating of wet robes, regular as the beating of a heart.\nSuddenly, as I muse, the voice of the boy soars up in one long, clear,\nshrill, splendid rocket-tone,--and breaks,--and softly trembles down\nin coruscations of fractional notes; singing the song that Manyemon\nremembers hearing when he himself was a boy:--\n\n    _Things never changed since the Time of the Gods:_\n    _The flowing of water, the Way of Love._\n\n\"I think that is the best,\" I said. \"It is the soul of all the rest.\"\n\n\"Hin no nusubito, koi no uta,\" interpretatively murmurs Manyemon. \"Even\nas out of poverty comes the thief, so out of love the song!\"\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nNOTES OF A TRIP TO KY\u014cTO\n\n\nI\n\n\nIt had been intended to celebrate in spring the eleven hundredth\nanniversary of the foundation of Ky\u014dto; but the outbreak of pestilence\ncaused postponement of the festival to the autumn, and the celebration\nbegan on the 15th of the tenth month. Little festival medals of nickel,\nmade to be pinned to the breast, like military decorations, were for\nsale at half a yen each. These medals entitled the wearers to special\ncheap fares on all the Japanese railroad and steamship lines, and\nto other desirable privileges, such as free entrance to wonderful\npalaces, gardens, and temples. On the 23d of October I found myself in\npossession of a medal, and journeying to Kyoto by the first morning\ntrain, which was over-crowded with people eager to witness the great\nhistorical processions announced for the 24th and 25th. Many had to\ntravel standing, but the crowd was good-natured and merry. A number\nof my fellow-passengers were Osaka geisha going to the festival. They\ndiverted themselves by singing songs and by playing ken with some\nmale acquaintances, and their kittenish pranks and funny cries kept\neverybody amused. One had an extraordinary voice, with which she could\ntwitter like a sparrow.\n\nYou can always tell by the voices of women conversing anywhere--in\na hotel, for example--if there happen to be any geisha among them,\nbecause the peculiar timbre given by professional training is\nimmediately recognizable. The wonderful character of that training,\nhowever, is fairly manifested only when the really professional tones\nof the voice are used,--falsetto tones, never touching, but often\ncuriously sweet. Now, the street singers, the poor blind women who sing\nballads with the natural voice only, use tones that draw tears. The\nvoice is generally a powerful contralto; _and the deep tones are the\ntones that touch._ The falsetto tones of the geisha rise into a treble\nabove the natural range of the adult voice, and as penetrating as a\nbird's. In a banquet-hall full of guests, you can distinctly hear,\nabove all the sound of drums and samisen and chatter and laughter, the\nthin, sweet cry of the geisha playing ken,--\n\n    _\"Futats\u016d! futats\u016d! futats\u016d!\"_--\n\nwhile you may be quite unable to hear the shouted response of the man\nshe plays with,--\n\n    _\"Mits\u016d! mits\u016d! mits\u016d!\"_\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThe first surprise with which Kyoto greeted her visitors was the\nbeauty of her festival decorations. Every street had been prepared for\nillumination. Before each house had been planted a new lantern-post of\nunpainted wood, from which a lantern bearing some appropriate design\nwas suspended. There were also national flags and sprigs of pine above\neach entrance. But the lanterns made the charm of the display. In each\nsection of street they were of the same form, and were fixed at exactly\nthe same height, and were protected from possible bad weather by the\nsame kind of covering. But in different streets the lanterns were\ndifferent. In some of the wide thoroughfares they were very large; and\nwhile in some streets each was sheltered by a little wooden awning, in\nothers every lantern had a Japanese paper umbrella spread and fastened\nabove it.\n\nThere was no pageant on the morning of my arrival, and I spent a couple\nof hours delightfully at the festival exhibition of kakemono in the\nimperial summer palace called\n\nOmuro Gosho. Unlike the professional art display which I had seen in\nthe spring, this represented chiefly the work of students; and\n\nI found it incomparably more original and attractive. Nearly all the\npictures, thousands in number, were for sale, at prices ranging from\nthree to fifty yen; and it was impossible not to buy to the limit of\none's purse. There were studies of nature evidently made on the spot:\nsuch as a glimpse of hazy autumn rice-fields, with dragonflies darting\nover the drooping grain; maples crimsoning above a tremendous gorge;\nranges of peaks steeped in morning mist; and a peasant's cottage\nperched on the verge of some dizzy mountain road. Also there were fine\nbits of realism, such as a cat seizing a mouse in the act of stealing\nthe offerings placed in a Buddhist household shrine.\n\nBut I have no intention to try the reader's patience with a description\nof pictures. I mention my visit to the display only because of\nsomething I saw there more interesting than any picture. Near the\nmain entrance was a specimen of handwriting, intended to be mounted\nas a kakemono later on, and temporarily fixed upon a board about\nthree feet long by eighteen inches wide,--a Japanese poem. It was a\nwonder of calligraphy. Instead of the usual red stamp or seal with\nwhich the Japanese calligrapher marks his masterpieces, I saw the red\nimprint of a tiny, tiny hand,--a _living_ hand, which had been smeared\nwith crimson printing-ink and deftly pressed upon the paper. I could\ndistinguish those little finger-marks of which Mr. Galton has taught us\nthe characteristic importance.\n\nThat writing had been done in the presence of His Imperial Majesty by\na child of six years,--or of five, according to our Western method of\ncomputing age from the date of birth. The prime minister, Marquis Ito,\nsaw the miracle, and adopted the little boy, whose present name is\ntherefore Ito Medzui.\n\nEven Japanese observers could scarcely believe the testimony of their\nown eyes. Few adult calligraphers could surpass that writing. Certainly\nno Occidental artist, even after years of study, could repeat the feat\nperformed by the brush of that child before the Emperor. Of course\nsuch a child can be born but once in a thousand years,--to realize,\nor almost realize, the ancient Chinese legends of divinely inspired\nwriters.\n\nStill, it was not the beauty of the thing in itself which impressed\nme, but the weird, extraordinary, indubitable proof it afforded of an\ninherited memory so vivid as to be almost equal to the recollection\nof former births. Generations of dead calligraphers revived in\nthe fingers of that tiny hand. The thing was never the work of an\nindividual child five years old, but beyond all question the work of\nghosts,--the countless ghosts that make the compound ancestral soul.\nIt was proof visible and tangible of psychological and physiological\nwonders justifying both the Shinto doctrine of ancestor worship and\nthe Buddhist doctrine of pre\u00ebxistence.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nAfter looking at all the pictures I visited the great palace garden,\nonly recently opened to the public. It is called the Garden of the\nCavern of the Genii. (At least \"genii\" is about the only word one can\nuse to translate the term \"Sennin,\" for which there is no real English\nequivalent; the Sennin, who are supposed to possess immortal life,\nand to haunt forests or caverns, being Japanese, or rather Chinese\nmythological transformations of the Indian Rishi.) The garden deserves\nits name. I felt as if I had indeed entered an enchanted place.\n\nIt is a landscape-garden,--a Buddhist creation, belonging to what is\nnow simply a palace, but was once a monastery, built as a religious\nretreat for emperors and princes weary of earthly vanities. The first\nimpression received after passing the gate is that of a grand old\nEnglish park: the colossal trees, the shorn grass, the broad walks,\nthe fresh sweet scent of verdure, all awaken English memories. But as\nyou proceed farther these memories are slowly effaced, and the true\nOriental impression defines: you perceive that the forms of those\nmighty trees are not European; various and surprising exotic details\nreveal themselves; and then you are gazing down upon a sheet of water\ncontaining high rocks and islets connected by bridges of the strangest\nshapes. Gradually,--only gradually,--the immense charm, the weird\nBuddhist charm of the place, grows and grows upon you; and the sense of\nits vast antiquity defines to touch that chord of the aesthetic feeling\nwhich brings the vibration of awe.\n\nConsidered as a human work alone, the garden is a marvel: only the\nskilled labor of thousands could have joined together the mere bones\nof it, the prodigious rocky skeleton of its plan. This once shaped\nand earthed and planted, Nature was left alone to finish the wonder.\nWorking through ten centuries, she has surpassed--nay, unspeakably\nmagnified--the dream of the artist. Without exact information,\nno stranger unfamiliar with the laws and the purpose of Japanese\ngarden-construction could imagine that all this had a human designer\nsome thousand years ago: the effect is that of a section of primeval\nforest, preserved untouched from the beginning, and walled away from\nthe rest of the world in the heart of the old capital. The rock-faces,\nthe great fantastic roots, the shadowed by-paths, the few ancient\ngraven monoliths, are all cushioned with the moss of ages; and climbing\nthings have developed stems a foot thick, that hang across spaces like\nmonstrous serpents. Parts of the garden vividly recall some aspects\nof tropical nature in the Antilles;--though one misses the palms, the\nbewildering web and woof of lianas, the reptiles, and the sinister\nday-silence of a West Indian forest. The joyous storm of bird life\noverhead is an astonishment, and proclaims gratefully to the visitor\nthat the wild creatures of this monastic paradise have never been\nharmed or frightened by man. As I arrived at last, with regret, at the\ngate of exit, I could not help feeling envious of its keeper: only to\nbe a servant in such a garden were a privilege well worth praying for.\n\n\nIV\n\n\n\nFeeling hungry, I told my runner to take me to a restaurant, because\nthe hotel was very far; and the kuruma bore me into an obscure street,\nand halted before a rickety-looking house with some misspelled English\npainted above the entrance. I remember only the word \"forign.\" After\ntaking off my shoes I climbed three flights of breakneck stairs, or\nrather ladders, to find in the third story a set of rooms furnished\nin foreign style. The windows were glass; the linen was satisfactory;\nthe only things Japanese were the mattings and a welcome smoking-box.\nAmerican chromo-lithographs decorated the walls. Nevertheless, I\nsuspected that few foreigners had ever been in the house: it existed by\nsending out Western cooking, in little tin boxes, to native hotels; and\nthe rooms had doubtless been fitted up for Japanese visitors.\n\nI noticed that the plates, cups, and other utensils bore the monogram\nof a long-defunct English hotel which used to exist in one of the open\nports. The dinner was served by nice-looking girls, who had certainly\nbeen trained by somebody accustomed to foreign service; but their\ninnocent curiosity and extreme shyness convinced me that they had never\nwaited upon a real foreigner before. Suddenly I observed on a table at\nthe other end of the room something resembling a music-box, and covered\nwith a piece of crochet-work! I went to it, and discovered the wreck\nof a herophone. There were plenty of perforated musical selections. I\nfixed the crank in place, and tried to extort the music of a German\nsong, entitled \"Five Hundred Thousand Devils.\" The herophone gurgled,\nmoaned, roared for a moment, sobbed, roared again, and relapsed\ninto silence. I tried a number of other selections, including \"Les\nCloches de Corneville;\" but the noises produced were in all cases\nabout the same. Evidently the thing had been bought, together with\nthe monogram-bearing delft and britannia ware, at some auction sale\nin one of the foreign settlements. There was a queer melancholy in\nthe experience, difficult to express. One must have lived in Japan to\nunderstand why the thing appeared so exiled, so pathetically out of\nplace, so utterly misunderstood. Our harmonized Western music means\nsimply so much noise to the average Japanese ear; and I felt quite sure\nthat the internal condition of the herophone remained unknown to its\nOriental proprietor.\n\n*\n\nAn equally singular but more pleasant experience awaited me on the\nroad back to the hotel. I halted at a second-hand furniture shop to\nlook at some curiosities, and perceived, among a lot of old books,\na big volume bearing in letters of much-tarnished gold the title,\nATLANTIC MONTHLY. Looking closer, I saw \"Vol. V. Boston: Ticknor &\nFields. 1860.\" Volumes of The Atlantic of 1860 are not common anywhere.\nI asked the price; and the Japanese shopkeeper said fifty sen,\nbecause it was \"a very large book.\" I was much too pleased to think\nof bargaining with him, and secured the prize. I looked through its\nstained pages for old friends, and found them,--all anonymous in 1865,\nmany world-famous in 1895. There were installments of \"Elsie Venner,\"\nunder the title of \"The Professor's Story;\" chapters of \"Roba di Roma;\"\na poem called \"Pythagoras,\" but since renamed \"Metempsychosis,\" as\nlovers of Thomas Bailey Aldrich are doubtless aware; the personal\nnarrative of a filibuster with Walker in Nicaragua; admirable papers\nupon the Maroons of Jamaica and the Maroons of Surinam; and, among\nother precious things, an essay on Japan, opening with the significant\nsentence, \"The arrival in this country of an embassy from Japan, the\nfirst political delegation ever vouchsafed to a foreign nation by that\nreticent and jealous people, is now a topic of universal interest.\" A\nlittle farther on, some popular misapprehensions of the period were\nthus corrected: \"Although now known to be entirely distinct, the\nChinese and Japanese ... were for a long time looked upon as kindred\nraces, and esteemed alike.... We find that while, on close examination,\nthe imagined attractions of China disappear, those of Japan become\nmore definite.\" Any Japanese of this self-assertive twenty-eighth\nyear of Meiji could scarcely find fault with The Atlantic's estimate\nof his country thirty-five years ago: \"Its commanding position, its\nwealth, its commercial resources, and the quick intelligence of its\npeople,--not at all inferior to that of the people of the West,\nalthough naturally restricted in its development,--give to Japan ... an\nimportance far above that of any other Eastern country.\" The only error\nof this generous estimate was an error centuries old,--the delusion of\nJapan's wealth. What made me feel a little ancient was to recognize\nin the quaint spellings Ziogoon, Tycoon, Sintoo, Kiusiu, Fide-yosi,\nNobanunga,--spellings of the old Dutch and old Jesuit writers,--the\nmodern and familiar Sh\u014dgun, Taikun, Shint\u014d, Ky\u016bsh\u016b, Hideyoshi, and\nNobunaga.\n\n*\n\nI passed the evening wandering through the illuminated streets, and\nvisited some of the numberless shows. I saw a young man writing\nBuddhist texts and drawing horses with his feet; the extraordinary fact\nabout the work being that the texts were written backwards,--from the\nbottom of the column up, just as an ordinary calligrapher would write\nthem from the top of the column down,--and the pictures of horses were\nalways commenced with the tail. I saw a kind of amphitheatre, with\nan aquarium in lieu of arena, where mermaids swam and sang Japanese\nsongs. I saw maidens \"made by glamour out of flowers\" by a Japanese\ncultivator of Chrysanthemums. And between whiles I peeped into the\ntoy-shops, full of novelties, What there especially struck me was the\ndisplay of that astounding ingenuity by which Japanese inventors are\nable to reach, at a cost too small to name, precisely the same results\nas those exhibited in our expensive mechanical toys. A group of cocks\nand hens made of paper were set to pecking imaginary grain out of a\nbasket by the pressure of a bamboo spring,--the whole thing costing\nhalf a cent. An artificial mouse ran about, doubling and scurrying, as\nif trying to slip under mats or into chinks: it cost only one cent,\nand was made with a bit of colored paper, a spool of baked clay, and a\nlong thread; you had only to pull the thread, and the mouse began to\nrun. Butterflies of paper, moved by an equally simple device, began to\nfly when thrown into the air. An artificial cuttlefish began to wriggle\nall its tentacles when you blew into a little rush tube fixed under its\nhead.\n\nWhen I decided to return, the lanterns were out, the shops were\nclosing; and the streets darkened about me long before I reached the\nhotel. After the great glow of the illumination, the witchcrafts of the\nshows, the merry tumult, the sea-like sound of wooden sandals, this\nsudden coming of blankness and silence made me feel as if the previous\nexperience had been unreal,--an illusion of light and color and noise\nmade just to deceive, as in stories of goblin foxes. But the quick\nvanishing of all that composes a Japanese festival-night really lends a\nkeener edge to the pleasure of remembrance: there is no slow fading out\nof the phantasmagoria, and its memory is thus kept free from the least\ntinge of melancholy.\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nWhile I was thinking about the fugitive charm of Japanese amusements,\nthe question put itself, Are not all pleasures keen in proportion\nto their evanescence? Proof of the affirmative would lend strong\nsupport to the Buddhist theory of the nature of pleasure. We know that\nmental enjoyments are powerful in proportion to the complexity of\nthe feelings and ideas composing them; and the most complex feelings\nwould therefore seem to be of necessity the briefest. At all events,\nJapanese popular pleasures have the double peculiarity of being\nevanescent and complex, not merely because of their delicacy and their\nmultiplicity of detail, but because this delicacy and multiplicity are\nadventitious, depending upon temporary conditions and combinations.\nAmong such conditions are the seasons of flowering and of fading, hours\nof sunshine or full moon, a change of place, a shifting of light and\nshade. Among combinations are the fugitive holiday manifestations of\nthe race genius: fragilities utilized to create illusion; dreams made\nvisible; memories revived in symbols, images, ideographs, dashes of\ncolor, fragments of melody; countless minute appeals both to individual\nexperience and to national sentiment. And the emotional result remains\nincommunicable to Western minds, because the myriad little details and\nsuggestions producing it belong to a world incomprehensible without\nyears of familiarity,--a world of traditions, beliefs, superstitions,\nfeelings, ideas, about which foreigners, as a general rule, know\nnothing. Even by the few who do know that world, the nameless delicious\nsensation, the great vague wave of pleasure excited by the spectacle of\nJapanese enjoyment, can only be described as _the feeling of Japan._\n\n*\n\nA sociological fact of interest is suggested by the amazing cheapness\nof these pleasures. The charm of Japanese life presents us with the\nextraordinary phenomenon of poverty as an influence in the development\nof aesthetic sentiment, or at least as a factor in deciding the\ndirection and expansion of that development. But for poverty, the race\ncould not have discovered, ages ago, the secret of making pleasure the\ncommonest instead of the costliest of experiences,--the divine art of\ncreating the beautiful out of nothing!\n\nOne explanation of this cheapness is the capacity of the people to find\nin everything natural--in landscapes, mists, clouds, sunsets,--in the\nsight of birds, insects, and flowers--a much keener pleasure than we,\nas the vividness of their artistic presentations of visual experience\nbears witness. Another explanation is that the national religions and\nthe old-fashioned education have so developed imaginative power that\nit can be stirred into an activity of delight by anything, however\ntrifling, able to suggest the traditions or the legends of the past.\n\nPerhaps Japanese cheap pleasures might be broadly divided into those\nof time and place furnished by nature with the help of man, and those\nof time and place invented by man at the suggestion of nature. The\nformer class can be found in every province, and yearly multiply. Some\nlocality is chosen on hill or coast, by lake or river: gardens are\nmade, trees planted, resting-houses built to command the finest points\nof view; and the wild site is presently transformed into a place of\npilgrimage for pleasure-seekers. One spot is famed for cherry-trees,\nanother for maples, another for wistaria; and each of the seasons--even\nsnowy winter--helps to make the particular beauty of some resort. The\nsites of the most celebrated temples, or at least of the greater number\nof them, were thus selected,--always where the beauty of nature could\ninspire and aid the work of the religious architect, and where it\nstill has power to make many a one wish that he could become a Buddhist\nor Shinto priest. Religion, indeed, is everywhere in Japan associated\nwith famous scenery: with landscapes, cascades, peaks, rocks, islands;\nwith the best places from which to view the blossoming of flowers, the\nreflection of the autumn moon on water, or the sparkling of fireflies\non summer nights.\n\nDecorations, illuminations, street displays of every sort, but\nespecially those of holy days, compose a large part of the pleasures\nof city life which all can share. The appeals thus made to aesthetic\nfancy at festivals represent the labor, perhaps, of tens of thousands\nof hands and brains; but each individual contributor to the public\neffort works according to his particular thought and taste, even while\nobeying old rides, so that the total ultimate result is a wondrous, a\nbewildering, an incalculable variety. Anybody can contribute to such\nan occasion; and everybody does, for the cheapest material is used.\nPaper, straw, or stone makes no real difference; the art sense is\nsuperbly independent of the material. What shapes that material is\nperfect comprehension of something natural, something real. Whether a\nblossom made of chicken feathers, a clay turtle or duck or sparrow, a\npasteboard cricket or man-tis or frog, the idea is fully conceived and\nexactly realized. Spiders of mud seem to be spinning webs; butterflies\nof paper delude the eye. No models are needed to work from;--or rather,\nthe model in every case is only the precise memory of the object or\nliving fact. I asked at a doll-maker's for twenty tiny paper dolls,\neach with a different coiffure,--the whole set to represent the\nprincipal Kyoto styles of dressing women's hair. A girl went to work\nwith white paper, paint, paste, thin slips of pine; and the dolls\nwere finished in about the same time that an artist would have taken\nto draw a similar number of such figures. The actual time needed was\nonly enough for the necessary digital movements,--not for correcting,\ncomparing, improving: the image in the brain realized itself as fast\nas the slender hands could Work. Thus most of the wonders of festival\nnights are created: toys thrown into existence with a twist of the\nfingers, old rags turned into figured draperies with a few motions\nof the brush, pictures made with sand. The same power of enchantment\nputs human grace under contribution. Children who on other occasions\nwould attract no attention are converted into fairies by a few deft\ntouches of paint and powder, and costumes devised for artificial light.\nArtistic sense of line and color suffices for any transformation. The\ntones of decoration are never of chance, but of knowledge: even the\nlantern illuminations prove this fact, certain tints only being used\nin combination. But the whole exhibition is as evanescent as it is\nwonderful. It vanishes much too quickly to be found fault with. It is a\nmirage that leaves you marveling and dreaming for a month after having\nseen it.\n\n*\n\nPerhaps one inexhaustible source of the contentment, the simple\nhappiness, belonging to Japanese common life is to be found in this\nuniversal cheapness of pleasure. The delight of the eyes is for\neverybody. Not the seasons only nor the festivals furnish enjoyment:\nalmost any quaint street, any truly Japanese interior, can give real\npleasure to the poorest servant who works without wages. The beautiful,\nor the suggestion of the beautiful, is free as air. Besides, no man\nor woman can be too poor to own something pretty; no child need be\nwithout delightful toys. Conditions in the Occident are otherwise. In\nour great cities, beauty is for the rich; bare walls and foul pavements\nand smoky skies for our poor, and the tumult of hideous machinery,--a\nhell of eternal ugliness and joylessness invented by our civilization\nto punish the atrocious crime of being unfortunate, or weak, or stupid,\nor overconfident in the morality of one's fellow-man.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nWhen I went out, next morning, to view the great procession, the\nstreets were packed so full of people that it seemed impossible for\nanybody to go anywhere. Nevertheless, all were moving, or rather\ncirculating; there was a universal gliding and slipping, as of fish in\na shoal. I find no difficulty in getting through the apparently solid\npress of heads and shoulders to the house of a friendly merchant,\nabout half a mile away. How any crowd could be packed so closely, and\nyet move so freely, is a riddle to which Japanese character alone can\nfurnish the key. I was not once rudely jostled. But Japanese crowds are\nnot all alike: there are some through which an attempt to pass would be\nattended with unpleasant consequences. Of course the yielding fluidity\nof any concourse is in proportion to its gentleness; but the amount\nof that gentleness in Japan varies greatly according to locality. In\nthe central and eastern provinces the kindliness of a crowd seems\nto be proportionate to its inexperience of \"the new civilization.\"\nThis vast gathering, of probably not less than a million persons, was\nastonishingly good-natured and good-humored, because the majority of\nthose composing it were simple country folk. When the police finally\nmade a lane for the procession, the multitude at once arranged itself\nin the least egotistical manner possible,--little children to the\nfront, adults to the rear.\n\nThough announced for nine o'clock, the procession did not appear\ntill nearly eleven; and the long waiting in those densely packed\nstreets must have been a strain even upon Buddhist patience. I was\nkindly given a kneeling-cushion in the front room of the merchant's\nhouse; but although the cushion was of the softest and the courtesy\nshown me of the sweetest, I became weary of the immobile posture at\nlast, and went out into the crowd, where I could vary the experience\nof waiting by standing first oh one foot, and then on the other.\nBefore thus deserting my post, however, I had the privilege of seeing\nsome very charming Ky\u014dto ladies, including a princess, among the\nmerchant's guests. Ky\u014dto is famous for the beauty of its women; and\nthe most charming Japanese woman I ever saw was in that house,--not\nthe princess, but the shy young bride of the merchant's eldest son.\nThat the proverb about beauty being only skin-deep \"is but a skin-deep\nsaying\" Herbert Spencer has amply proved by the laws of physiology; and\nthe same laws show that grace has a much more profound significance\nthan beauty. The charm of the bride was just that rare form of grace\nwhich represents the economy of force in the whole framework of the\nphysical structure,--- the grace that startles when first seen, and\nappears more and more wonderful every time it is again looked at. It\nis very seldom indeed that one sees in Japan a pretty woman who would\nlook equally pretty in another than her own beautiful national attire.\nWhat we usually call grace in Japanese women is daintiness of form\nand manner rather than what a Greek would have termed grace. In this\ninstance, one felt assured that long, light, slender, fine, faultlessly\nknit figure would ennoble any costume: there was just that suggestion\nof pliant elegance which the sight of a young bamboo gives when the\nwind is blowing.\n\n*\n\nTo describe the procession in detail would needlessly tire the reader;\nand I shall venture only a few general remarks. The purpose of the\npageant was to represent the various official and military styles of\ndress worn during the great periods of the history of Ky\u014dto, from\nthe time of its foundation in the eighth century to the present era\nof Meiji, and also the chief military personages of that history. At\nleast two thousand persons marched in the procession, figuring daimy\u014d,\nkug\u00e9, hatamoto, samurai, retainers, carriers, musicians, and dancers.\nThe dancers were impersonated by geisha; and some were attired so as\nto look like butterflies with big gaudy wings. All the armor and the\nweapons, the ancient head-dresses and robes, were veritable relics\nof the past, lent for the occasion by old families, by professional\ncurio-dealers, and by private collectors. The great captains--Oda\nNobunaga, Kato Kiyomasa, Iyeyasu, Hideyoshi--were represented\naccording to tradition; a really monkey-faced man having been found to\nplay the part of the famous Taik\u014d.\n\nWhile these visions of dead centuries were passing by, the people\nkept perfectly silent,--which fact, strange as the statement may\nseem to Western readers, indicated extreme pleasure. It is not really\nin accordance with national sentiment to express applause by noisy\ndemonstration,--by shouting and clapping of hands, for example. Even\nthe military cheer is an importation; and the tendency to boisterous\ndemonstrativeness in T\u014dky\u014d is probably as factitious as it is modern.\nI remember two impressive silences in Kob\u00e9 during 1895. The first\nwas on the occasion of an imperial visit. There was a vast crowd; the\nforemost ranks knelt down as the Emperor passed; but there was not\neven a whisper. The second remarkable silence was on the return of the\nvictorious troops from China, who marched under the triumphal arches\nerected to welcome them without hearing a syllable from the people. I\nasked why, and was answered, \"We Japanese think we can better express\nour feelings by silence.\" I may here observe, also, that the sinister\nsilence of the Japanese armies before some of the late engagements\nterrified the clamorous Chinese much more than the first opening of\nthe batteries. Despite exceptions, it may be stated as a general truth\nthat the deeper the emotion, whether of pleasure or of pain, and the\nmore solemn or heroic the occasion, in Japan, the more naturally silent\nthose who feel or act.\n\nSome foreign spectators criticised the display as spiritless,\nand commented on the unheroic port of the great captains and the\nundisguised fatigue of their followers, oppressed under a scorching\nsun by the unaccustomed weight of armor. But to the Japanese all this\nonly made the pageant seem more real; and I fully agreed with them. As\na matter of fact, the greatest heroes of military history have appeared\nat their best in exceptional moments only; the stoutest veterans have\nknown fatigue; and undoubtedly Nobunaga and Hideyoshi and Kato Kiyomasa\nmust have more than once looked just as dusty, and ridden or marched\njust as wearily, as their representatives in the Kyoto procession. No\nmerely theatrical idealism clouds, for any educated Japanese, the sense\nof the humanity of his country's greatest men: on the contrary, it is\nthe historical evidence of that ordinary humanity that most endears\nthem to the common heart, and makes by contrast more admirable and\nexemplary all of the inner life which was not ordinary.\n\n*\n\nAfter the procession I went to the Dai-Kioku-Den, the magnificent\nmemorial Shint\u014d temple built by the government, and described in a\nformer book. On displaying my medal I was allowed to pay reverence to\nthe spirit of good Kwammu-Tenn\u014d, and to drink a little rice wine in his\nhonor, out of a new wine-cup of pure white clay presented by a lovely\nchild-miko. After the libation, the little priestess packed the white\ncup into a neat wooden box and bade me take it home for a souvenir; one\nnew cup being presented to every purchaser of a medal.\n\nSuch small gifts and memories make up much of the unique pleasure of\nJapanese travel. In almost any town or village you, can buy for a\nsouvenir some pretty or curious thing made only in that one place,\nand not to be found elsewhere. Again, in many parts of the interior a\ntrifling generosity is certain to be acknowledged by a present, which,\nhowever cheap, will seldom fail to prove a surprise and a pleasure. Of\nall the things which I picked up here and there, in traveling about the\ncountry, the prettiest and the most beloved are queer little presents\nthus obtained.\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nI wanted, before leaving Ky\u014dto, to visit the tomb of Yuko Hatakeyama.\nAfter having vainly inquired of several persons where she was buried,\nit occurred to me to ask a Buddhist priest who had come to the hotel\non some parochial business. He answered at once, \"In the cemetery\nof Makkeiji.\" Makkeiji was a temple not mentioned in guide-books,\nand situated somewhere at the outskirts of the city. I took a kuruma\nforthwith, and found myself at the temple gate after about half an\nhour's run.\n\nA priest, to whom I announced the purpose of my visit, conducted me to\nthe cemetery,--a very large one,--and pointed out the grave. The sun\nof a cloudless autumn day flooded everything with light, and tinged\nwith spectral gold the face of a monument on which I saw, in beautiful\nlarge characters very deeply cut, the girl's name, with the Buddhist\nprefix _Retsujo,_ signifying chaste and true,--\n\nRETSUJO HATAKEYAMA YUKO HAKA.\n\nThe grave was well kept, and the grass had been recently trimmed.\nA little wooden awning: erected in front of the stone sheltered\nthe offerings of flowers and sprays of shikimi, and a cup of fresh\nwater. I did sincere reverence to the heroic and unselfish spirit,\nand pronounced the customary formula. Some other visitors, I noticed,\nsaluted the spirit after the Shint\u014d manner. The tombstones were so\nthickly crowded about the spot that, in order to see the back of the\nmonument, I found I should have to commit the rudeness of stepping\non the grave. But I felt sure she would forgive me; so, treading\nreverently, I passed round, and copied the inscription: \"_Yuko, of\nNagasagori, Kamagawamachi ... from day of birth always good....\nMeiji, the twenty-fourth year, the fifth month, the twentieth day ...\ncause of sorrow the country having ... the Ky\u014dto government-house to\nwent ... and her own throat cut ... twenty and seven years ... Tani\nTetsuomi made ... Ky\u014dto-folk-by erected this stone_ is.\" The Buddhist\nKaimy\u014d read, \"_Gi-yu-in-ton-shi-chu-my\u014d-ky\u014d_\"--apparently signifying,\n\"Right-meaning and valiant woman, instantly attaining to the admirable\ndoctrine of loyalty.\"\n\n*\n\nIn the temple, the priest showed me the relics and mementos of the\ntragedy: a small Japanese razor, blood-crusted, with the once white\nsoft paper thickly wrapped round its handle caked into one hard red\nmass; the cheap purse; the girdle and clothing, blood-stiffened\n(all except the kimono, washed by order of the police before having\nbeen given to the temple); letters and memoranda; photographs, which\nI secured, of Yuko and her tomb; also a photograph of the gathering\nin the cemetery, where the funeral rites were performed by Shint\u014d\npriests. This fact interested me; for, although condoned by Buddhism,\nthe suicide could not have been regarded in the same light by the two\nfaiths. The clothing was coarse and cheap: the girl had pawned her best\neffects to cover the expenses of her journey and her burial. I bought\na little book containing the story of her life and death, copies of\nher last letters, poems written about her by various persons,--some\nof very high rank,--and a clumsy portrait. In the photographs of Yuko\nand her relatives there was nothing remarkable: such types you can\nmeet with every day and anywhere in Japan. The interest of the book\nwas psychological only, as regarded both the author and the subject.\nThe printed letters of Yuko revealed that strange state of Japanese\nexaltation in which the mind remains capable of giving all possible\nattention to the most trivial matters of fact, while the terrible\npurpose never slackens. The memoranda gave like witness:--\n\n    _Meiji twenty-fourth year, fifth month, eighteenth day._ 5\n    sen to kurumaya from Nihonbashi to Uyeno.\n\n    _Nineteenth day._\n\n    5 sen to kurumaya to Asakusa Umamachi.\n\n    1 sen 5 rin for sharpening something to hair-dresser in\n    Shitaya.\n\n    10 yen received from Sano, the pawnbroker in Baba.\n\n    20 sen for train to Shincho.\n\n    1 yen 2 sen for train from Hama to Shidzuoka.\n\n    _Twentieth day._\n\n    2 yen 9 sen for train from Shidzuoka to Hama.\n\n    6 sen for postage-stamps for two letters.\n\n    14 sen in Kiyomidzu.\n\n    12 sen 5 rin for umbrella given to kurumaya.\n\nBut in strange contrast to the methodical faculty thus manifested was\nthe poetry of a farewell letter, containing such thoughts as these:--\n\n\"The eighty-eighth night\" [that is, from the festival of the Setsubun]\n\"having passed like a dream, ice changed itself into clear drops, and\nsnow gave place to rain. Then cherry-blossoms came to please everybody;\nbut now, poor things! they begin to fall even before the wind touches\nthem. Again a little while, and the wind will make them fly through the\nbright air in the pure spring weather. Yet it may be that the hearts\nof those who love me will not be bright, will feel no pleasant spring.\nThe season of rains will come next, and there will be no joy in their\nhearts.... Oh! what shall I do? There has been no moment in which I\nhave not thought of you.... But all ice, all snow, becomes at last free\nwater; the incense buds of the kiku will open even in frost. I pray\nyou, think later about these things.... Even now, for me, is the time\nof frost, the time of kiku buds: if only they can blossom, perhaps\nI shall please you much. Placed in this world of sorrow, but not to\nstay, is the destiny of all. I beseech you, think me not unfilial; say\nto none that you have lost me, that I have passed into the darkness.\nBather wait and hope for the fortunate time that shall come.\"\n\n*\n\nThe editor of the pamphlet betrayed rather too much of the Oriental\nmanner of judging woman, even while showering generous praise upon\none typical woman. In a letter to the authorities Yuko had spoken of a\nfamily claim, and this was criticised as a feminine weakness. She had,\nindeed, achieved the extinction of personal selfishness, but she had\nbeen \"very foolish\" to speak about her family. In some other ways the\nbook was disappointing. Under the raw, strong light of its commonplace\nrevelations, my little sketch, \"Yuko,\" written in 1894, seemed for the\nmoment much too romantic. And yet the real poetry of the event remained\nunlessened,--the pure ideal that impelled a girl to take her own life\nmerely to give proof of the love and loyalty of a nation. No small,\nmean, dry facts could ever belittle that large fact.\n\nThe sacrifice had stirred the feelings of the nation much more than it\nhad touched my own. Thousands of photographs of Yuko and thousands of\ncopies of the little book about her were sold. Multitudes visited her\ntomb and made offerings there, and gazed with tender reverence at the\nrelics in Makkeiji; and all this, I thought, for the best of reasons.\nIf commonplace facts are repellent to what we are pleased, in the\nWest, to call \"refined feeling,\" it is proof that the refinement is\nfactitious and the feeling shallow. To the Japanese, who recognize that\nthe truth of beauty belongs to the inner being, commonplace details\nare precious: they help to accentuate and verify the conception of a\nheroism. Those poor blood-stained trifles--the coarse honest robes\nand girdle, the little cheap purse, the memoranda of a visit to the\npawnbroker, the glimpses of plain, humble, every-day humanity shown\nby the letters and the photographs and the infinitesimal precision of\npolice records--all serve, like so much ocular evidence, to perfect\nthe generous comprehension of the feeling that made the fact. Had Yuko\nbeen the most beautiful person in Japan, and her people of the highest\nrank, the meaning of her sacrifice would have been far less intimately\nfelt. In actual life, as a general rule, it is the common, not the\nuncommon person who does noble things; and the people, seeing best, by\nthe aid of ordinary facts, what is heroic in one of their own class,\nfeel themselves honored. Many of us in the West will have to learn our\nethics over again from the common people. Our cultivated classes have\nlived so long in an atmosphere of false idealism, mere conventional\nhumbug, that the real, warm, honest human emotions seem to them vulgar;\nand the natural and inevitable punishment is inability to see, to hear,\nto feel, and to think. There is more truth in the little verse poor\nYuko wrote on the back of her mirror than in most of our conventional\nidealism:--\n\n\"_By one keeping the heart free from stain, virtue and right and wrong\nare seen clearly as forms in a mirror._\"\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nI returned by another way, through a quarter which I had never seen\nbefore,--all temples. A district of great spaces,--vast and beautiful\nand hushed as by enchantment. No dwellings or shops. Pale yellow walls\nonly, sloping back from the roadway on both sides, like fortress\nwalls, but coped with a coping or rootlet of blue tiles; and above\nthese yellow sloping walls (pierced with elfish gates at long, long\nintervals), great soft hilly masses of foliage--cedar and pine and\nbamboo--with superbly curved roofs sweeping up through them. Each\nvista of those silent streets of temples, bathed in the gold of the\nautumn afternoon, gave me just such a thrill of pleasure as one feels\non finding in some poem the perfect utterance of a thought one has\ntried for years in vain to express.\n\nYet what was the charm made with? The wonderful walls were but\npainted mud; the gates and the temples only frames of wood supporting\ntiles; the shrubbery, the stonework, the lotus-ponds, mere\nlandscape-gardening. Nothing solid, nothing enduring; but a combination\nso beautiful of lines and colors and shadows that no speech could\npaint it. Nay! even were those earthen walls turned into lemon-colored\nmarble, and their tiling into amethyst; even were the material of the\ntemples transformed into substance precious as that of the palace\ndescribed in the Sutra of the Great King of Glory,--still the aesthetic\nsuggestion, the dreamy repose, the mellow loveliness and softness of\nthe scene, could not be in the least enhanced. Perhaps it is just\nbecause the material of such creation is so frail that its art is\nso marvelous. The most wonderful architecture, the most entrancing\nlandscapes, are formed with substance the most imponderable,--the\nsubstance of clouds.\n\nBut those who think of beauty only in connection with costliness,\nwith stability, with \"firm reality,\" should never look for it in\nthis land,--well called the Land of Sunrise, for sunrise is the hour\nof illusions. Nothing is more lovely than a Japanese village among\nthe hills or by the coast when seen just after sunrise,--through the\nslowly lifting blue mists of a spring or autumn morning. But for the\nmatter-of-fact observer, the enchantment passes with the vapors: in the\nraw, clear light he can find no palaces of amethyst, no sails of gold,\nbut only flimsy sheds of wood and thatch and the unpainted queerness of\nwooden junks.\n\nSo perhaps it is with all that makes life beautiful in any land. To\nview men or nature with delight, we must see them through illusions,\nsubjective or objective. How they appear to us depends upon the ethical\nconditions within us. Nevertheless, the real and the unreal are\nequally illusive in themselves. The vulgar and the rare, the seemingly\ntransient and the seemingly enduring, are all alike mere ghostliness.\nHappiest he who, from birth to death, sees ever through some beautiful\nhaze of the soul,--best of all, that haze of love which, like the\nradiance of this Orient day, turns common things to gold.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nDUST\n\n\n    \"Let the Bodhisattva look upon all things as having the\n    nature of space,--as permanently equal to space; without\n    essence, without substantiality.\"--SADDHARMA-PUNDAR\u00ceKA.\n\n\nI have wandered to the verge of the town; and the street I followed\nhas roughened into a country road, and begins to curve away through\nrice-fields toward a hamlet at the foot of the hills. Between town\nand rice-fields a vague unoccupied stretch of land makes a favorite\nplayground for children. There are trees, and spaces of grass to roll\non, and many butterflies, and plenty of little stones. I stop to look\nat the children.\n\nBy the roadside some are amusing themselves with wet clay, making tiny\nmodels of mountains and rivers and rice-fields; tiny mud villages,\nalso,--imitations of peasants' huts,--and little mud temples, and mud\ngardens with ponds and humped bridges and imitations of stone-lanterns\n(_t\u014dr\u014d_); likewise miniature cemeteries, with bits of broken stone for\nmonuments. And they play at funerals,--burying corpses of butterflies\nand _semi_ (cicad\u00e6), and pretending to repeat Buddhist sutras over the\ngrave. To-morrow they will not dare to do this; for to-morrow will be\nthe first day of the festival of the Dead. During that festival it is\nstrictly forbidden to molest insects, especially semi, some of which\nhave on their heads little red characters said to be names of Souls.\n\nChildren in all countries play at death. Before the sense of personal\nidentity comes, death cannot be seriously considered; and childhood\nthinks in this regard more correctly, perhaps, than self-conscious\nmaturity. Of course, if these little ones were told, some bright\nmorning, that a playfellow had gone away forever,--gone away to be\nreborn elsewhere,--there would be a very real though vague sense\nof loss, and much wiping of eyes with many-colored sleeves; but\npresently the loss would be forgotten and the playing resumed. The\nidea of ceasing to exist could not possibly enter a child-mind: the\nbutterflies and birds, the flowers, the foliage, the sweet summer\nitself, only play at dying;--they seem to go, but they all come back\nagain after the snow is gone. The real sorrow and fear of death arise\nin us only through slow accumulation of experience with doubt and pain;\nand these little boys and girls, being Japanese and Buddhists, will\nnever, in any event, feel about death just as you or I do. They will\nfind reason to fear it for somebody else's sake, but not for their own,\nbecause they will learn that they have died millions of times already,\nand have forgotten the trouble of it, much as one for-gets the pain of\nsuccessive toothaches. In the strangely penetrant light of their creed,\nteaching the ghostliness of all substance, granite or gossamer,--just as\nthose lately found X-rays make visible the ghostliness of flesh,--this\ntheir present world, with its bigger mountains and rivers and\nrice-fields, will not appear to them much more real than the mud\nlandscapes which they made in childhood. And much more real it probably\nis not.\n\nAt which thought I am conscious of a sudden soft shock, a familiar\nshock, and know myself seized by the idea of Substance as Non-Reality.\n\n*\n\nThis sense of the voidness of things comes only when the temperature\nof the air is so equably related to the temperature of life that I can\nforget having a body. Cold compels painful notions of solidity; cold\nsharpens the delusion of personality; cold quickens egotism; cold numbs\nthought, and shrivels up the little wings of dreams.\n\nTo-day is one of those warm, hushed days when it is possible to think\nof things as they are,--when ocean, peak, and plain seem no more real\nthan the arching of blue emptiness above them. All is mirage,--my\nphysical self, and the sunlit road, and the slow rippling of the\ngrain under a sleepy wind, and the thatched roofs beyond the haze\nof the ricefields, and the blue crumpling of the naked hills behind\neverything. I have the double sensation of being myself a ghost and of\nbeing haunted,--haunted by the prodigious luminous Spectre of the World.\n\n*\n\nThere are men and women working in those fields. Colored moving\nshadows they are; and the earth under them--out of which they rose, and\nback to which they will go--is equally shadow. Only the Forces behind\nthe shadow, that make and unmake, are real,--therefore viewless.\n\nSomewhat as Night devours all lesser shadow will this phantasmal\nearth swallow us at last, and itself thereafter vanish away. But the\nlittle shadows and the Shadow-Eater must as certainly reappear,--must\nrematerialize somewhere and somehow. This ground beneath me is old as\nthe Milky Way. Call it what you please,--clay, soil, dust: its names\nare but symbols of human sensations having nothing in common with\nit. Really it is nameless and unnamable, being a mass of energies,\ntendencies, infinite possibilities; for it was made by the beating of\nthat shoreless Sea of Birth and Death whose surges billow unseen out\nof eternal Night to burst in foam of stars. Lifeless it is not: it\nfeeds upon life, and visible life grows out of it. Dust it is of Karma,\nwaiting to enter into novel combinations,---dust of elder Being in that\nstate between birth and birth which the Buddhist calls _Ch\u016b-U._ It is\nmade of forces, and of nothing else; and those forces are not of this\nplanet only, but of vanished spheres innumerable.\n\n*\n\nIs there aught visible, tangible, measurable, that has never been\nmixed with sentiency?--atom that has never vibrated to pleasure\nor to pain?--air that has never been cry or speech?--drop that\nhas never been a tear? Assuredly this dust has felt. It has been\neverything we know; also much that we cannot know. It has been nebula\nand star, planet and moon, times unspeakable. Deity also it has\nbeen,--the Sun-God of worlds that circled and worshiped in other\n\u00e6ons. \"_Remember, Man, thou art but dust!_\"--a saying profound\nonly as materialism, which stops short at surfaces. For what is\ndust? \"Remember, Dust, thou hast been Sun, and Sun thou shalt become\nagain!... Thou hast been Light, Life, Love;--and into all these, by\nceaseless cosmic magic, thou shalt many times be turned again!\"\n\n*\n\nFor this Cosmic Apparition is more than evolution alternating\nwith dissolution: it is infinite metempsychosis; it is perpetual\npalingenesis. Those old predictions of a bodily resurrection were not\nfalsehoods; they were rather foreshadowings of a truth vaster than all\nmyths and deeper than all religions.\n\nSuns yield up their ghosts of flame; but out of their graves new suns\nrush into being. Corpses of worlds pass all to some solar funeral pyre;\nbut out of their own ashes they are born again. This earth must die:\nher seas shall be Saharas. But those seas once existed in the sun;\nand their dead tides, revived by fire, will pour their thunder upon\nthe coasts of another world. Transmigration--transmutation: these\nare not fables! What is impossible? Not the dreams of alchemists and\npoets;--dross may indeed be changed to gold, the jewel to the living\neye, the flower into flesh. What is impossible? If seas can pass\nfrom world to sun, from sun to world again, what of the dust of dead\nselves,--dust of memory and thought? Resurrection there is,--but a\nresurrection more stupendous than any dreamed of by Western creeds.\nDead emotions will revive as surely as dead suns and moons. Only, so\nfar as we can just now discern, there will be no return of identical\nindividualities. The reapparition will always be a recombination of the\npreexisting, a readjustment of affinities, a reintegration of being\ninformed with the experience of anterior being. The Cosmos is a Karma.\n\n*\n\nMerely by reason of illusion and folly do we shrink from the notion\nof self-instability. For what is our individuality? Most certainly\nit is not individuality at all: it is multiplicity incalculable.\nWhat is the human body? A form built up out of billions of living\nentities, an impermanent agglomeration of individuals called cells.\nAnd the human soul? A composite of quintillions of souls. We are, each\nand all, infinite compounds of fragments of anterior lives. And the\nuniversal process that continually dissolves and continually constructs\npersonality has always been going on, and is even at this moment going\non, in every one of us. What being ever had a totally new feeling,\nan absolutely new idea? All our emotions and thoughts and wishes,\nhowever changing and growing through the varying seasons of life, are\nonly compositions and recompositions of the sensations and ideas and\ndesires of other folk, mostly of dead people,--millions of billions of\ndead people. Cells and souls are themselves recombinations, present\naggregations of past knittings of forces,--forces about which nothing\nis known save that they belong to the Shadow-Makers of universes.\n\nWhether you (by _you_ I mean any other agglomeration of souls)\nreally wish for immortality as an agglomeration, I cannot tell. But\nI confess that \"my mind to me a kingdom is\"--not! Rather it is a\nfantastical republic, daily troubled by more revolutions than ever\noccurred in South America; and the nominal government, supposed to be\nrational, declares that an eternity of such anarchy is not desirable.\nI have souls wanting to soar in air, and souls wanting to swim in\nwater (sea-water, I think), and souls wanting to live in woods or on\nmountain tops. I have souls longing for the tumult of great cities,\nand souls longing to dwell in tropical solitude;--souls, also, in\nvarious stages of naked savagery--souls demanding nomad freedom\nwithout tribute;--souls conservative, delicate, loyal to empire and to\nfeudal tradition, and souls that are Nihilists, deserving Siberia;\n--sleepless souls, hating inaction, and hermit souls, dwelling in\nsuch meditative isolation that only at intervals of years can I feel\nthem moving about;--souls that have faith in fetiches;--polytheistic\nsouls;--souls proclaiming Islam;--and souls medi\u00e6val, loving cloister\nshadow and incense and glimmer of tapers and the awful altitude of\nGothic glooms. Cooperation among all these is not to be thought of:\nalways there is trouble,--revolt, confusion, civil war. The majority\ndetest this state of things: multitudes would gladly emigrate. And the\nwiser minority feel that they need never hope for better conditions\nuntil after the total demolition of the existing social structure.\n\n*\n\n_I_ an individual,--an individual soul! Nay, I am a population,--a\npopulation unthinkable for multitude, even by groups of a thousand\nmillions! Generations of generations I am, \u00e6ons of \u00e6ons! Countless\ntimes the concourse now making me has been scattered, and mixed with\nother scatterings. Of what concern, then, the next disintegration?\nPerhaps, after trillions of ages of burning in different dynasties of\nsuns, the very best of me may come together again.\n\n*\n\nIf one could only imagine some explanation of the Why! The questions of\nthe Whence and the Whither are much less troublesome, since the Present\nassures us, even though vaguely, of Future and Past. But the Why!\n\n*\n\nThe cooing voice of a little girl dissolves my reverie. She is trying\nto teach a child brother how to make the Chinese character for Man,--I\nmean Man with a big M. First she draws in the dust a stroke sloping\ndownwards from right to left, so:--\n\n[Illustration]\n\nthen she draws another curving downwards from left to right, thus:--\n\n[Illustration]\n\njoining the two so as to form the perfect _ji_, or character, _hito,_\nmeaning a person of either sex, or mankind:--\n\n[Illustration]\n\nThen she tries to impress the idea of this shape on the baby memory\nby help of a practical illustration,--probably learned at school. She\nbreaks a slip of wood in two pieces, and manages to balance the pieces\nagainst each other at about the same angle as that made by the two\nstrokes of the character. \"Now see,\" she says: \"each stands only by\nhelp of the other. One by itself cannot stand. Therefore the _ji_ is\nlike mankind. Without help one person cannot live in this world; but\nby getting help and giving help everybody can live. If nobody helped\nanybody, all people would fall down and die.\"\n\nThis explanation is not philologically exact; the two strokes\nevolutionally standing for a pair of legs,--all that survives in\nthe modern ideograph of the whole man figured in the primitive\npicture-writing. But the pretty moral fancy is much more important\nthan the scientific fact. It is also one charming example of that\nold-fashioned method of teaching which invested every form and every\nincident with ethical signification. Besides, as a mere item of moral\ninformation, it contains the essence of all earthly religion, and the\nbest part of all earthly philosophy. A world-priestess she is, this\ndear little maid, with her dove's voice and her innocent gospel of one\nletter! Verily in that gospel lies the only possible present answer\nto ultimate problems. Were its whole meaning universally felt,--were\nits whole suggestion of the spiritual and material law of love and\nhelp universally obeyed,--forthwith, according to the Idealists, this\nseemingly solid visible world would vanish away like smoke! For it has\nbeen written that in whatsoever time all human minds accord in thought\nand will with the mind of the Teacher, _there shall not remain even one\nparticle of dust that does not enter into Buddhahood._\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nABOUT FACES IN JAPANESE ART\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nA very interesting essay upon the Japanese art collections in the\nNational Library was read by Mr. Edward Strange at a meeting of\nthe Japan Society held last year in London. Mr. Strange proved his\nappreciation of Japanese art by an exposition of its principles,--the\nsubordination of detail to the expression of a sensation or idea, the\nsubordination of the particular to the general. He spoke especially\nof the decorative element in Japanese art, and of the Ukiyo-y\u00e9 school\nof color-printing. He remarked that even the heraldry of Japan, as\nillustrated in little books costing only a few pence each, contained\n\"an education in the planning of conventional ornament.\" He referred to\nthe immense industrial value of Japanese stencil designs. He tried to\nexplain the nature of the advantage likely to be gained in the art of\nbook illustration from the careful study of Japanese methods; and he\nindicated the influence of those methods in the work of such artists\nas Aubrey Beardsley, Edgar Wilson, Steinlen Ibels, Whistler, Grasset,\nCheret, and Lautrec. Finally, he pointed out the harmony between\ncertain Japanese principles and the doctrines of one of the modern\nWestern schools of Impressionism.\n\nSuch an address could hardly fail to provoke adverse criticism in\nEngland, because it suggested a variety of new ideas. English opinion\ndoes not prohibit the importation of ideas: the public will even\ncomplain if fresh ideas be not regularly set before it. But its\nrequirement of them is aggressive: it wants to have an intellectual\nbattle over them. To persuade its unquestioning acceptance of new\nbeliefs or thoughts,--to coax it to jump to a conclusion,--were about\nas easy as to make the mountains skip like rams. Though willing to be\nconvinced, providing the idea does not appear \"morally dangerous,\" it\nmust first be assured of the absolute correctness of every step in\nthe mental process by which the novel conclusion has been reached.\nThat Mr. Strange's just but almost enthusiastic admiration of Japanese\nart could pass without challenge was not possible; yet one would\nscarcely have anticipated a challenge from the ranks of the Japan\nSociety itself. The report, however, shows that Mr. Strange's views\nwere received even by that society in the characteristic English way.\nThe idea that English artists could learn anything important from\nthe study of Japanese methods was practically pooh-poohed; and the\ncriticisms made by various members indicated that the philosophic part\nof the paper had been either misunderstood or unnoticed. One gentleman\ninnocently complained that he could not imagine \"why Japanese art\nshould be utterly wanting in facial expression.\" Another declared that\nthere could never have been any lady like the ladies of the Japanese\nprints; and he described the faces therein portrayed as \"absolutely\ninsane.\"\n\nThen came the most surprising incident of the evening,--the\ncorroboration of these adverse criticisms by his excellency the\nJapanese Minister, with the apologetic remark that the prints referred\nto \"were only regarded as common things in Japan.\" Common things!\nCommon, perhaps, in the judgment of other generations; aesthetic\nluxuries to-day. The artists named were Hokusai, Toyokuni, Hiroshig\u00e9,\nKuniyoshi, Kunisada! But his excellency seemed to think the subject\ntrifling; for he took occasion to call away the attention of the\nmeeting, irrelevantly as patriotically, to the triumphs of the war.\nIn this he reflected faithfully the Japanese _Zeitgeist,_ which can\nscarcely now endure the foreign praise of Japanese art. Unfortunately,\nthose dominated by the just and natural martial pride of the hour\ndo not reflect that while the development and maintenance of great\narmaments--unless effected with the greatest economical caution--might\nlead in short order to national bankruptcy, the future industrial\nprosperity of the country is likely to depend in no small degree upon\nthe conservation and cultivation of the national art sense. Nay,\nthose very means by which Japan won her late victories were largely\npurchased by the commercial results of that very art sense to which\nhis excellency seemed to attach no importance. Japan must continue to\ndepend upon her aesthetic faculty, even in so commonplace a field of\nindustry as the manufacture of mattings; for in mere cheap production\nshe will never be able to undersell China.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nAlthough the criticisms provoked by Mr. Strange's essay were unjust\nto Japanese art, they were natural, and indicated nothing worse\nthan ignorance of that art and miscomprehension of its purpose. It\nis not an art of which the meaning can be read at a glance: years\nof study are necessary for a right comprehension of it. I cannot\npretend that I have mastered the knowledge of its moods and tenses,\nbut I can say truthfully that the faces in the old picture-books and\nin the cheap prints of to-day, especially those of the illustrated\nJapanese newspapers, do not seem to me in the least unreal, much less\n\"absolutely insane.\" There was a time when they did appear to me\nfantastic. Now I find them always interesting, occasionally beautiful.\nIf I am told that no other European would say so, then I must declare\nall other Europeans wrong. I feel sure that, if these faces seem to\nmost Occidentals either absurd or soulless, it is only because most\nOccidentals do not understand them; and even if his excellency the\nJapanese Minister to England be willing to accept the statement that no\nJapanese women ever resembled the women of the Japanese picture-books\nand cheap prints, I must still refuse to do so.[1] Those pictures, I\ncontend, are true, and reflect intelligence, grace, and beauty. I see\nthe women of the Japanese picture--books in every Japanese street. I\nhave beheld in actual life almost every normal type of face to be found\nin a Japanese picture-book: the child and the girl, the bride and the\nmother, the matron and the grandparent; poor and rich; charming or\ncommonplace or vulgar. If I am told that trained art critics who have\nlived in Japan laugh at this assertion, I reply that they cannot have\nlived in Japan long enough, or felt her life intimately enough, or\nstudied her art impartially enough, to qualify themselves to understand\neven the commonest Japanese drawing.\n\nBefore I came to Japan I used to be puzzled by the absence of facial\nexpression in certain Japanese pictures. I confess that the faces,\nalthough not even then devoid of a certain weird charm, seemed to me\nimpossible. Afterwards, during the first two years of Far-Eastern\nexperience,--that period in which the stranger is apt to imagine\nthat he is learning all about a people whom no Occidental can ever\nreally understand,--I could recognize the grace and truth of certain\nforms, and feel something of the intense charm of color in Japanese\nprints; but I had no perception of the deeper meaning of that art.\nEven the full significance of its color I did not know: much that was\nsimply true I then thought outlandish. While conscious of the charm\nof many things, the reason of the charm I could not guess. I imagined\nthe apparent conventionalism of the faces to indicate the arrested\ndevelopment of an otherwise marvelous art faculty. It never occurred to\nme that they might be conventional only in the sense of symbols which,\nonce interpreted, would reveal more than ordinary Western drawing can\nexpress. But this was because I still remained under old barbaric\ninfluences,--influences that blinded me to the meaning of Japanese\ndrawing. And now, having at last learned a little, it is the Western\nart of illustration that appears to me conventional, undeveloped,\nsemi-barbarous. The pictorial attractions of English weeklies and of\nAmerican magazines now impress me as flat, coarse, and clumsy. My\nopinion on the subject, however, is limited to the ordinary class of\nWestern illustration as compared with the ordinary class of Japanese\nprints.\n\nPerhaps somebody will say that, even granting my assertion, the meaning\nof any true art should need no interpretation, and that the inferior\ncharacter of Japanese work is proved by the admission that its meaning\nis not universally recognizable. Whoever makes such a criticism must\nimagine Western art to be everywhere equally intelligible. Some of\nit--the very best--probably is; and some of Japanese art also is.\nBut I can assure the reader that the ordinary art of Western book\nillustration or magazine engraving is just as incomprehensible to\nJapanese as Japanese drawings are to Europeans who have never seen\nJapan. For a Japanese to understand our common engravings, he must have\nlived abroad. For an Occidental to perceive the truth, or the beauty,\nor the humor of Japanese drawings, he must know the life which those\ndrawings reflect.\n\nOne of the critics at the meeting of the Japan Society found fault with\nthe absence of facial expression in Japanese drawing as conventional.\nHe compared Japanese art on this ground with the art of the old\nEgyptians, and held both inferior because restricted by convention. Yet\nsurely the age which makes _Laoco\u00f6n_ a classic ought to recognize that\nGreek art itself was not free from conventions. It was an art which\nwe can scarcely hope ever to equal; but it was more conventional than\nany existing form of art. And since it proved that even the divine\ncould find development within the limits of artistic convention, the\ncharge of formality is not a charge worth making against Japanese\nart. Somebody may respond that Greek conventions were conventions\nof beauty, while those of Japanese drawing have neither beauty nor\nmeaning. But such a statement is possible only because Japanese art\nhas not yet found its Winckelmann nor its Lessing, whereas Greek art,\nby the labor of generations of modern critics and teachers, has been\nmade somewhat more comprehensible to us than it could have been to our\nbarbarian forefathers. The Greek conventional face cannot be found in\nreal life, no living head presenting so large a facial angle; but the\nJapanese conventional face can be seen everywhere, when once the real\nvalue of its symbol in art is properly understood. The face of Greek\nart represents an impossible perfection, a superhuman evolution. The\nseemingly inexpressive face drawn by the Japanese artists represents\nthe living, the actual, the every-day. The former is a dream; the\nlatter is a common fact.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: That Japanese art is capable of great things in ideal\nfacial expression is sufficiently proved by its Buddhist images. In\nordinary prints the intentional conventionalism of the faces is hardly\nnoticeable when the drawing is upon a small scale; and the suggestion\nof beauty is more readily perceived in such cases. But when the\ndrawing has a certain dimension,--when the face-oval, for instance,\nhas a diameter of more than an inch,--the same treatment may seem\ninexplicable to eyes accustomed to elaborated detail.]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA partial explanation of the apparent physiognomical conventionalism in\nJapanese drawing is just that law of the subordination of individualism\nto type, of personality to humanity, of detail to feeling, which the\nmiscomprehended lecturer, Mr. Edward Strange, vainly tried to teach the\nJapan Society something about. The Japanese artist depicts an insect,\nfor example, as no European artist can do: he makes it live; he shows\nits peculiar motion, its character, everything by which it is at once\ndistinguished as a type,--and all this with a few brush-strokes. But he\ndoes not attempt to represent every vein upon each of its wings, every\nseparate joint of its antennae [1] he depicts it as it is really seen\nat a glance, not as studied in detail. We never see all the details of\nthe body of a grasshopper, a butterfly, or a bee, in the moment that\nwe perceive it perching somewhere; we observe only enough to enable\nus to decide what kind of a creature it is. We see the typical, never\nthe individual peculiarities. Therefore the Japanese artist paints\nthe type alone. To reproduce every detail would be to subordinate the\ntype character to the individual peculiarity. A very minute detail is\nrarely brought out except when the instant recognition of the type\nis aided by the recognition of the detail; as, for example, when a\nray of light happens to fall upon the joint of a cricket's leg, or to\nreverberate from the mail of a dragonfly in a double-colored metallic\nflash. So likewise in painting a flower, the artist does not depict a\nparticular, but a typical flower: he shows the morphological law of\nthe species, or, to speak symbolically, nature's thought behind the\nform. The results of this method may astonish even scientific men.\nAlfred Russel Wallace speaks of a collection of Japanese sketches of\nplants as \"the most masterly things\" that he ever saw. \"Every stem,\ntwig, and leaf,\" he declares, \"is _produced by single touches of the\nbrush;_ the character and perspective of very complicated plants being\nadmirably given, and the articulations of stem and leaves shown in\na most scientific manner.\" (The italics are my own.) Observe that\nwhile the work is simplicity itself \"produced by single touches of\nthe brush,\" it is nevertheless, in the opinion of one of the greatest\nliving naturalists, \"most scientific.\" And why? Because it shows the\ntype character and the law of the type. So again, in portraying rocks\nand cliffs, hills and plains, the Japanese artist gives us the general\ncharacter, not the wearisome detail of masses; and yet the detail is\nadmirably suggested by this perfect study of the larger law. Or look at\nhis color studies of sunsets and sunrises: he never tries to present\nevery minute fact within range of vision, but offers us only those\ngreat luminous tones and chromatic blendings which, after a thousand\npetty details have been forgotten, still linger in the memory, and\nthere recreate the _feeling_ of what has been seen.\n\nNow this general law of the art applies to Japanese representations\nof the human figure, and also (though here other laws too come into\nplay) of the human face. The general types are given, and often with\na force that the cleverest French sketcher could scarcely emulate;\nthe personal trait, the individual peculiarity, is not given. Even\nwhen, in the humor of caricature or in dramatic representation, facial\nexpression is strongly marked, it is rendered by typical, not by\nindividual characteristics, just as it was rendered upon the antique\nstage by the conventional masks of Greek actors.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Unless he carves it. In that case, his insect--cut in bone\nor horn or ivory, and appropriately colored--can sometimes scarcely\nbe distinguished from a real insect, except by its weight, when held\nin the hand. Such absolute realism, however, is only curious, not\nartistic.]\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nA few general remarks about the treatment of faces in ordinary Japanese\ndrawing may help to the understanding of what that treatment teaches.\n\nYouth is indicated by the absence of all but essential touches, and\nby the clean, smooth curves of the face and neck. Excepting the\ntouches which suggest eyes, nose, and mouth, there are no lines. The\ncurves speak sufficiently of fullness, smoothness, ripeness. For\nstory-illustration it is not necessary to elaborate feature, as the age\nor condition is indicated by the style of the coiffure and the fashion\nof the dress. In female figures, the absence of eyebrows indicates the\nwife or widow; a straggling tress signifies grief; troubled thought is\nshown by an unmistakable pose or gesture. Hair, costume, and attitude\nare indeed enough to explain almost everything. But the Japanese artist\nknows how, by means of extremely delicate variations in the direction\nand position of the half dozen touches indicating feature, to give some\nhint of character, whether sympathetic or unsympathetic; and this hint\nis seldom lost upon a Japanese eye.[1] Again, an almost imperceptible\nhardening or softening of these touches has moral significance. Still,\nthis is never individual: it is only the hint of a physiognomical law.\nIn the case of immature youth (boy and girl faces), there is merely a\ngeneral indication of softness and gentleness,--the abstract rather\nthan the concrete charm of childhood.\n\nIn the portrayal of maturer types the lines are more numerous and\nmore accentuated, illustrating the fact that character necessarily\nbecomes more marked in middle age, as the facial muscles begin to show.\nBut there is only the suggestion of this change, not any study of\nindividualism.\n\nIn the representation of old age, the Japanese artist gives us all the\nwrinkles, the hollows, the shrinking of tissues, the \"crow's-feet,\"\nthe gray hairs, the change in the line of the face following upon loss\nof teeth. His old men and women show character. They delight us by a\ncertain worn sweetness of expression, a look of benevolent resignation;\nor they repel us by an aspect of hardened cunning, avarice, or\nenvy. There are many types of old age; but they are types of human\nconditions, not of personality. The picture is not drawn from a model;\nit is not the reflection of an individual existence: its value is made\nby the recognition which it exhibits of a general physiognomical or\nbiological law.\n\nHere it is worth while to notice that the reserves of Japanese art in\nthe matter of facial expression accord with the ethics of Oriental\nsociety. For ages the rule of conduct has been to mask all personal\nfeeling as far as possible,--to hide pain and passion under an exterior\nsemblance of smiling amiability or of impassive resignation. One key to\nthe enigmas of Japanese art is Buddhism.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: In modern Japanese newspaper illustrations (I refer\nparticularly to the admirable woodcuts illustrating the _feuilletons_\nof the \u014csaka _Asahi Shimbun_) these indications are quite visible even\nto a practiced foreign eye. The artist of the _Asahi Shimbun_ is a\nwoman.\n\nI am here reminded of a curious fact which I do not remember having\nseen mention of in any book about Japan. The newly arrived Westerner\noften complains of his inability to distinguish one Japanese from\nanother, and attributes this difficulty to the absence of strongly\nmarked physiognomy in the race. He does not imagine that our more\nsharply accentuated Occidental physiognomy produces the very same\neffect upon the Japanese. Many and many a one has said to me, \"For a\nlong time I found it very hard to tell one foreigner from another: they\nall seemed to me alike.\"]\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nI have said that when I now look at a foreign illustrated newspaper or\nmagazine I can find little pleasure in the engravings. Most often they\nrepel me. The drawing seems to me coarse and hard, and the realism of\nthe conception petty. Such work leaves nothing to the imagination, and\nusually betrays the effort which it cost. A common Japanese drawing\nleaves much to the imagination,--nay, irresistibly stimulates it,--and\nnever betrays effort. Everything in a common European engraving is\ndetailed and individualized. Everything in a Japanese drawing is\nimpersonal and suggestive. The former reveals no law: it is a study of\nparticularities. The latter invariably teaches something of law, and\nsuppresses particularities except in their relation to law.\n\nOne may often hear Japanese say that Western art is too realistic;\nand the judgment contains truth. But the realism in it which offends\nJapanese taste, especially in the matter of facial expression, is not\nfound fault with merely because of minuteness of detail. Detail in\nitself is not condemned by any art; and the highest art is that in\nwhich detail is most exquisitely elaborated. The art which saw the\ndivine, which rose above nature's best, which discovered supramundane\nideals for animal and even floral shapes, was characterized by the\nsharpest possible perfection of detail. And in the higher Japanese\nart, as in the Greek, the use of detail aids rather than opposes the\naspirational aim. What most displeases in the realism of our modern\nillustration is not multiplicity of detail, but, as we shall presently\nsee, _signification_ of detail.\n\nThe queerest fact about the suppression of physiognomical detail in\nJapanese art is that this suppression is most evident just where we\nshould least expect to find it, namely, in those creations called\n\"This-miserable-world pictures\" (Ukiyo-y\u00e9), or, to use a corresponding\nWestern term, \"Pictures of this Vale of Tears.\" For although the\nartists of this school have really given us pictures of a very\nbeautiful and happy world, they professed to reflect truth. One form\nof truth they certainly presented, but after a manner at variance with\nour common notions of realism. The Ukiyo-y\u00e9 artist drew actualities,\nbut not repellent or meaningless actualities; proving his rank even\nmore by his refusal than by his choice of subjects. He looked for\ndominant laws of contrast and color, for the general character of\nnature's combinations, for the order of the beautiful as it was and\nis. Otherwise his art was in no sense aspirational; it was the art of\nthe larger comprehension of things as they are. Thus he was rightly a\nrealist, notwithstanding that his realism appears only in the study\nof constants, generalities, types. And as expressing the synthesis of\ncommon fact, the systematization of natural law, this Japanese art\nis by its method scientific in the true sense. The higher art, the\naspirational art (whether Japanese or old Greek), is, on the contrary,\nessentially religious by its method.\n\nWhere the scientific and the aspirational extremes of art touch, one\nmay expect to find some universal aesthetic truth recognized by both.\nThey agree in their impersonality: they refuse to individualize. And\nthe lesson of the very highest art that ever existed suggests the true\nreason for this common refusal.\n\nWhat does the charm of an antique head express, whether in marble, gem,\nor mural painting,--for instance, that marvelous head of Leucothea\nwhich prefaces the work of Winckelmann? Needless to seek the reply from\nworks of mere art critics. Science alone can furnish it. You will find\nit in Herbert Spencer's essay on Personal Beauty. The beauty of such a\nhead signifies a superhumanly perfect development and balance of the\nintellectual faculties. All those variations of feature constituting\nwhat we call \"expression,\" represent departures from a perfect type\njust in proportion as they represent what is termed \"character;\"--and\nthey are, or ought to be, more or less disagreeable or painful\nbecause \"the aspects which please us are the outward correlatives of\ninward perfections, and the aspects which displease us are the outward\ncorrelatives of inward imperfections.\" Mr. Spencer goes on to say that\nalthough there are often grand natures behind plain faces, and although\nfine countenances frequently hide small souls, \"these anomalies do not\ndestroy the general truth of the law any more than the perturbations of\nplanets destroy the general ellipticity of their orbits.\"\n\nBoth Greek and Japanese art recognized the physiognomical truth which\nMr. Spencer put into the simple formula, \"_Expression is feature in the\nmaking_\" The highest art, Greek art, rising above the real to reach the\ndivine, gives us the dream of feature perfected. Japanese realism, so\nmuch larger than our own as to be still misunderstood, gives us only\n\"feature in the making,\" or rather, the general law of feature in the\nmaking.\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThus we reach the common truth recognized equally by Greek art and\nby Japanese art, namely, the non-moral significance of individual\nexpression. And our admiration of the art reflecting personality is, of\ncourse, non-moral, since the delineation of individual imperfection is\nnot, in the ethical sense, a subject for admiration.\n\nAlthough the facial aspects which really attract us may be considered\nthe outward correlatives of inward perfections, or of approaches to\nperfections, we generally confess an interest in physiognomy which\nby no means speaks to us of inward _moral_ perfections, but rather\nsuggests perfections of the reverse order. This fact is manifested even\nin daily life. When we exclaim, \"What force!\" on seeing a head with\nprominent bushy brows, incisive nose, deep-set eyes, and a massive\njaw, we are indeed expressing our recognition of force, but only of\nthe sort of force underlying instincts of aggression and brutality.\nWhen we commend the character of certain strong aquiline faces,\ncertain so-called Roman profiles, we are really com-mending the traits\nthat mark a race of prey. It is true that we do not admire faces in\nwhich only brutal, or cruel, or cunning traits exist; but it is true\nalso that we admire the indications of obstinacy, aggressiveness,\nand harshness when united with certain indications of intelligence.\nIt may even be said that we associate the idea of manhood with the\nidea of aggressive power more than with the idea of any other power.\nWhether this power be physical or intellectual, we estimate it in our\npopular preferences, at least, above the really superior powers of the\nmind, and call intelligent cunning by the euphemism of \"shrewdness.\"\nProbably the manifestation in some modern human being of the Greek\nideal of masculine beauty would interest the average observer less\nthan a face presenting an abnormal development of traits the reverse\nof noble,--since the intellectual significance of perfect beauty could\nbe realized only by persons capable of appreciating the miracle of a\nperfect balance of the highest possible human faculties. In modern art\nwe look for the feminine beauty which appeals to the feeling of sex,\nor for that child-beauty which appeals to the instincts of parenthood;\nand we should characterize real beauty in the portrayal of manhood not\nonly as unnatural, but as effeminate. War and love are still the two\ndominant tones in that reflection of modern life which our serious\nart gives. But it will be noticed that when the artist would exhibit\nthe ideal of beauty or of virtue, he is still obliged to borrow from\nantique knowledge. As a borrower, he is never quite successful, since\nhe belongs to a humanity in many respects much below the ancient Greek\nlevel. A German philosopher has well said, \"The resuscitated Greeks\nwould, with perfect truth, declare our works of art in all departments\nto be thoroughly barbarous.\" How could they be otherwise in an age\nwhich openly admires intelligence less because of its power to create\nand preserve than because of its power to crush and destroy?\n\nWhy this admiration of capacities which we should certainly not like\nto have exercised against ourselves? Largely, no doubt, because we\nadmire what we wish to possess, and we understand the immense value of\naggressive power, intellectual especially, in the great competitive\nstruggle of modern civilization.\n\nAs reflecting both the trivial actualities and the personal\nemotionalism of Western life, our art would be found ethically not\nonly below Greek art, but even below Japanese. Greek art expressed the\naspiration of a race toward the divinely beautiful and the divinely\nwise. Japanese art reflects the simple joy of existence, the perception\nof natural law in form and color, the perception of natural law in\nchange, and the sense of life made harmonious by social order and by\nself-suppression, Modern Western art reflects the thirst of pleasure,\nthe idea of life as a battle for the right to enjoy, and the unamiable\nqualities which are indispensable to success in the competitive\nstruggle.\n\n*\n\nIt has been said that the history of Western civilization is written in\nWestern physiognomy. It is at least interesting to study Western facial\nexpression through Oriental eyes. I have frequently amused myself by\nshowing European or American illustrations to Japanese children, and\nhearing their artless comments upon the faces therein depicted. A\ncomplete record of these comments might prove to have value as well as\ninterest; but for present purposes I shall offer only the results of\ntwo experiments.\n\nThe first was with a little boy, nine years old, before whom, one\nevening, I placed several numbers of an illustrated magazine. After\nturning over a few of the pages, he exclaimed, \"Why do foreign artists\nlike to draw horrible things?\"\n\n\"What horrible things?\" I inquired.\n\n\"These,\" he said, pointing to a group of figures representing voters at\nthe polls.\n\n\"Why, those are not horrible,\" I answered. \"We think those drawings\nvery good.\"\n\n\"But the faces! There cannot really be such faces in the world.\"\n\n\"We think those are ordinary men. Really horrible faces we very seldom\ndraw.\"\n\nHe stared in surprise, evidently suspecting that I was not in earnest.\n\n*\n\nTo a little girl of eleven I showed some engravings representing famous\nEuropean beauties.\n\n\"They do not look bad,\" was her comment. \"But they seem so much like\nmen, and their eyes are so big!... Their mouths are pretty.\"\n\nThe mouth signifies a great deal in Japanese physiognomy, and the\nchild was in this regard appreciative. I then showed her some drawings\nfrom life, in a New York periodical. She asked, \"Is it true that there\nare people like those pictures?\"\n\n\"Plenty,\" I said. \"Those are good, common faces,--mostly country folk,\nfarmers.\"\n\n\"Farmers! They are like _Oni_ [demons] from the _jigoku_ [Buddhist\nhell].\"\n\n\"No,\" I answered, \"there is nothing very bad in those faces. We have\nfaces in the West very much worse.\"\n\n\"Only to see them,\" she exclaimed, \"I should die! I do not like this\nbook.\"\n\nI set before her a Japanese picture-book,--a book of views of the\nTokaido. She clapped her hands joyfully, and pushed my half-inspected\nforeign magazine out of the way.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nNINGY\u014c-NO-HAKA\n\n\nManyemon had coaxed the child indoors, and made her eat. She appeared\nto be about eleven years old, intelligent, and pathetically docile. Her\nname was In\u00e9, which means \"springing rice;\" and her frail slimness made\nthe name seem appropriate.\n\nWhen she began, under Manyemon's gentle persuasion, to tell her story,\nI anticipated something queer from the accompanying change in her\nvoice. She spoke in a high thin sweet tone, perfectly even,--a tone\nchangeless and unemotional as the chanting of the little kettle over\nits charcoal bed. Not unfrequently in Japan one may hear a girl or a\nwoman utter something touching or cruel or terrible in just such a\nsteady, level, penetrating tone, but never anything indifferent. It\nalways means that feeling is being kept under control.\n\n\"There were six of us at home,\" said In\u00e9, \"mother and father and\nfather's mother, who was very old, and my brother and myself, and\na little sister. Father was a _hy\u014dguya,_ a paper-hanger: he papered\nsliding-screens and also mounted kakemono. Mother was a hair-dresser.\nMy brother was apprenticed to a seal-cutter.\n\n\"Father and mother did well: mother made even more money than father.\nWe had good clothes and good food; and we never had any real sorrow\nuntil father fell sick.\n\n\"It was the middle of the hot season. Father had always been healthy:\nwe did not think that his sickness was dangerous, and he did not think\nso himself. But the very next day he died. We were very much surprised.\nMother tried to hide her heart, and to wait upon her customers as\nbefore. But she was not very strong, and the pain of father's death\ncame too quickly. Eight days after father's funeral mother also died.\nIt was so sudden that everybody wondered. Then the neighbors told us\nthat we must make a _ningy\u014d-no-haka_ at once,--or else there would be\nanother death in our house. My brother said they were right; but he put\noff doing what they told him. Perhaps he did not have mercy enough, I\ndo not know; but the haka was not made.\" ...\n\n*\n\n\"What is a _ningy\u014d-no-haka_?\" I interrupted.\n\n\"I think,\" Manyemon made answer, \"that you have seen many\n_ningy\u014d-no-haka_ without knowing what they were;--they look just\nlike graves of children. It is believed that when two of a family\ndie in the same year, a third also must soon die. There is a saying,\n_Always three graves._ So when two out of one family have been buried\nin the same year, a third grave is made next to the graves of those\ntwo, and in it is put a coffin containing only a little figure of\nstraw,--_wara-ningy\u014d_; and over that grave a small tombstone is set up,\nbearing a kaimy\u014d.[1] The priests of the temple to which the graveyard\nbelongs write the kaimy\u014d for these little gravestones. By making a\n_ningy\u014d-no-haka_ it is thought that a death may be prevented.... We\nlisten for the rest, In\u00e9.\"\n\nThe child resumed:--\n\n\"There were still four of us,--grandmother, brother, myself, and my\nlittle sister. My brother was nineteen years old. He had finished his\napprenticeship just before father died: we thought that was like the\npity of the gods for us. He had become the head of the house. He was\nvery skillful in his business, and had many friends: therefore he could\nmaintain us. He made thirteen yen the first month;--that is very good\nfor a seal-cutter. One evening he came home sick: he said that his head\nhurt him. Mother had then been dead forty-seven days. That evening he\ncould not eat. Next morning he was not able to get up;--he had a very\nhot fever: we nursed him as well as we could, and sat up at night to\nwatch by him; but he did not get better. On the morning of the third\nday of his sickness we became frightened--because he began to talk to\nmother. It was the forty-ninth day after mother's death,--the day the\nSoul leaves the house;--and brother spoke as if mother was calling\nhim:--'Yes, mother, yes!--in a little while I shall come!' Then he told\nus that mother was pulling him by the sleeve. He would point with his\nhand and call to us:-'There she is!--there!--do you not see her? 'We\nwould tell him that we could not see anything. Then he would say, 'Ah!\nyou did not look quick enough: she is hiding now;--she has gone down\nunder the floor-mats.' All the morning he talked like that. At last\ngrandmother stood up, and stamped her foot on the floor, and reproached\nmother,--speaking very loud. 'Taka!' she said, 'Taka, what you do is\nvery wrong. When you were alive we all loved you. None of us ever spoke\nunkind words to you. Why do you now want to take the boy? You know\nthat he is the only pillar of our house. You know that if you take him\nthere will not be any one to care for the ancestors. You know that if\nyou take him, you will destroy the family name! O Taka, it is cruel!\nit is shameful! it is wicked!' Grandmother was so angry that all her\nbody trembled. Then she sat down and cried; and I and my little sister\ncried. But our brother said that mother was still pulling him by the\nsleeve. When the sun went down, he died.\n\n\"Grandmother wept, and stroked us, and sang a little song that she\nmade herself. I can remember it still:--\n\n    _Oy a no nai ko to_\n    _Hamab\u00e9 no chidori:_\n    _Higur\u00e9-higur\u00e9 ni_\n          _Sod\u00e9 shiboru._[2]\n\n\"So the third grave was made,--but it was not a _ningy\u014d-no-haka_;--and\nthat was the end of our house. We lived with kindred until winter,\nwhen grandmother died. She died in the night,--when, nobody knew: in\nthe morning she seemed to be sleeping, but she was dead. Then I and my\nlittle sister were separated. My sister was adopted by a _tatamiya,_ a\nmat-maker,--one of father's friends. She is kindly treated: she even\ngoes to school!\"\n\n\"_Aa fushigi na koto da!--aa komatta ne?\"_ murmured Manyemon. Then\nthere was a moment or two of sympathetic silence. In\u00e9 prostrated\nherself in thanks, and rose to depart. As she slipped her feet under\nthe thongs of her sandals, I moved toward the spot where she had been\nsitting, to ask the old man a question. She perceived my intention, and\nimmediately made an indescribable sign to Manyemon, who responded by\nchecking me just as I was going to sit down beside him.\n\n\"She wishes,\" he said, \"that the master will honorably strike the\nmatting first.\"\n\n\"But why?\" I asked in surprise,---noticing only that under my unshod\nfeet, the spot where the child had been kneeling felt comfortably warm.\n\nManyemon answered:--\n\n\"She believes that to sit down upon the place made warm by the body of\nanother is to take into one's own life all the sorrow of that other\nperson,--unless the place be stricken first.\"\n\nWhereat I sat down without performing the rite; and we both laughed.\n\n\"In\u00e9,\" said Manyemon, \"the master takes your sorrows upon him. He\nwants \"--(I cannot venture to render Manyemon's honorifics)--\"to\nunderstand the pain of other people. You need not tear for him, In\u00e9.\"\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The posthumous Buddhist name of the person buried is\nchiseled upon the tomb or _haka._]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"Children without parents, like the seagulls of the\ncoast. Evening after evening the sleeves are wrung.\" The word\n_chidori--_indiscriminately applied to many kinds of birds,--is here\nused for seagull. The cries of the seagull are thought to express\nmelancholy and desolation: hence the comparison. The long sleeve of the\nJapanese robe is used to wipe the eyes as well as to hide the face in\nmoments of grief. To \"wring the sleeve\"--that is, to wring the moisture\nfrom a tear-drenched sleeve--is a frequent expression in Japanese\npoetry.]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\n\nIn \u014cSAKA\n\n      _Takaki ya ni_\n    _Noborit\u00e9 mir\u00e9ba_\n      _Kemuri tat su;--_\n    _Tami no kamado wa_\n    _Nigiwai ni k\u00e9ri._\n\n(When I ascend a high place and look about me, lo! the smoke is rising:\nthe cooking ranges of the people are busy.)\n\n_Song of the Emperor_ NINTOKU.\n\n\nI\n\nNearly three hundred years ago, Captain John Saris, visiting Japan in\nthe service of the \"Eight Honourable Companye, ye. marchants of London\ntrading into ye. East Indyes,\" wrote concerning the great city of \u014csaka\n(as the name is now transliterated): \"We found Osaca to be a very great\ntowne, as great as London within the walls, with many faire timber\nbridges of a great height, seruing to passe over a riuer there as wide\nas the Thames at London. Some faire houses we found there, but not\nmany. It is one of the chiefe sea-ports of all Iapan; hauing a castle\nin it, maruellous large and strong\" ... What Captain Saris said of the\nOsaka of the seventeenth century is almost equally true of the \u014csaka\nof to-day. It is still a very great city and one of the chief seaports\nof all Japan; it contains, according to the Occidental idea, \"some\nfaire houses;\" it has many \"faire timber bridges\" (as well as bridges\nof steel and stone)--\"seruing to passe ouer a river as wide as the\nThames at London,\"--the Yodogawa; and the castle \"marvellous large and\nstrong,\" built by Hideyoshi after the plan of a Chinese fortress of the\nHan dynasty, still remains something for military engineers to wonder\nat, in spite of the disappearance of the many-storied towers, and the\ndestruction (in 1868) of the magnificent palace.\n\n\u014csaka is more than two thousand five hundred years old, and therefore\none of the most ancient cities of Japan,--though its present name,\na contraction of _Oye no Saka,_ meaning the High Land of the Great\nRiver, is believed to date back only to the fifteenth century, before\nwhich time it was called Naniwa. Centuries before Europe knew of the\nexistence of Japan, Osaka was the great financial and commercial centre\nof the empire; and it is that still. Through all the feudal era, the\nmerchants of Osaka were the bankers and creditors of the Japanese\nprinces: they exchanged the revenues of rice for silver and gold;--they\nkept in their miles of fireproof warehouses the national stores of\ncereals, of cotton, and of silk;--and they furnished to great captains\nthe sinews of war. Hideyoshi made Osaka his military capital;--Iyeyasu,\njealous and keen, feared the great city, and deemed it necessary to\nimpoverish its capitalists because of their financial power.\n\nThe \u014csaka of 1896, covering a vast area has a population of about\n670,000. As to extent and population, it is now only the second city\nof the empire; but it remains, as Count Okuma remarked in a recent\nspeech, financially, industrially, and commercially superior to T\u014dky\u014d.\nSakai, and Hy\u014dgo, and Kob\u00e9 are really but its outer ports; and the\nlast-named is visibly outgrowing Yokohama. It is confidently predicted,\nboth by foreigners and by Japanese, that Kob\u00e9 will become the chief\nport of foreign trade, because Osaka is able to attract to herself the\nbest business talent of the country. At present the foreign import\nand export trade of \u014csaka represents about $120,000,000 a year; and\nits inland and coasting trade are immense. Almost everything which\neverybody wants is made in \u014csaka; and there are few comfortable\nJapanese homes in any part of the empire to the furnishing of which\n\u014csaka industry has not contributed something. This was probably the\ncase long before Tokyo existed. There survives an ancient song of which\nthe burden runs,--\"_Every day to \u014csaka come a thousand ships.\"_ Junks\nonly, in the time when the song was written; steamers also to-day,\nand deep-sea travelers of all rigs. Along the wharves you can ride\nfor miles by a seemingly endless array of masts and funnels,--though\nthe great Trans-Pacific liners and European mail-steamers draw too\nmuch water to enter the harbor, and receive their \u014csaka freight at\nKob\u00e9. But the energetic city, which has its own steamship companies,\nnow proposes to improve its port, at a cost of 116,000,000. An \u014csaka\nwith a population of two millions, and a foreign trade of at least\n$300,000,000 a year, is not a dream impossible to realize in the next\nhalf century. I need scarcely say that \u014csaka is the centre of the\ngreat trade-guilds,[1] and the headquarters of those cotton-spinning\ncompanies whose mills, kept running with a single shift twenty-three\nhours out of the twenty-four, turn out double the quantity of yarn per\nspindle that English mills turn out, and from thirty to forty per cent,\nmore than the mills of Bombay.\n\nEvery great city in the world is believed to give a special character\nto its inhabitants; and in Japan the man of \u014csaka is said to be\nrecognizable almost at sight. I think it can be said that the character\nof the man of the capital is less marked than that of the man of\n\u014csaka,--as in America the man of Chicago is more quickly recognized\nthan the New Yorker or Bostonian. He has a certain quickness of\nperception, ready energy, and general air of being \"well up to date,\"\nor even a little in advance of it, which represent the result of\nindustrial and commercial intercompetition. At all events, the \u014csaka\nmerchant or manufacturer has a much longer inheritance of business\nexperience than his rival of the political capital. Perhaps this may\npartly account for the acknowledged superiority of \u014csaka commercial\ntravelers; a modernized class, offering some remarkable types. While\njourneying by rail or steamer you may happen to make the casual\nacquaintance of a gentleman whose nationality you cannot safely decide\neven after some conversation. He is dressed with the most correct taste\nin the latest and best mode; he can talk to you equally well in French,\nGerman, or English; he is perfectly courteous, but able to adapt\nhimself to the most diverse characters; he knows Europe; and he can\ngive you extraordinary information about parts of the Far East which\nyou have visited, and also about other parts of which you do not even\nknow the names. As for Japan, he is familiar with the special products\nof every district, their comparative merits, their history. His face\nis pleasing,--nose straight or slightly aquiline,--mouth veiled by\na heavy black moustache: the eye-lids alone give you some right to\nsuppose that you are conversing with an Oriental. Such is one type of\nthe \u014csaka commercial traveler of 1896,--a being as far superior to\nthe average Japanese petty official as a prince to a lackey. Should\nyou meet the same man in his own city, you would probably find him in\nJapanese costume,--dressed as only a man of fine taste can learn how to\ndress, and looking rather like a Spaniard or Italian in disguise than a\nJapanese.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: There are upwards of four hundred commercial companies in\nOsaka.]\n\n\nII\n\n\nFrom the reputation of \u014csaka as a centre of production and\ndistribution, one would imagine it the most modernized, the least\ncharacteristically Japanese, of all Japanese cities. But \u014csaka is the\nreverse. Fewer Western costumes are to be seen in \u014csaka than in any\nother large city of Japan. No crowds are more attractively robed, and\nno streets more picturesque, than those of the great mart.\n\n\u014csaka is supposed to set many fashions; and the present ones show an\nagreeable tendency to variety, of tint. When I first came to Japan\nthe dominant colors of male costume were dark,--especially dark blue;\nany crowd of men usually presenting a mass of this shade. To-day the\ntones are lighter; and greys--warm greys, steel greys, bluish greys,\npurplish greys--seem to predominate. But there are also many pleasing\nvariations,--bronze-colors, gold-browns, \"tea-colors,\" for example.\nWomen's costumes are of course more varied; but the character of the\nfashions for adults of either sex indicates no tendency to abandon the\nrules of severe good taste;--gay colors appearing only in the attire\nof children and of dancing-girls,--to whom are granted the privileges\nof perpetual youth. I may observe that the latest fashion in the silk\nupper-dress, or _haori,_ of geisha, is a burning sky--blue,--a tropical\ncolor that makes the profession of the wearer distinguishable miles\naway. The higher-class geisha, however, affect sobriety in dress. I\nmust also speak of the long overcoats or overcloaks worn out-of-doors\nin cold weather by both sexes. That of the men looks like an adaptation\nand modification of our \"ulster,\" and has a little cape attached to it:\nthe material is wool, and the color usually light brown or grey. That\nof the ladies, which has no cape, is usually of black broadcloth, with\nmuch silk binding, and a collar cut low in front. It is buttoned from\nthroat to feet, and looks decidedly genteel, though left very wide and\nloose at the back to accommodate the bow of the great heavy silk girdle\nbeneath.\n\n*\n\nArchitecturally not less than fashionably, \u014csaka remains almost as\nJapanese as anybody could wish. Although some wide thoroughfares exist,\nmost of the streets are very narrow,--even more narrow than those of\nKy\u014dto. There are streets of three-story houses and streets of two-story\nhouses; but there are square miles of houses one story high. The great\nmass of the city is an agglomeration of low wooden buildings with\ntiled roofs. Nevertheless the streets are more interesting, brighter,\nquainter in their signs and sign-painting, than the streets of T\u014dky\u014d;\nand the city as a whole is more picturesque than T\u014dky\u014d because of its\nwaterways. It has not inaptly been termed the Venice of Japan; for it\nis traversed in all directions by canals, besides being separated into\nseveral large portions by the branchings of the Yodogawa. The streets\nfacing the river are, however, much less interesting than the narrow\ncanals.\n\nAnything more curious in the shape of a street vista than the view\nlooking down one of these waterways can scarcely be found in Japan.\nStill as a mirror surface, the canal flows between high stone\nembankments supporting the houses,--houses of two or three stories, all\nsparred out from the stonework so that their fa\u00e7ades bodily overhang\nthe water. They are huddled together in a way suggesting pressure from\nbehind; and this appearance of squeezing and crowding is strengthened\nby the absence of regularity in design,--no house being exactly like\nanother, but all having an indefinable Far-Eastern queerness,--a sort\nof racial character,--that gives the sensation of the very-far-away in\nplace and time. They push out funny little galleries with balustrades;\nbarred, projecting, glassless windows with elfish balconies under\nthem, and rootlets over them like eyebrows; tiers of tiled and tilted\nawnings; and great eaves which, in certain hours, throw shadows down\nto the foundation. As most of the timber-work is dark,--either with\nage or staining,--the shadows look deeper than they really are. Within\nthem you catch glimpses of balcony pillars, bamboo ladders from gallery\nto gallery, polished angles of joinery,--all kinds of jutting things.\nAt intervals you can see mattings hanging out, and curtains of split\nbamboo, and cotton hangings with big white ideographs upon them; and\nall this is faithfully repeated upside down in the water. The colors\nought to delight an artist,--umbers and chocolates and chestnut-browns\nof old polished timber; warm yellows of mattings and bamboo screens;\ncreamy tones of stuccoed surfaces; cool greys of tiling.... The last\nsuch vista I saw was bewitched by a spring haze. It was early morning.\nTwo hundred yards from the bridge on which I stood, the house fronts\nbegan to turn blue; farther on, they were transparently vapory; and\nyet farther, they seemed to melt away suddenly into the light,--a\nprocession of dreams. I watched the progress of a boat propelled by\na peasant in straw hat and straw coat,--like the peasants of the\nold picture-books. Boat and man turned bright blue and then grey,\nand then, before my eyes,----glided into Nirvana. The notion of\nimmateriality so created by that luminous haze was supported by the\nabsence of sound; for these canal-streets are as silent as the streets\nof shops are noisy.\n\n*\n\nNo other city in Japan has so many bridges as \u014csaka: wards are named\nafter them, and distances marked by them,--reckoning always from\nKoraibashi, the Bridge of the Koreans, as a centre. \u014csaka people find\ntheir way to any place most readily by remembering the name of the\nbridge nearest to it. But as there are one hundred and eighty-nine\nprincipal bridges, this method of reckoning can be of little service\nto a stranger. If a business man, he can find whatever he wants\nwithout learning the names of the bridges. \u014csaka is the best-ordered\ncity, commercially, in the empire, and one of the best-ordered in the\nworld. It has always been a city of guilds; and the various trades\nand industries are congregated still, according to ancient custom, in\nspecial districts or particular streets. Thus all the money-changers\nare in Kitahama,--the Lombard Street of Japan; the dry-goods trade\nmonopolizes Honmachi; the timber merchants are all in Nagabori\nand Nishi-Yokobori; the toy-makers are in Minami Kiuhojimachi and\nKita Mid\u014dmae; the dealers in metal wares have Andojibashid\u014dri to\nthemselves; the druggists are in Doshi\u014dmachi, and the cabinet-makers\nin Hachimansuji. So with many other trades; and so with the places of\namusement. The theatres are in the D\u014dtombori; the jugglers, singers,\ndancers, acrobats, and fortune-tellers in the Sennichimae, close by.\n\nThe central part of \u014csaka contains many very large\nbuildings,--including theatres, refreshment-houses, and hotels having\na reputation throughout the country. The number of edifices in Western\nstyle is nevertheless remarkably small. There are indeed between\neight and nine hundred factory chimneys; but the factories, with few\nexceptions, are not constructed on Western plans. The really \"foreign\"\nbuildings include a hotel, a prefectual hall with a mansard roof, a\ncity hall with a classical porch of granite pillars, a good modern\npost-office, a mint, an arsenal, and sundry mills and breweries.\nBut these are so scattered and situated that they really make no\nparticular impression at variance with the Far-Eastern character\nof the city. However, there is one purely foreign corner,--the old\nConcession, dating back to a time before Kob\u00e9 existed. Its streets\nwere well laid out, and its buildings solidly constructed; but for\nvarious reasons it has been abandoned to the missionaries,--only one\nof the old firms, with perhaps an agency or two, remaining open. This\ndeserted settlement is an oasis of silence in the great commercial\nwilderness.[1] No at-tempts have been made by the native merchants to\nimitate its styles of building: indeed, no Japanese city shows less\nfavor than \u014csaka to Occidental architecture. This is not through want\nof appreciation, but because of economical experience. \u014csaka will\nbuild in Western style--with stone, brick, and iron--only when and\nwhere the advantage of so doing is indubitable. There will be no\nspeculation in such constructions, as there has been at T\u014dky\u014d: \u014csaka\n\"goes slow\" and invests upon certainties. When there is a certainty,\nher merchants can make remarkable offers,--like that to the government\ntwo years ago of $56,000,000 for the purchase and reconstruction of a\nrailway. Of all the houses in Osaka, the office of the \"Asahi Shimbun\"\nmost surprised me. The \"Asahi Shimbun\" is the greatest of Japanese\nnewspapers,--perhaps the greatest journal published in any Oriental\nlanguage. It is an illustrated daily, conducted very much like a Paris\nnewspaper,--publishing a _feuilleton,_ translations from foreign\nfiction, and columns of light, witty chatter about current events. It\npays big sums to popular writers, and spends largely for correspondence\nand telegraphic news. Its illustrations--now made by a woman--offer as\nfull a reflection of all phases of Japanese life, old or new, as Punch\ngives of English life. It uses perfecting presses, charters special\ntrains, and has a circulation reaching into most parts of the empire.\nSo I certainly expected to find the \"Asahi Shimbun\" office one of\nthe handsomest buildings in \u014csaka. But it proved to be an old-time\nSamurai-yashiki,--about the most quiet and modest-looking place in the\nwhole district where it was situated.\n\nI must confess that all this sober and sensible conservatism delighted\nme. The competitive power of Japan must long depend upon her power to\nmaintain the old simplicity of life.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The foreign legations left \u014csaka to take shelter at\nKob\u00e9 in 1868, during the civil war; for they could not be very well\nprotected by their men-of-war in \u014csaka. Kob\u00e9 once settled, the\nadvantages offered by its deep harbor settled the fate of the \u014csaka\nConcession.]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\n\u014csaka is the great commercial school of the empire. From all parts of\nJapan lads are sent there to learn particular branches of industry\nor trade. There are hosts of applications for any vacancy; and the\nbusiness men are said to be very cautious in choosing their _detchi,_\nor apprentice-clerks. Careful inquiries are made as to the personal\ncharacter and family history of applicants. No money is paid by the\nparents or relatives of the apprentices. The term of service varies\naccording to the nature of the trade or industry; but it is generally\nquite as long as the term of apprenticeship in Europe; and in some\nbranches of business it may be from twelve to fourteen years. Such,\nI am told, is the time of service usually exacted in the dry goods\nbusiness; and the detchi in a dry goods house may have to work fifteen\nhours a day, with not more than one holiday a month. During the whole\nof his apprenticeship he receives no wages whatever,--nothing but\nhis board, lodging, and absolutely necessary clothing. His master is\nsupposed to furnish him with two robes a year, and to keep him in\nsandals, or geta. Perhaps on some great holiday he may be presented\nwith a small gift of pocket money;--but this is not in the bond. When\nhis term of service ends, however, his master either gives him capital\nenough to begin trade for himself on a small scale, or finds some\nother way of assisting him substantially,--by credit, for instance.\nMany detchi marry their employers' daughters, in which event the young\ncouple are almost sure of getting a good start in life.\n\nThe discipline of these long apprenticeships may be considered a severe\ntest of character. Though a detchi is never addressed harshly, he has\nto bear what no European clerk would bear. He has no leisure,--no time\nof his own except the time necessary for sleep; he must work quietly\nbut steadily from dawn till late in the evening; he must content\nhimself with the simplest diet, must keep himself neat, and must never\nshow ill-temper. Wild oats he is not supposed to have, and no chance is\ngiven him to sow them. Some detchi never even leave their shop, night\nor day, for months at a time,--sleeping on the same mats where they\nsit in business hours. The trained salesmen in the great silk stores\nare especially confined within doors,--and their unhealthy pallor is\nproverbial. Year after year they squat in the same place, for twelve or\nfifteen hours every day; and you wonder why their legs do not fall off,\nlike those of Daruma.[1]\n\nOccasionally there are moral break-downs. Perhaps a detchi\nmisappropriates some of the shop money, and spends the same in riotous\nliving. Perhaps he does even worse. But, whatever the matter may be,\nhe seldom thinks of running away. If he takes a spree, he hides himself\nafter it for a day or two;--then returns of his own accord to confess,\nand ask pardon. He will be forgiven for two, three, perhaps even four\nescapades,--provided that he shows no signs of a really evil heart,\n-and be lectured about his weakness in its relation to his prospects,\nto the feelings of his family, to the honor of his ancestors, and to\nbusiness requirements in general. The difficulties of his position are\nkindly considered, and he is never discharged for a small misdemeanor.\nA dismissal would probably ruin him for life; and every care is taken\nto open his eyes to certain dangers. \u014csaka is really the most unsafe\nplace in Japan to play the fool in;--its dangerous and vicious classes\nare more to be feared than those of the capital; and the daily news of\nthe great city furnishes the apprentice with terrible examples of men\nreduced to poverty or driven to self-destruction through neglect of\nthose very rules of conduct which it is part of his duty to learn.\n\nIn cases where detchi are taken into service at a very early age, and\nbrought up in the shop almost like adopted sons, a very strong bond\nof affection between master and apprentice is sometimes established.\nInstances of extraordinary devotion to masters, or members of masters'\nhouseholds, are often reported. Sometimes the bankrupt merchant is\nre\u00ebstablished in business by his former clerk. Sometimes, again, the\naffection of a detchi may exhibit itself in strange extremes. Last\nyear there was a curious case. The only son of a merchant--a lad of\ntwelve--died of cholera during the epidemic. A detchi of fourteen, who\nhad been much attached to the dead boy, committed suicide shortly after\nthe funeral by throwing himself down in front of a train. He left a\nletter, of which the following is a tolerably close translation,--the\nselfish pronouns being absent in the original:\n\n_\"Very long time in, august help received;--honorable mercy even, not\nin words to be declared. Now going to die, unfaithful in excess;--yet\nanother state in, making rebirth, honorable mercy will repay. Spirit\nanxious only in the matter of little sister O-Noto;--with humble\nsalutation, that she be honorably seen to, supplicate._\n\n_\"To the August Lord Master,_\n\n_\"From_\n\n_\"MANO YOSHIMATSU.\"_\n\n\n[Footnote 1: In Japanese popular legend, Daruma (Bodhidharma), the\ngreat Buddhist patriarch and missionary, is said to have lost his legs\nduring a meditation which lasted uninterruptedly for nine years. A\ncommon child's toy is a comical figure of Daruma, without legs, and so\nweighted within that, no matter how thrown down, it will always assume\nan upright position.]\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIt is not true that Old Japan is rapidly disappearing. It cannot\ndisappear within at least another hundred years; perhaps it will never\nentirely disappear. Many curious and beautiful things have vanished;\nbut Old Japan survives in art, in faith, in customs and habits, in\nthe hearts and the homes of the people: it may be found everywhere\nby those who know how to look for it,--and nowhere more easily than\nin this great city of ship-building, watch-making, beer-brewing, and\ncotton-spinning. I confess that I went to \u014csaka chiefly to see the\ntemples, especially the famous Tenn\u014dji.\n\nTenn\u014dji, or, more correctly, Shitenn\u014dji, the Temple of the Four Deva\nKings,[1] is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Japan. It was\nfounded early in the seventh century by Umayado-no-Oji, now called\nSh\u014dtoku Taishi, son of the Emperor Y\u014dmei, and prince regent under the\nEmpress Suiko (572-621 A. D.). He has been well called the Constantine\nof Japanese Buddhism; for he decided the future of Buddhism in the\nEmpire, first by a great battle in the reign of his father, Yomei\nTenn\u014d, and afterwards by legal enactments and by the patronage of\nBuddhist learning. The previous Emperor, Bitatsu Tenn\u014d, had permitted\nthe preaching of Buddhism by Korean priests, and had built two temples.\nBut under the reign of Yomei, one Mononob\u00e9 no Moriya, a powerful\nnoble, and a bitter opponent of the foreign religion, rebelled against\nsuch tolerance, burned the temples, banished the priests, and offered\nbattle to the imperial forces. These, tradition says, were being driven\nback when the Emperor's son--then only sixteen years old--vowed if\nvictorious to build a temple to the Four Deva Kings. Instantly at his\nside in the fight there towered a colossal figure from before whose\nface the powers of Moriya broke and fled away. The rout of the enemies\nof Buddhism was complete and terrible; and the young prince, thereafter\ncalled Sh\u014dtoku Taishi, kept his vow. The temple of Tenn\u014dji was built,\nand the wealth of the rebel Moriya applied to its maintenance. In that\npart of it called the Kond\u014d, or Hall of Gold, Sh\u014dtoku Taishi enshrined\nthe first Buddhist image ever brought to Japan,--a figure of Nyo-i-rin\nKwannon, or Kwannon of the Circle of Wishes,--and the statue is still\nshown to the public on certain festival days. The tremendous apparition\nin the battle is said to have been one of the Four Kings,--Bishamon\n(Vaisravana), worshiped to this day as a giver of victory.\n\nThe sensation received on passing out of the bright, narrow,\nbusy streets of shops into the mouldering courts of Tenn\u014dji is\nindescribable. Even for a Japanese I imagine it must be like a\nsensation of the supernatural,--a return in memory to the life of\ntwelve hundred years ago, to the time of the earliest Buddhist mission\nwork in Japan. Symbols of the faith, that elsewhere had become for\nme conventionally familiar, here seemed but half familiar, exotic,\nprototypal; and things never before seen gave me the startling\nnotion of a time and place out of existing life. As a matter of fact,\nvery little remains of the original structure of the temple; parts\nhave been burned, parts renovated. But the impression is still very\npeculiar, because the rebuilders and the renovators always followed\nthe original plans, made by some great Korean or Chinese architect.\nAny attempt to write of the antique aspect, the queer melancholy\nbeauty of the place, would be hopeless. To know what Tenn\u014dji is, one\nmust see the weirdness of its decay,--the beautiful neutral tones of\nold timbers, the fading spectral greys and yellows of wall-surfaces,\nthe eccentricities of disjointing, the extraordinary carvings under\neaves,--carvings of waves and clouds and dragons and demons, once\nsplendid with lacquer and gold, now time-whitened to the tint of smoke,\nand looking as if about to curl away like smoke and vanish. The most\nremarkable of these carvings belong to a fantastic five-storied pagoda,\nnow ruinous: nearly all the brazen wind-bells suspended to the angles\nof its tiers of roofs have fallen. Pagoda and temple proper occupy a\nquadrangular court surrounded by an open cloister. Beyond are other\ncourts, a Buddhist school, and an immense pond peopled by tortoises and\ncrossed by a massive stone bridge. There are statues and stone lamps\nand lions and an enormous temple-drum;--there are booths for the sale\nof toys and oddities;--there are resting-places where tea is served,\nand cake-stands where you can buy cakes for the tortoises or for a pet\ndeer, which approaches the visitor, bowing its sleek head to beg. There\nis a two-storied gateway guarded by huge images of the Ni-\u014c,--Ni-\u014c\nwith arms and legs muscled like the limbs of kings in the Assyrian\nsculptures, and bodies speckled all over with little balls of white\npaper spat upon them by the faithful. There is another gateway whose\nchambers are empty;--perhaps they once contained images of the Four\nDeva Kings. There are ever so many curious things; but I shall only\nventure to describe two or three of my queerest experiences.\n\nFirst of all, I found the confirmation of a certain suspicion that had\ncome to me as I entered the temple precincts,--the suspicion that the\nforms of worship were peculiar as the buildings. I can give no reason\nfor this feeling; I can only say that, immediately after passing the\nouter gate, I had a premonition of being about to see the extraordinary\nin religion as well as in architecture. And I presently saw it in the\nbell-tower,--a two-story Chinese-looking structure, where there is\na bell called the Ind\u014d-no-Kane, or Guiding-Bell, because its sounds\nguide the ghosts of children through the dark. The lower chamber of\nthe bell-tower is fitted up as a chapel. At the first glance I noticed\nonly that a Buddhist service was going on; I saw tapers burning, the\ngolden glimmer of a shrine, incense smoking, a priest at prayer,\nwomen and children kneeling. But as I stopped for a moment before the\nentrance to observe the image in the shrine, I suddenly became aware\nof the unfamiliar, the astonishing. On shelves and stands at either\nside of the shrine, and above it and below it and beyond it, were\nranged hundreds of children's ihai, or mortuary tablets, and with\nthem thousands of toys; little dogs and horses and cows, and warriors\nand drums and trumpets, and pasteboard armor and wooden swords, and\ndolls and kites and masks and monkeys, and models of boats, and baby\ntea-sets and baby-furniture, and whirligigs and comical images of the\nGods of Good Fortune,--toys modern and toys of fashion forgotten,--toys\naccumulated through centuries,--toys of whole generations of dead\nchildren. From the ceiling, and close to the entrance, hung down a\ngreat heavy bell-rope, nearly four inches in diameter and of many\ncolors,--the rope of the Ind\u014d-Kan\u00e9. _And that rope was made of the bibs\nof dead children,--_yellow, blue, scarlet, purple bibs, and bibs of\nall intermediate shades. The ceiling itself was invisible,--hidden from\nview by hundreds of tiny dresses suspended,--dresses of dead children.\nLittle boys and girls, kneeling or playing on the matting beside the\npriest, had brought toys with them, to be deposited in the chapel,\nbefore the tablet of some lost brother or sister. Every moment some\nbereaved father or mother would come to the door, pull the bell-rope,\nthrow some copper money on the matting, and make a prayer. Each time\nthe bell sounds, some little ghost is believed to hear,--perhaps even\nto find its way back for one more look at loved toys and faces. The\nplaintive murmur of _Namu Amida Butsu;_ the clanging of the bell; the\ndeep humming of the priest's voice, reciting the Sutras; the tinkle\nof falling coin; the sweet, heavy smell of incense; the passionless\ngolden beauty of the Buddha in his shrine; the colorific radiance of\nthe toys; the shadowing of the baby-dresses; the variegated wonder of\nthat bell-rope of bibs; the happy laughter of the little folk at play\non the floor,--all made for me an experience of weird pathos never to\nbe forgotten.\n\n*\n\nNot far from the bell-tower is another curious building, which shelters\na sacred spring. In the middle of the floor is an opening, perhaps ten\nfeet long by eight wide, surrounded by a railing. Looking down over\nthe railing, you see, in the dimness below, a large stone basin, into\nwhich water is pouring from the mouth of a great stone tortoise, black\nwith age, and only half visible,--its hinder part reaching back into\nthe darkness under the floor. This water is called the Spring of the\nTortoise,--Kam\u00e9-i-Sui. The basin into which it flows is more than half\nfull of white paper,--countless slips of white paper, each bearing in\nChinese text the kaimy\u014d, or Buddhist posthumous name of a dead person.\nIn a matted recess of the building sits a priest who for a small fee\nwrites the kaimy\u014d. The purchaser--relative or friend of the dead--puts\none end of the written slip into the mouth of a bamboo cup, or rather\nbamboo joint, fixed at right angles to the end of a long pole. By aid\nof this pole he lowers the paper, with the written side up, to the\nmouth of the tortoise, and holds it under the gush of water,--repeating\na Buddhist invocation the while,--till it is washed out into the basin.\nWhen I visited the spring there was a dense crowd; and several kaimy\u014d\nwere being held under the mouth of the tortoise;--numbers of pious\nfolk meantime waiting, with papers in their hands, for a chance to use\nthe poles. The murmuring of _Namu Amida Butsu_ was itself like the\nsound of rushing water. I was told that the basin becomes filled with\nkaimy\u014d every few days;--then it is emptied, and the papers burned. If\nthis be true, it is a remarkable proof of the force of Buddhist faith\nin this busy commercial city; for many thousands of such slips of\npaper would be needed to fill the basin. It is said that the water\nbears the names of the dead and the prayers of the living to Sh\u014dtoku\nTaishi, who uses his powers of intercession with Amida on behalf of the\nfaithful.\n\nIn the chapel called the Taishi-D\u014d there are statues of Sh\u014dtoku Taishi\nand his attend-ants. The figure of the prince, seated upon a chair\nof honor, is life-size and colored; he is attired in the fashion of\ntwelve hundred years ago, wearing a picturesque cap, and Chinese or\nKorean shoes with points turned up. One may see the same costume in the\ndesigns upon very old porcelains or very old screens. But the face,\nin spite of its drooping Chinese moustaches, is a typical Japanese\nface,--dignified, kindly, passionless. I turned from the faces of the\nstatues to the faces of the people about me to see the same types,--to\nmeet the same quiet, half-curious, inscrutable gaze.\n\n*\n\nIn powerful contrast to the ancient structures of Tenn\u014dji are the vast\nNishi and Higashi Hongwanji, almost exact counterparts of the Nishi\nand Higashi Hongwanji of Tokyo. Nearly every great city of Japan has\na pair of such Hongwanji (Temples of the True Vow)--one belonging to\nthe Western (Nishi), the other to the Eastern (Higashi) branch of\nthis great Shin sect, founded in the thirteenth century.[2] Varying\nin dimension according to the wealth and religious importance of the\nlocality, but usually built upon the same general plan, they may be\nsaid to represent the most modern and the most purely Japanese form of\nBuddhist architecture,--immense, dignified, magnificent.\n\nBut they likewise represent the almost protestant severity of the\nrite in regard to symbols, icons, and external forms. Their plain\nand ponderous gates are never guarded by the giant Ni-\u014c;--there is\nno swarming of dragons and demons under their enormous eaves;--no\ngolden hosts of Buddhas or Bodhisattvas rise, rank on rank, by tiers of\naureoles, through the twilight of their sanctuaries;--no curious or\ntouching witnesses of grateful faith are ever suspended from their high\nceilings, or hung before their altars, or fastened to the gratings of\ntheir doorways;--they contain no ex-votos, no paper knots recording\nprayer, no symbolic image but one,--and that usually small,--the figure\nof Amida. Probably the reader knows that the Hongwanji sect represents\na movement in Buddhism not altogether unlike that which Unitarianism\nrepresents in Liberal Christianity. In its rejection of celibacy and of\nall ascetic practices; its prohibition of charms, divinations, votive\nofferings, and even of all prayer excepting prayer for salvation; its\ninsistence upon industrious effort as the duty of life; its maintenance\nof the sanctity of marriage as a religious bond; its doctrine of one\neternal Buddha as Father and Saviour; its promise of Paradise after\ndeath as the immediate reward of a good life; and, above all, in its\neducational zeal,--the religion of the \"Sect of the Pure Land\" may\nbe justly said to have much in common with the progressive forms of\nWestern Christianity, and it has certainly won the respect of the\nfew men of culture who find their way into the missionary legion.\nJudged by its wealth, its respectability, and its antagonism to the\ngrosser forms of Buddhist superstition, it might be supposed the least\nemotional of all forms of Buddhism. But in some respects it is probably\nthe most emotional. No other Buddhist sect can make such appeals to\nthe faith and love of the common people as those which brought into\nbeing the amazing Eastern Hongwanji temple of Kyoto. Yet while able\nto reach the simplest minds by special methods of doctrinal teaching,\nthe Hongwanji cult can make equally strong appeal to the intellectual\nclasses by reason of its scholarship. Not a few of its priests are\ngraduates of the leading universities of the West; and some have won\nEuropean reputations in various departments of Buddhist learning.\nWhether the older Buddhist sects are likely to dwindle away before the\nconstantly increasing power of the Shinsh\u016b is at least an interesting\nquestion. Certainly the latter has everything in its favor,--imperial\nrecognition, wealth, culture, and solidity of organization. On the\nother hand, one is tempted to doubt the efficacy of such advantages\nin a warfare against habits of thought and feeling older by many\ncenturies than Shinsh\u016b. Perhaps the Occident furnishes a precedent on\nwhich to base predictions. Remembering how strong Roman Catholicism\nremains to-day, how little it has changed since the days of Luther, how\nimpotent our progressive creeds to satisfy the old spiritual hunger\nfor some visible object of worship,--something to touch, or put close\nto the heart,--it becomes difficult to believe that the iconolatry\nof the more ancient Buddhist sects will not continue for hundreds of\nyears to keep a large place in popular affection. Again, it is worthy\nof remark that one curious obstacle to the expansion of the Shinsh\u016b\nis to be found in a very deeply rooted race feeling on the subject of\nself-sacrifice. Although much corruption undoubtedly exists in the\nolder sects,--although numbers of their priests do not even pretend\nto observe the vows regarding diet and celibacy,[3]--the ancient\nideals are by no means dead; and the majority of Japanese Buddhists\nstill disapprove of the relatively pleasurable lives of the Shinsh\u016b\npriesthood. In some of the remoter provinces, where Shinsh\u016b is viewed\nwith especial disfavor, one may often hear children singing a naughty\nsong (_Shinsh\u016b bozu e mon da!),_ which might thus be freely rendered:--.\n\n    Shinsh\u016b priest to be,\n    --What a nice thing!\n    Wife has, child has,\n    Good fish eats.\n\nIt reminded me of those popular criticisms of Buddhist conduct uttered\nin the time of the Buddha himself, and so often recorded in the Vinaya\ntexts,--almost like a refrain:--\n\n\"_Then the people were annoyed; and they murmured and complained,\nsaying: 'These act like men who are still enjoying the pleasures of\nthis world!' And they told the thing to the Blessed One._\"\n\nBesides Tenn\u014dji, Osaka has many famous temples, both Buddhist and\nShinto, with very ancient histories. Of such is K\u014dzu-no-yashiro, where\nthe people pray to the spirit of Nintoku,--most beloved in memory\nof all Japanese emperors. He had a palace on the same hill where his\nshrine now stands; and this site--whence a fine view of the city can be\nobtained--is the scene of a pleasing legend preserved in the Kojiki:--\n\n    \"Thereupon the Heavenly Sovereign, ascending a lofty\n    mountain and looking on the land all round, spoke,\n    saying:--'In the whole land there rises no smoke; the\n    land is all poverty-stricken. So I remit all the people's\n    taxes and forced labor from now till three years hence.'\n    Thereupon the great palace became dilapidated, and the\n    rain leaked in everywhere; but no repairs were made. The\n    rain that leaked in was caught in troughs, and the inmates\n    removed to places where there was no leakage. When later\n    the Heavenly Sovereign looked upon the land, the smoke was\n    abundant in the land. So, finding the people rich, he now\n    exacted taxes and forced labor. Therefore the peasantry\n    prospered, and did not suffer from the forced labor. So, in\n    praise of that august reign, it was called the Reign of the\n    Emperor-Sage.\"[4]\n\nThat was fifteen hundred years ago. Now, could the good Emperor see,\nfrom his shrine of K\u014dzu,--as thousands must believe he does,--the smoke\nof modern Osaka, he might well think, \"My people are becoming too rich.\"\n\nOutside of the city there is a still more famous Shint\u014d temple,\nSumiyoshi, dedicated to certain sea-gods who aided the Empress Jing\u014d\nto conquer Korea. At Sumiyoshi there are pretty child-priestesses,\nand beautiful grounds, and an enormous pond spanned by a bridge so\nhumped that, to cross it without taking off your shoes, you must cling\nto the parapet. At Sakai there is the Buddhist temple of My\u014dkokuji,\nin the garden of which are some very old palm-trees;--one of them,\nremoved by Nobunaga in the sixteenth century, is said to have cried\nout and lamented until it was taken back to the temple. You see the\nground under these palms covered with what looks like a thick, shiny,\ndisordered mass of fur,--half reddish and half silvery grey. It is not\nfur. It is a heaping of millions of needles thrown there by pilgrims\n\"to feed the palms,\" because these trees are said to love iron and to\nbe strengthened by absorbing its rust.\n\nSpeaking of trees, I may mention the Naniwaya \"Kasa-matsu,\" or\nHat-Pine,--not so much because it is an extraordinary tree as because\nit supports a large family who keep a little tea-house on the road\nto Sakai. The branches of the tree have been trained out-wards and\ndownwards over a framework of poles, so that the whole presents the\nappearance of an enormous green hat of the shape worn by peasants and\ncalled Kasa. The pine is scarcely six feet high, but covers perhaps\ntwenty square yards;--its trunk, of course, not being visible at all\nfrom outside the framework supporting the branches. Many people visit\nthe house to look at the pine and drink a cup of tea; and nearly every\nvisitor buys some memento of it,--perhaps a woodcut of the tree, or\na printed copy of verses written by some poet in praise of it, or a\ngirl's hairpin, the top of which is a perfect little green model ox\nthe tree,--framework of poles and all,--with one tiny stork perched on\nit, The owners of the Naniwaya, as their tea-house is called, are not\nonly able to make a good living, but to educate their children, by the\nexhibition of this tree, and the sale of such mementos.\n\n*\n\nI do not intend to tax my reader's patience by descriptions of the\nother famous temples of \u014csaka,--several of which are enormously old,\nand have most curious legends attached to them. But I may venture a\nfew words about the cemetery of the Temple of One Soul,--or better,\nperhaps, the Temple of a Single Mind: Isshinji. The monuments there are\nthe most extraordinary I ever saw. Near the main gate is the tomb of\na wrestler,--Asahigor\u014d Hachir\u014d. His name is chiseled upon a big disk\nof stone, probably weighing a ton; and this disk is supported on the\nback of a stone image of a wrestler,--a grotesque figure, with gilded\neyes starting from their sockets, and features apparently distorted\nby effort. It is a very queer thing,--half-comical, half-furious of\naspect. Close by is the tomb of one Hirayama Hanibei,--a monument\nshaped like a _hy\u014dtan,--_that is to say, like a wine-gourd such as\ntravelers use for carrying sak\u00e9. The most usual form of _hy\u014dtan_\nresembles that of an hour-glass, except that the lower part is\nsomewhat larger than the upper; and the vessel can only stand upright\nwhen full or partly full,--so that in a Japanese song the wine-lover is\nmade to say to his gourd, \"_With you I fall._\" Apparently the mighty\nto drink wine have a district all to themselves in this cemetery; for\nthere are several other monuments of like form in the same row,--also\none shaped like a very large sak\u00e9-bottle (_issh\u014ddokkuri_),[5] on which\nis inscribed a verse not taken from the sutras. But the oddest monument\nof all is a great stone badger, sitting upright, and seeming to strike\nits belly with its fore-paws. On the belly is cut a name, Inouy\u00e9\nDennosuk\u00e9, together with the verse:--\n\n    Tsuki yo yoshi\n    Nembutsu tonaite\n    Hara tsudzumi.\n\nWhich means about as follows:--\"On fine moonlight-nights, repeating\nthe Nembutsu, I play the belly-drum.\" The flower-vases are in the form\nof sak\u00e9-bottles. Artificial rock-work supports the monument; and here\nand there, among the rocks, are smaller figures of badgers, dressed\nlike Buddhist priests (tanuki-bozu). My readers probably know that\nthe Japanese tanuki[6] is credited with the power of assuming human\nshape, and of making musical sounds like the booming of a hand-drum\nby tapping upon its belly. It is said often to disguise itself as\na Buddhist priest for mischievous purposes, and to be very fond of\nsak\u00e9. Of course, such images in a cemetery represent nothing more than\neccentricities, and are judged to be in bad taste. One is reminded\nof certain jocose paintings and inscriptions upon Greek and Roman\ntombs, expressing in regard to death--or rather in regard to life--a\nsentiment, or an affectation of sentiment, repellent to modern feeling.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: They defend the four quarters of the world. In Japanese\ntheir names are Jikoku, Komoku, Zocho, Bishamon (or Tamon);--in\nSanscrit, Dhritarashtra, Virupaksha, Virudhaka, and Vaisravana,--the\nKuvera of, Brahmanism.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The division of the sect during the seventeenth century\ninto two branches had a political, not a religious cause; and the\nsections remain religiously united. Their abbots are of Imperial\ndescent, whence their title of Monzeki, or Imperial Offspring.\nTravelers may observe that the walls inclosing the temple grounds of\nthis sect bear the same decorative mouldings as those of the walls of\nthe Imperial residences.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This has been especially the case since the abrogation of\nthe civil laws forbidding priests to marry. The wives of the priests\nof other sects than the Shinsh\u016b are called by a humorous and not very\nrespectful appellation.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See Professor Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki,\nsection CXXI.]\n\n[Footnote 5: That is, a bottle containing one sho,--about a quart and a\nhalf.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Although _tanuki_ is commonly translated by \"badger,\" the\ncreature so called is not a real badger, but a kind of fruit-fox. It is\nalso termed the \"raccoon-faced dog.\" The true badger is, however, also\nfound in Japan.]\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nI said in a former essay that a Japanese city is little more than a\nwilderness of wooden sheds, and \u014csaka is no exception. But interiorly\na very large number of the frail wooden dwellings of any Japanese city\nare works of art; and perhaps no city possesses more charming homes\nthan \u014csaka. Kyoto is, indeed, much richer in gardens,--there being\ncomparatively little space for gardens in \u014csaka; but I am speaking of\nthe houses only. Exteriorly a Japanese street may appear little better\nthan a row of wooden barns or stables, but the interior of any dwelling\nin it may be a wonder of beauty. Usually the outside of a Japanese\nhouse is not at all beautiful, though it may have a certain pleasing\noddity of form; and in many cases the walls of the rear or sides are\ncovered with charred boards, of which the blackened and hardened\nsurfaces are said to resist heat and damp better than any coating of\npaint or stucco could do. Except, perhaps, the outside of a coal-shed,\nnothing dingier-looking could be imagined. But the other side of the\nblack walls may be an aesthetic delight. The comparative cheapness of\nthe residence does not much affect this possibility;--for the Japanese\nexcel all nations in obtaining the maximum of beauty with the minimum\nof cost; while the most industrially advanced of Western peoples--the\npractical Americans--have yet only succeeded in obtaining the minimum\nof beauty with the maximum of cost! Much about Japanese interiors can\nbe learned from Morse's \"Japanese Homes;\" but even that admirable\nbook gives only the black-and-white notion of the subject; and more\nthan half of the charm of such interiors is the almost inexplicable\ncaress of color. To illustrate Mr. Morse's work so as to interpret the\ncolorific charm would be a dearer and a more difficult feat than the\nproduction of Racinet's \"Costumes Historique.\" Even thus the subdued\nluminosity, the tone of perfect repose, the revelations of delicacy\nand daintiness waiting the eye in every nook of chambers seemingly\ncontrived to catch and keep the feeling of perpetual summer, would\nremain unguessed. Five years ago I wrote that a little acquaintance\nwith the Japanese art of flower arrangement had made it impossible for\nme to endure the sight of that vulgarity, or rather brutality, which in\nthe West we call a \"bouquet.\" To-day I must add that familiarity with\nJapanese interiors has equally disgusted me with Occidental interiors,\nno matter how spacious or comfortable or richly furnished. Returning\nnow to Western life, I should feel like Thomas-the-Rhymer revisiting a\nworld of ugliness and sorrow after seven years of fairyland.\n\nIt is possible, as has been alleged (though I cannot believe it),\nthat Western artists have little more to learn from the study of\nJapanese pictorial art. But I am quite sure that our house-builders\nhave universes of facts to learn--especially as regards the treatment\nand tinting of surfaces--from the study of Japanese interiors. Whether\nthe countless styles of these interiors can even be classed appears\nto me a doubtful question. I do not think that in a hundred thousand\nJapanese houses there are two interiors precisely alike (excluding,\nof course, the homes of the poorest classes),--for the designer never\nrepeats himself when he can help it. The lesson he has to teach is the\nlesson of perfect taste combined with inexhaustible variety. Taste!\n--what a rare thing it is in our Western world!--and how independent of\nmaterial,--how intuitive,--how incommunicable to the vulgar! But taste\nis a Japanese birthright. It is everywhere present,--though varying\nin quality of development according to conditions and the inheritance\ndepending upon conditions. The average Occidental recognizes only\nthe commoner forms of it,--chiefly those made familiar by commercial\nexport. And, as a general rule, what the West most admires in Japanese\nconventional taste is thought rather vulgar in Japan. Not that we are\nwrong in admiring whatever is beautiful in itself. Even the designs\nprinted in tints upon a two-cent towel may be really great pictures:\nthey are sometimes made by excellent artists. But the aristocratic\nseverity of the best Japanese taste--the exquisite complexity of\nits refinements in the determination of proportion, quality, tone,\nrestraint--has never yet been dreamed of by the West. Nowhere is this\ntaste so finely exhibited as in private interiors,--particularly in\nregard to color. The rules of color in the composition of a set of\nrooms are not less exacting: than the rules of color in the matter of\ndress,--though permitting considerable variety. The mere tones of a\nprivate house are enough to indicate its owner's degree of culture.\nThere is no painting, no varnishing, no wall-papering,--only staining\nand polishing of particular parts, and a sort of paper border about\nfifteen inches broad fixed along the bottom of a wall to protect it\nduring cleaning and dusting operations. The plastering may be made\nwith sands of different hues, or with fragments of shell and nacre, or\nwith quartz-crystal, or with mica; the surface may imitate granite,\nor may sparkle like copper pyrites, or may look exactly like a rich\nmass of bark; but, whatever the material, the tint given must show the\nsame faultless taste that rules in the tints of silks for robes and\ngirdles. ... As yet, all this interior world of beauty--just because it\nis an interior world--is closed to the foreign tourist: he can find at\nmost only suggestions of it in the rooms of such old-fashioned inns or\ntea-houses as he may visit in the course of his travels.\n\n*\n\nI wonder how many foreign travelers understand the charm of a Japanese\ninn, or even think how much is done to please them, not merely in\nthe matter of personal attentions, but in making beauty for their\neyes. Multitudes write of their petty vexations,--their personal\nacquaintance with fleas, their personal dislikes and discomforts;\nbut how many write of the charm of that alcove where every day fresh\nflowers are placed,--arranged as no European florist could ever learn\nto arrange flowers,--and where there is sure to be some object of real\nart, whether in bronze, lacquer, or porcelain, together with a picture\nsuited to the feeling of the time and season? These little aesthetic\ngratifications, though never charged for, ought to be kindly remembered\nwhen the gift of \"tea-money\" is made. I have been in hundreds of\nJapanese hotels, and I remember only one in which I could find nothing\ncurious or pretty,--a ramshackle shelter hastily put up to catch custom\nat a newly-opened railway station.\n\nA word about the alcove of my room in Osaka:--The wall was covered\nonly with a mixture of sand and metallic filings of some sort, but\nit looked like a beautiful surface of silver ore. To the pillar was\nfastened a bamboo cup containing a pair of exquisite blossoming sprays\nof wistaria,--one pink and the other white. The kakemono--made with a\nfew very bold strokes by a master-brush--pictured two enormous crabs\nabout to fight after vainly trying to get out of each other's way;--and\nthe humor of the thing was enhanced by a few Chinese characters\nsignifying, _W\u014dko-s\u00e9kai,_ or, \"Everything goes crookedly in this world.\"\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nMy last day in \u014csaka was given to shopping,--chiefly in the districts\nof the toy-makers and of the silk merchants. A Japanese acquaintance,\nhimself a shopkeeper, took me about, and showed me extraordinary things\nuntil my eyes ached. We went to a famous silk-house,--a tumultuous\nplace, so crowded that we had some trouble to squeeze our way to the\nfloor-platform, which, in every Japanese shop, serves at once for\nchairs and counter. Scores of barefooted light-limbed boys were running\nover it, bearing bundles of merchandise to customers;--for in such\nshops there is no shelving of stock. The Japanese salesman never leaves\nhis squatting-place on the mats; but, on learning what you want, he\nshouts an order, and boys presently run to you with armfuls of samples.\nAfter you have made your choice, the goods are rolled up again by the\nboys, and carried back into the fire-proof storehouses behind the shop.\nAt the time of our visit, the greater part of the matted floor-space\nwas one splendid shimmering confusion of tossed silks and velvets of a\nhundred colors and a hundred prices. Near the main entrance an elderly\nsuperintendent, plump and jovial of aspect like the God of Wealth,\nlooked after arriving customers. Two keen-eyed men, standing upon an\nelevation in the middle of the shop, and slowly turning round and round\nin opposite directions, kept watch for thieves; and other watchers were\nposted at the side--doors. (Japanese shop-thieves, by the way, are very\nclever; and I am told that nearly every large store loses considerably\nby them in the course of the year.) In a side-wing of the building,\nunder a low skylight, I saw busy ranks of bookkeepers, cashiers, and\ncorrespondents squatting before little desks less than two feet high.\nEach of the numerous salesmen was attending to many customers at\nonce. The rush of business was big; and the rapidity with which the\nwork was being done testified to the excellence of the organization\nestablished. I asked how many persons the firm employed, and my friend\nreplied:--\n\n\"Probably about two hundred here; there are several branch houses. In\nthis shop the work is very hard; but the working-hours are shorter than\nin most of the silk-houses,--not more than twelve hours a day.\"\n\n\"What about salaries?\" I inquired.\n\n\"No salaries.\"\n\n\"Is all the work of this firm done without pay?\"\n\n\"Perhaps one or two of the very cleverest salesmen may get\nsomething,--not exactly a salary, but a little special remuneration\nevery month; and the old superintendent--(he has been forty years in\nthe house)--gets a salary. The rest get nothing but their food.\"\n\n\"Good food?\"\n\n\"No, very cheap, coarse food. After a man has served his time\nhere,--fourteen or fifteen years,--he may be helped to open a small\nstore of his own.\"\n\n\"Are the conditions the same in all the shops of Osaka?\"\n\n\"Yes,--everywhere the same. But now many of the detchi are graduates\nof commercial schools. Those sent to a commercial school begin their\napprenticeship much later; and they are said not to make such good\ndetchi as those taught from childhood.\"\n\n\"A Japanese clerk in a foreign store is much better off.\"\n\n\"We do not think so,\" answered my friend very positively. \"Some who\nspeak English well, and have learned the foreign way of doing business,\nmay get fifty or sixty dollars a month for seven or eight hours' work\na day. But they are not treated the same way as they are treated in\na Japanese house. Clever men do not like to work under foreigners.\nForeigners used to be very cruel to their Japanese clerks and servants.\"\n\n\"But not now?\" I queried.\n\n\"Perhaps not often. They have found that it is dangerous. But they\nused to beat and kick them. Japanese think it shameful to even speak\nunkindly to detchi or servants. In a house like this there is no\nunkindness. The owners and the superintendents never speak roughly. You\nsee how very hard all these men and boys are working without pay. No\nforeigner could get Japanese to work like that, even for big wages. I\nhave worked in foreign houses, and I know.\"\n\n*\n\nIt is not exaggeration to say that most of the intelligent service\nrendered in Japanese trade and skilled industry is unsalaried. Perhaps\none third of the business work of the country is done without wages;\nthe relation between master and servant being one of perfect trust on\nboth sides, and absolute obedience being assured by the simplest of\nmoral conditions. This fact was the fact most deeply impressed upon me\nduring my stay in Osaka.\n\nI found myself wondering about it while the evening train to Nara was\nbearing me away from the cheery turmoil of the great metropolis. I\ncontinued to think of it while watching the deepening of the dusk over\nthe leagues of roofs,--over the mustering of factory chimneys forever\nsending up their offering of smoke to the shrine of good Nintoku.\nSuddenly above the out-twinkling of countless lamps,--above the white\nstar-points of electric lights,--above the growing dusk itself,--I\nsaw, rising glorified into the last red splendor of sunset, the\nmarvelous old pagoda of Tenn\u014dji. And I asked myself whether the faith\nit symbolized had not helped to create that spirit of patience and love\nand trust upon which have been founded all the wealth and energy and\npower of the mightiest city of Japan.\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nBUDDHIST ALLUSIONS IN JAPANESE FOLK-SONG\n\n\nPerhaps only a Japanese representative of the older culture could fully\ninform us to what degree the mental soil of the race has been saturated\nand fertilized by Buddhist idealism. At all events, no European could\ndo so; for to understand the whole relation of Far-Eastern religion\nto Far-Eastern life would require, not only such scholarship, but\nalso such experience as no European could gain in a lifetime. Yet\nfor even the Western stranger there are everywhere signs of what\nBuddhism has been to Japan in the past. All the arts and most of the\nindustries repeat Buddhist legends to the eye trained in symbolism;\nand there is scarcely an object of handiwork possessing any beauty or\nsignificance of form--from the plaything of a child to the heirloom\nof a prince--which does not in some way proclaim the ancient debt to\nBuddhism of the craft that made it. One may discern Buddhist thoughts\nin the cheap cotton prints from an Osaka mill not less than in the\nfigured silks of Kyoto. The reliefs upon an iron kettle, or the\nelephant-heads of bronze making the handles of a shopkeeper's _hibachi_\nthe patterns of screen-paper, or the commonest ornamental woodwork\nof a gateway--the etchings upon a metal pipe, or the enameling upon\na costly vase,--may all relate, with equal eloquence, the traditions\nof faith. There are reflections or echoes of Buddhist teaching in the\ncomposition of a garden;--in the countless ideographs of the long\nvistas of shop-signs;--in the wonderfully expressive names given to\ncertain fruits and flowers;--in the appellations of mountains, capes,\nwaterfalls, villages,--even of modern railway stations. And the new\ncivilization would not yet seem to have much affected the influence\nthus manifested. Trains and steamers now yearly carry to famous shrines\nmore pilgrims than visited them ever before in a twelvemonth;--the\ntemple bells still, in despite of clocks and watches, mark the\npassing of time for the millions;--the speech of the people is still\npoetized with Buddhist utterances;--literature and drama still teem\nwith Buddhist expressions;--and the most ordinary voices of the\nstreet--songs of children playing, a chorus of laborers at their toil,\neven cries of itinerant street-venders--often recall to me some story\nof saints and Bodhisattvas, or the text of some sutra.\n\nSuch an experience first gave me the idea of making a collection of\nsongs containing Buddhist expressions or allusions. But in view of\nthe extent of the subject I could not at once decide where to begin.\nA bewildering variety of Japanese songs--a variety of which the mere\nnomenclature would occupy pages--offers material of this description.\nAmong noteworthy kinds may be mentioned the _Utai,_ dramatic songs,\nmostly composed by high priests, of which probably no ten lines are\nwithout some allusion to Buddhism;--the _Naga-uta,_ songs often of\nextraordinary length;--and the _J\u014druri,_ whole romances in verse, with\nwhich professional singers can delight their audiences for five or six\nhours at a time. The mere dimension of such compositions necessarily\nexcluded them from my plan; but there remained a legion of briefer\nforms to choose among. I resolved at last to limit my undertaking\nmainly to _dodoitsu_,--little songs of twenty-six syllables only,\narranged in four lines (7, 7, 7, 5). They are more regular in\nconstruction than the street-songs treated of in a former paper; but\nthey are essentially popular, and therefore more widely representative\nof Buddhist influences than many superior kinds of composition could\nbe. Out of a very large number collected for me, I have selected\nbetween forty and fifty as typical of the class.\n\n*\n\nPerhaps those pieces which reflect the ideas of pre\u00ebxistence and of\nfuture rebirths will prove especially interesting to the Western\nreader,--much less because of poetical worth than because of\ncomparative novelty. We have very little English verse of any class\ncontaining fancies of this kind; but they swarm in Japanese poetry\neven as commonplaces and conventionalisms. Such an exquisite thing\nas Rossetti's \"Sudden Light,\"--bewitching us chiefly through the\npenetrative subtlety of a thought anathematized by all our orthodoxies\nfor eighteen hundred years,--could interest a Japanese only as the\nexceptional rendering, by an Occidental, of fancies and feelings\nfamiliar to the most ignorant peasant. Certainly no one will be able to\nfind in these Japanese verses--or, rather, in my own wretchedly prosy\ntranslations of them--even a hint of anything like the ghostly delicacy\nof Rossetti's imagining:--\n\n        I have been here before,--\n          But when or how I cannot tell:\n        I know the grass beyond the door,\n          The sweet, keen smell,\n    The sighing sound, the lights along the shore.\n\n        You have been mine before,--\n          How long ago I may not know:\n        But just when at that swallow's soar\n          Your neck turned so,\n    Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore.\n\nYet what a queer _living_ difference between such enigmatically\ndelicate handling of thoughts classed as forbidden fruit in the Western\nEden of Dreams and the every-day Japanese utterances that spring\ndirectly out of ancient Eastern faith!--\n\n    _Love, it is often said, has nothing to do with reason._\n    _The cause of ours must be some_ En _in a previous birth._[1]\n\n\n[Footnote 1:\n\n    Iro wa shian no\n    Hoka to-wa i\u00e9do,\n    Kor\u00e9 mo saki-sho no\n          En de ar\u014d.\n\n\"En\" is a Buddhist word signifying affinity,--relation of cause and\neffect from life to life.]\n\n\n    _Even the knot of the rope tying our boats together_\n    _Knotted was long ago by some love in a former birth._\n\n\n    _If the touching even of sleeves be through En of a former\n    existence,_\n    _Very much deeper must be the_ En _that unites us now!_[2]\n\n\n[Footnote 2:\n\n    Sod\u00e9 suri-\u014d no mo\n    Tash\u014d no en yo,\n    Mashit\u00e9 futari ga\n          Fukai naka.\n\nAllusion is here made to the old Buddhist proverb: _Sod\u00e9 no furi-awas\u00e9\nmo tash\u014d no en,--_\"Even the touching of sleeves in passing is caused by\nsome affinity operating from former lives.\"]\n\n\n    Kwah\u014d[3] _this life must be,--this dwelling with one so tender;_\n    _--I am reaping now the reward of deeds in a former birth!_\n\n\n[Footnote 3: The Buddhist word \"Kwah\u014d\" is commonly used instead of\nother synonyms for Karma (such as ingwa, innen, etc.), to signify the\ngood, rather than the bad results of action in previous lives. But it\nis sometimes used in both meanings. Here there seems to be an allusion\nto the proverbial expression, _Kwah\u014d no yoi hito_ (lit.: a person of\ngood Kwah\u014d), meaning a fortunate individual.]\n\nMany songs of this class refer to the customary vow which lovers\nmake to belong to each other for more lives than one,--a vow perhaps\noriginally inspired by the Buddhist aphorism,--\n\n    _Oya-ko wa, is-s\u00e9;_\n    _F\u016bfu wa, ni-s\u00e9;_\n    _Shuj\u016b wa, san-z\u00e9._\n\n\"The relation of parent and child is for one life; that of wife and\nhusband, for two lives; that of master and servant, for three lives.\"\nAlthough the tender relation is thus limited to the time of two lives,\nthe vow--(as Japanese dramas testify, and as the letters of those who\nkill themselves for love bear witness)--is often passionately made\nfor seven. The following selections show a considerable variety of\ntone,--ranging from the pathetic to the satirical,--in the treatment of\nthis topic:\n\n    _I have cut my hair for his sake; but the deeper relation between us_\n    _Cannot be cut in this, nor yet in another life._[4]\n\n[Footnote 4:\n\n    Kami wa kitt\u00e9 mo\n    Ni-s\u00e9 made kaketa\n    Fukai enishi wa\n        Kiru mono ka?\n\nLiterally: \"Hair have-cut although, two existences until, deep\nrelation, cut-how-can-it-be?\" By the mention of the hair-cutting\nwe know the speaker is a woman. Her husband, or possibly betrothed\nlover, is dead; and, according to the Buddhist custom, she signifies\nher desire to remain faithful to his memory by the sacrifice of her\nhair. For detailed information on this subject see, in my _Glimpses of\nUnfamiliar Japan,_ the chapter, \"Of Women's Hair.\"]\n\n    _She looks at the portrait of him to whom for two lives she is\n    promised:_\n    _Happy remembrances come, and each brings a smile to her\n    face._[5]\n\n\n[Footnote 5:\n\n    Ni-s\u00e9 to chigirishi\n    Shashin we nagam\u00e9\n    Omoi-idashit\u00e9\n          Warai-gao.\n\nLit.: \"Two existences that made alliance, photograph look-at, thinking\nbring-out smiling face.\" The use of the term _shashin,_ photograph,\nshows that the poem is not old.]\n\n\n    _If in this present life we never can hope for union,_\n    _Then we shall first keep house in the Lotos-Palace beyond._[6]\n\n\n[Footnote 6:\n\n    Tot\u00e9mo kono yo d\u00e9\n    Sowar\u00e9-nu naraba\n    Hasu no ut\u00e9na d\u00e9\n          Ara s\u0117tai.\n\nLit.: \"By-any-means, this-world-in, cannot-live-together if, Lotos-of\nPalace-in, new-housekeeping.\" It is with this thought that lovers\nvoluntarily die together; and the song might be called a song of\n_j\u014dshi._]\n\n\n    _Have we not spoken the vow that binds for a double existence?_\n    _If we must separate now, I can only wish to die._\n\n\n    _There!--oh, what shall we do?... Pledged for a double\n    existence,--_\n    _And now, as we sit together, the string of the samisen snaps!_[7]\n\n\n[Footnote 7: Among singing-girls it is believed that the snapping of a\nsamisen-string under such circumstances as those indicated in the above\nsong is an omen of coming separation.]\n\n\n    _He woos by teaching the Law of Cause and Effect for three lives,_\n    _And makes a contract for two--the crafty-smiling priest!_[8]\n\n\n[Footnote 8: This song is of a priest who breaks the vow of celibacy.]\n\n\nEvery mortal has lived and is destined to live countless lives; yet the\nhappy moments of any single existence are not therefore less precious\nin themselves:--\n\n    _Not to have met one night is verily cause for sorrow;_\n    _Since twice in a single birth the same night never comes._\n\nBut even as a summer unusually warm is apt to herald a winter of\nexceptional severity, so too much happiness in this life may signify\ngreat suffering in the next:--\n\n    _Always I suffer thus!... Methinks, in my last existence._\n    _Too happy I must have been,--did not suffer enough._\n\nNext in point of exotic interest to the songs expressing belief in\npre\u00ebxistence and rebirth, I think I should place those treating of the\ndoctrine of _ingwa,_ or Karma. I offer some free translations from\nthese, together with one selection from a class of compositions more\nelaborate and usually much longer than the _dodoitsu,_ called _hauta._\nIn the original, at least, my selection from the _hauta--_which\ncontains a charming simile about the firefly--is by far the prettiest:--\n\n    _Weep not!--turn to me!... Nay, all my suspicions vanish!_\n    _Forgive me those words unkind: some_ ingwa _controlled my tongue!_\n\nEvidently this is the remorseful pleading of a jealous lover. The next\nmight be the answer of the girl whose tears he had caused to flow:\n\n    _I cannot imagine at all by what strange manner of ingwa_\n    _Came I to fall in love with one so unkind as you!_\n\nOr she might exclaim:--\n\n_Is this the turning of_ En?--_am I caught in the Wheel of\nKarma?_\n_That, alas! is a wheel not to be moved from the rut!_[9]\n\n\n[Footnote 9:\n\n    Meguru en kaya?\n    Kuruma no watashi\n    Hiku ni hikar\u00e9nu\n          Kono ingwa.\n\nThere is a play on words in the original which I have not attempted\nto render. The idea is of an unhappy match--either betrothal or\nmarriage--from which the woman wishes to withdraw when too late.]\n\n\nA more remarkable reference to the Wheel of Karma is the following:--\n\n    _Father and mother forbade, and so I gave up my lover;_\n    _--Yet still, with the whirl of the Wheel, the thought of him comes\n    and goes._[10]\n\n\n[Footnote 10:\n\n    Oya no iken d\u00e9\n    Akirameta no we\n    Mata mo rin-y\u00e9 d\u00e9\n          Omoi-dasu.\n\n\nThe Buddhist word _Rin-y\u00e9,_ or _Rinten,_ has the meaning of \"turning\nthe Wheel,\"--another expression for passing from birth to birth. The\nWheel here is the great Circle of Illusion,--the whirl of Karma.]\n\nThis is a _hauta_:--\n\n    _Numberless insects there are that call from dawn to evening,_\n    _Crying, \"I love! I love!\"--but the Firefly's silent passion,_\n    _Making its body burn, is deeper than all their longing._\n    _Even such is my love ... yet I cannot think through what_ ingwa\n    _I opened my heart--alas!--to a being not sincere!_[11]\n\n\n[Footnote 11:\n\n    Ka\u00e4i, ka\u00e4i to\n    Naku mushi yori mo\n    Nakanu hotaru ga\n    Mi we kogasu.\n    Nanno ingwa d\u00e9\n    Jitsu naki hito ni\n    Shin we akashit\u00e9,--\n          Aa kuyashi!\n\nLit.: \"'I-love-I-love'-saying-cry-insects than, better\nnever-cry-firefly, body scorch! What Karma because-of,\nsincerity-not-is-man to, inmost-mind opened?--ah! regret!\" ... It was\nformerly believed that the firefly's light really burned its own body.]\n\n\nIf the foregoing seem productions possible only to our psychological\nantipodes, it is quite otherwise with a group of folk-songs reflecting\nthe doctrine of Impermanency. Concerning the instability of all\nmaterial things, and the hollowness of all earthly pleasures, Christian\nand Buddhist thought are very much in accord. The great difference\nbetween them appears only when we compare their teaching as to things\nghostly,--and especially as to the nature of the Ego. But the Oriental\ndoctrine that the Ego itself is an impermanent compound, and that the\nSelf is not the true Consciousness, rarely finds expression in these\npopular songs. For the common people the Self exists: it is a real\n(though multiple) personality that passes from birth to birth. Only the\neducated Buddhist comprehends the deeper teaching that what we imagine\nto be Self is wholly illusion,--a darkening veil woven by Karma; and\nthat there is no Self but the Infinite Self, the eternal Absolute.\nIn the following _dodoitsu_ will be found mostly thoughts or emotions\naccording with universal experience:--\n\n_Gathering clouds to the moon;--storm and rain to the flowers:_\n_Somehow this world of woe never is just as we like._[12]\n\n\n[Footnote 12:\n\n    Tsuki ni murakumo,\n    Hana ni wa arashi:\n    Tokaku uki-yo wa\n          Mama naranu.\n\nThis song especially refers to unhappy love, and contains the\nsubstance of two Buddhist proverbs: _Tsuki ni murakumo, hana ni kaz\u00e9_\n(cloud-masses to the moon; wind to flowers); and _Mama ni naranu wa\nuki-yo no narai_ (to be disappointed is the rule in this miserable\nworld). \"Uki-yo\" (this fleeting or unhappy world) is one of the\ncommonest Buddhist terms in use.]\n\n\n    _Almost as soon as they bloom, the scented flowers of the plum-tree_\n    _By the wind of this world of change are scattered and blown away._\n\n\n_Thinking to-morrow remains, thou heart's frail flower-of-cherry?_\n_How knowest whether this night the tempest will not come?_[13]\n\n\n[Footnote 13:\n\n        Asu ari to\n    Om\u014d kokoro no\n        Ada-zakura:\n    Yo wa ni arashi no\n    Fukanu monokawa?\n\nLit.: \"To-morrow-is that think heart-of perishable-cherry flower:\nthis-night-in-storm blow-not, is-it-certain?\"]\n\n\n    _Shadow and shape alike melt and flow back to nothing:_\n    _He who knows this truth is the Daruma of snow._[14]\n\n[Footnote 14:\n\n    Kag\u00e9 mo katachi mo\n    Kiyur\u00e9ba moto no\n    Midzu to satoru zo\n    Yuki-Daruma.\n\nLit.: \"Shadow and shape also, if-melt-away, original-water\nis,--that-understands Snow-Daruma.\" Daruma (Dharma), the twenty-eighth\npatriarch of the Zen sect, is said to have lost his legs through\nremaining long in the posture of meditation; and many legless\ntoy-figures, which are so balanced that they will always assume an\nupright position however often placed upside-down, are called by his\nname. The snow-men made by Japanese children have the same traditional\nform.--The Japanese friend who helped me to translate these verses,\ntells me that a ghostly meaning attaches to the word \"Kag\u00e9\" [shadow] in\nthe above;--this would give a much more profound signification to the\nwhole verse.]\n\n\n    _As the moon of the fifteenth night, the heart till the age fifteen:_\n    _Then the brightness wanes, and the darkness comes with love._[15]\n\n\n[Footnote 15: According to the old calendar, there was always a full\nmoon on the fifteenth of the month. The Buddhist allusion in the verse\nis to _mayoi,_ the illusion of passion, which is compared to a darkness\nconcealing the Right Way.]\n\n\n    _All things change, we are told, in this world of change and sorrow;_\n    _But love's way never changes of promising never to change._[16]\n\n\n[Footnote 16:\n\n    Kawaru uki-yo ni\n    Kawaranu mono wa\n    Kawarumai to no\n          Koi no michi.\n\nLit.: \"Change changeable-world-in, does-not-change that-which,\n'We-will-never-change'-saying of Love-of Way.\"]\n\n\n_Cruel the beautiful flash,--utterly heartless that lightning!_ _Before\none can look even twice it vanishes wholly away!_[17]\n\n\n[Footnote 17:\n\n    Honni tsur\u00e9nai\n    Ano inadzuma wa\n    Futa m\u00e9 minu uchi\n    Kiy\u00e9t\u00e9 yuku.\n\nThe Buddhist saying, _Inadzuma no hikari, ishi no hi_ (lightning-flash\nand flint-spark),--symbolizing the temporary nature of all\npleasures,--is here playfully referred to. The song complains of a too\nbrief meeting with sweet-heart or lover.]\n\n\n    _His very sweetness itself makes my existence a burden!_\n    _Truly this world of change is a world of constant woe!_[18]\n\n\n[Footnote 18: Words of a loving but jealous woman, thus interpreted\nby my Japanese friend: \"The more kind he is, the more his kindness\noverwhelms me with anxiety lest he be equally tender to other girls who\nmay also fall in love with him.\"]\n\n\n    _Neither for youth nor age is fixed the life of the body;_\n    _--Bidding me wait for a time is the word that forever divides._[19]\n\n\n[Footnote 19:\n\n    R\u014d-sh\u014d fuj\u014d no\n    Mi d\u00e9 ari nagara,\n    Jisetsu mat\u00e9 to wa\n    Kir\u00e9-kotoba.\n\nLit.: \"Old-young not-fixed-of body being, time-wait to-say,\ncutting-word.\" Ro-sh\u014d fuj\u014d is a Buddhist phrase. The meaning of the\nsong is: \"Since all things in this world are uncertain, asking me to\nwait for our marriage-day means that you do not really love me;--for\neither of us might die before the time you speak of.\"]\n\n\n    _Only too well I know that to meet will cause more weeping;_[20]\n    _Yet never to meet at all were sorrow too great to bear._\n\n\n[Footnote 20: Allusion is made to the Buddhist text, _Sh\u014dja hitsu\nmetsu, esha j\u014dri_ (\"Whosoever is born must die, and all who meet\nmust as surely part\"), and to the religious phrase, _Ai betsu ri ku_\n(\"Sorrow of parting and pain of separation\").]\n\n\n    _Too joyful in union to think, we forget that the smiles of the\n    evening_\n    _Sometimes themselves become the sources of morning-tears._\n\nYet, notwithstanding the doctrine of impermanency, we are told in\nanother _dodoitsu_ that--\n\n    _He who was never bewitched by the charming smile of a woman,_\n    _A wooden Buddha is he--a Buddha of bronze or stone!_[21]\n\n\n[Footnote 21: Much more amusing in the original:--\n\n    Adana \u00e9-gao ni\n    Mayowanu mono wa\n    Ki-Butsu,--kana-Butsu,--\n          Ishi-botok\u00e9\n\"Charming-smile-by bewildered-not, he-as-for, wood-Buddha,\nmetal-Buddha, stone-Buddha!\" The term \"Ishi-botok\u00e9\"\nespecially refers to the stone images of the Buddha\nplaced in cemeteries.--This song is sung in every part of\nJapan; I have heard it many times in different places.]\n\n\nAnd why a Buddha of wood, or bronze, or stone? Because the living\nBuddha was not so insensible, as we are assured, with jocose\nirreverence, in the following:--\n\n    _\"Forsake this fitful world\"!_--\n\n                     {_Lord Buddha's_}\n    _that was_     _or_          _teaching!_\n                     {_upside-down_  }\n\n    _And Ragora,[22] son of his loins?--was he forgotten indeed?_\n\nThere is an untranslatable pun in the original, which, if written in\nRomaji, would run thus:--\n\n    Uki-yo we sut\u00e9yo t'a\n           {Shaka Sama}\n    Sorya               yo\n           {saka-sama }\n    Ragora to i\u016b ko we\n           Wasur\u00e9t\u00e9 ka?\n\n_Shakamuni_ is the Japanese rendering of \"Sakyamuni;\" \"Shaka Sama\" is\ntherefore \"Lord Sakya,\" or \"Lord Buddha.\" But _saka-sama_ is a Japanese\nword meaning \"topsy-turvy,\" \"upside down;\" and the difference between\nthe pronunciation of Shaka Sama and _saka-sama_ is slight enough to\nhave suggested the pun. Love in suspense is not usually inclined to\nreverence.\n\n[Footnote 22: R\u00e2hula.]\n\n\n    _Even while praying together in front of the tablets ancestral,_\n    _Lovers find chance to murmur prayers never meant for the dead!_[23]\n\n\n\nAnd as for interrupters:--\n\n    _Hateful the wind or rain that ruins the bloom of flowers:_\n    _Even more hateful far who obstructs the way of love._\n\nYet the help of the Gods is earnestly besought:--\n\n    _I make my_ hyaku-d\u014d, _traveling Love's dark pathway._\n    _Ever praying to meet the owner of my heart._[24]\n\n[Footnote 23:\n\n    Ek\u014d suru tot\u00e9\n    Hotok\u00e9 no ma\u00e9 y\u00e9\n    Futari mukait\u00e9,\n          Konab\u00e9 dat\u00e9.\n\nLit.: \"Repeat prayers saying, dead-of-presence-in twain\nfacing,--small-pan cooking!\" _Hotok\u00e9_ means a dead person as well\nas a Buddha. (See my _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan:_ \"The Household\nShrine\")-_Konab\u00e9-dat\u00e9_ is an idiomatic expression signifying a\nlovers' t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate. It is derived from the phrase, _Chin-chin kamo\nnab\u00e9_(\"cooking a wild duck in a pan\"),--the idea suggested being that\nof the pleasure experienced by an amorous couple in eating out of the\nsame dish. _Chin-chin,_ an onomatope, expresses the sound of the gravy\nboiling.]\n\n[Footnote 24: To perform the rite called \"o-hyaku-d\u014d\" means to make one\nhundred visits to a temple, saying a prayer each time. The expression\n\"dark way of Love\" _(koi no yami_ or _yamiji)_ is a Buddhist phrase;\nlove, being due to _mayoi,_ or illusion, is a state of spiritual\ndarkness. The term \"owner of my heart\" is an attempted rendering of\nthe Japanese word _nushi,_ signifying \"master,\" \"owner,\"--often, also,\n\"landlord,\"--and, in love-matters, the lord or master of the affection\ninspired.]\n\n\nThe interest attaching to the following typical group of love-songs\nwill be found to depend chiefly upon the Buddhist allusions:--\n\n    _In the bed of the River of Souls, or in waiting alone at evening,_\n    _The pain differs nothing at all: to a mountain the pebble grows._[25]\n\n    _Who furthest after illusion wanders on Love's dark pathway_\n    _Is ever the clearest-seeing,[26] not the simple or dull._\n\n\n[Footnote 25:\n\n     Sai-no-kawara to\n    Nushi matsu yoi wa\n    Koishi, koishi ga\n        Yama to naru.\n\nA more literal translation would be: \"In the Sai-no-Kawara ('Dry bed\nof the River of Souls') and in the evening when waiting for the loved\none, '_Koishi, Koishi_' becomes a mountain.\" There is a delicate pun\nhere,--a play on the word _Koishi,_ which, as pronounced, though not\nas written, may mean either \"a small stone,\" or \"longing to see.\" In\nthe bed of the phantom river, Sai-no-Kawa, the ghosts of children are\nobliged to pile up little stones, the weight of which increases so as\nto tax their strength to the utmost. There is a reference here also\nto a verse in the Buddhist _wasan_ of Jiz\u014d, describing the crying of\nthe children for their parents: _\"Chichi koishi! haha koishi!_\" (See\n_Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan,_ vol. i. pp. 59-61.)]\n\n[Footnote 26: Clearest-sighted,--that is, in worldly matters.]\n\n\n    _Coldly seen from without our love looks utter folly:_\n    _Who never has felt_ mayoi _never could understand!_\n\n    _Countless the men must be who dwell in three thousand worlds;_\n    _Yet among them all is none worthy to change for mine._[27]\n\n    _However fickle I seem, my heart is never unfaithful:_\n    _Out of the slime itself, spotless the lotos grows._[28]\n\n    _So that we stay together, even the Hell of the Blood Lake--_\n    _Even the Mountain of Swords--will signify nothing at all?_[29]\n\n[Footnote 27:\n\n    San-zen s\u00e9kai ni\n    Otoko wa ar\u00e9do,\n    Nushi ni mi-kayeru\n    Hito wa nai.\n\n\"San-zen s\u00e9kai,\" the three thousand worlds, is a common\nBuddhist expression. Literally translated, the above song runs:\n\"Three-thousand-worlds-in men are, but lover-to-exchange person is\nnot.\"]\n\n[Footnote 28: The familiar Buddhist simile is used more significantly\nhere than the Western reader might suppose from the above rendering.\nThese are supposed to be the words either of a professional\nsinging-girl or of a _jor\u014d_. Her calling is derisively termed a\n_doro-midzu kagy\u014d_ (\"foul-water occupation\"); and her citation of\nthe famous Buddhist comparison in self-defense is particularly, and\npathetically, happy.]\n\n[Footnote 29:\n\n    Chi-no-Ik\u00e9-Jigoku mo,\n    Tsurugi-no-Yama mo,\n    Futari-dzur\u00e9 nara\n    Itoi 'a s\u00e9nu.\n\nThe Hell of the Blood-Lake is a hell for women; and the Mountain of\nSwords is usually depicted in Buddhist prints as a place of infernal\npunishment for men in especial.]\n\n\n    _Not yet indeed is my body garbed in the ink-black habit;_\n    _--But as for this heart bereaved, already it is a nun._[30]\n\n    _My hair, indeed, is uncut; but my heart has become a religious;_\n    _A nun it shall always be till the hour I meet him again._\n\nBut even the priest or nun is not always exempt from the power of\n_mayoi_:--\n\n    _I am wearing the sable garb,--and yet, through illusion of longing,_\n    _Ever I lose my way,--knowing not whither or where!_\n\nSo far, my examples have been principally chosen from the more serious\nclass of _dodoitsu._ But in _dodoitsu_ of a lighter class the Buddhist\nallusions are perhaps even more frequent. The following group of five\nwill serve for specimens of hundreds:--\n\n\n[Footnote 30: In the original much more pretty and much more simple:--\n\n    Sumi no koromo ni\n    Mi wa yatsusanedo,\n    Kokoro hitotsu wa\n          Ama-h\u014dshi.\n\n\"Ink-black-_koromo_ [priest's or nun's outer robe] in, body not clad,\nbut heart-one nun.\" _Hitotsu,_ \"one,\" also means \"solitary,\" \"forlorn,\"\n\"bereaved.\" _Ama h\u014dshi,_ lit.: \"nun-priest.\"]\n\n\n    _Never can be recalled the word too quickly spoken:_\n    _Therefore with Emma's face the lover receives the prayer._[31]\n\n    _Thrice did I hear that prayer with Buddha's face; but hereafter_\n    _My face shall be Emma's face because of too many prayers._\n\n    _Now they are merry together; but under their boat is_ Jigoku.[32]\n    _Blow quickly, thou river-wind,--blow a typhoon for my sake!_\n\n    _Vainly, to make him stay, I said that the crows were night crows;_[33]--\n    _The bell of the dawn peals doom,--the bell that cannot lie._\n\n\n[Footnote 31: The implication is that he has hastily promised more\nthan he wishes to perform. Emma, or Yemma (Sansc. Yama), is the Lord\nof Hell and Judge of Souls; and, as depicted in Buddhist sculpture\nand painting, is more than fearful to look upon. There is an evident\nreference in this song to the Buddhist proverb: _Karu-toki no\nJiz\u014d-gao; nasu-toki no Emma-gao_ (\"Borrowing-time, the face of Jiz\u014d;\nrepaying-time, the face of Emma\").]\n\n[Footnote 32: \"Jigoku\" is the Buddhist name for various hells (Sansc.\n_narakas)._ The allusion here is to the proverb, _Funa-ita ichi-mai\nshita wa Jigoku:_ \"Under [_the thickness of] a_ single boat-plank is\nhell,\"--referring to the perils of the sea. This song is a satire on\njealousy; and the boat spoken of is probably a roofed pleasure-boat,\nsuch as excursions are made into the sound of music.]\n\n[Footnote 33: _Tsuki-yo-garasu,_ lit.: \"moon-night crows.\" Crows\nusually announce the dawn by their cawing; but sometimes on moonlight\nnights they caw at all hours from sunset to sunrise. The bell referred\nto is the bell of some Buddhist temple: the _ak\u00e9-no-kane,_ or\n\"dawn-bell,\" being, in all parts of Japan, sounded from every Buddhist\n_tera._ There is a pun in the original;--the expression _tsukenai,_\n\"cannot _tell_ (a lie),\" might also be interpreted phonetically as\n\"cannot _strike_ [a bell].\"]\n\n\n    _This my desire: To kill the crows of three thousand worlds,_\n    _And then to repose in peace with the owner of my heart!_[34]\n\n\n[Footnote 34:\n\n    San-zen s\u00e9kai no\n    Karasu we koroshi\n    Nushi to soi-n\u00e9 ga\n          Shit\u00e9 mitai\n]\n\nI have cited this last only as a curiosity. For it has a strange\nhistory, and is not what it seems,--although the apparent motive was\ncertainly suggested by some song like the one immediately preceding\nit. It is a song of loyalty, and was composed by Kido of Ch\u014d-sh\u016b,\none of the leaders in that great movement which brought about the\ndownfall of the Sh\u014dgunate, the restoration of the Imperial power, the\nreconstruction of Japanese society, and the introduction and adoption\nof Western civilization. Kido, Saig\u014d, and \u014ckubo are rightly termed the\nthree heroes of the restoration. While preparing his plans at Ky\u014dto, in\ncompany with his friend Saig\u014d, Kido composed and sang this song as an\nintimation of his real sentiments. By the phrase, \"ravens of the three\nthousand worlds,\" he designated the Tokugawa partisans; by the word\n_nushi_ (lord, or heart's-master) he signified the Emperor; and by the\nterm _soin\u00e9_ (reposing together) he referred to the hoped-for condition\nof direct responsibility to the Throne, without further intervention\nof Sh\u014dgun and daimy\u014d. It was not the first example in Japanese history\nof the use of popular song as a medium for the utterance of opinions\nwhich, expressed in plainer language, would have invited assassination.\n\n*\n\nWhile I was writing the preceding note upon Kido's song, the Buddhist\nphrase, _San-zen s\u00e9kai_ (twice occurring, as the reader will have\nobserved, in the present collection), suggested a few reflections with\nwhich this paper may fitly conclude. I remember that when I first\nattempted, years ago, to learn the outlines of Buddhist philosophy, one\nfact which particularly impressed me was the vastness of the Buddhist\nconcept of the universe. Buddhism, as I read it, had not offered\nitself to humanity as a saving creed for one inhabited world, but\nas the religion of \"innumerable hundreds of thousands of myriads of\n_k\u00f4tis_[35] of worlds.\" And the modern scientific revelation of stellar\nevolution and dissolution then seemed to me, and still seems, like a\nprodigious confirmation of certain Buddhist theories of cosmical law.\n\nThe man of science to-day cannot ignore the enormous suggestions of\nthe new story that the heavens are telling. He finds himself compelled\nto regard the development of what we call mind as a general phase or\nincident in the ripening of planetary life throughout the universe.\nHe is obliged to consider the relation of our own petty sphere to the\ngreat swarming of suns and systems as no more than the relation of a\nsingle noctiluca to the phosphorescence of a sea. By its creed the\nOriental intellect has been better prepared than the Occidental to\naccept this tremendous revelation, not as a wisdom that increaseth\nsorrow, but as a wisdom to quicken faith. And I cannot but think that\nout of the certain future union of Western knowledge with Eastern\nthought there must eventually proceed a Neo-Buddhism inheriting all\nthe strength of Science, yet spiritually able to recompense the seeker\nafter truth with the recompense foretold in the twelfth chapter of\nthe Sutra of the Diamond-Cutter. Taking the text as it stands,--in\ndespite of commentators,--what more could be unselfishly desired from\nany spiritual teaching than the reward promised in that verse,--\"_They\nshall be endowed with the Highest Wonder\"?_\n\n\n[Footnote 35: 1 k\u00f4ti = 10,000,000.]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nNIRVANA\n\n\nA STUDY IN SYNTHETIC BUDDHISM\n\n\nI\n\n    \"It is not possible, O Subh\u00fbti, that this treatise of the\n    Law should be heard by beings of little faith,--by those\n    who believe in Self, in beings, in living beings, and in\n    persons.\"--_The Diamond-Cutter._\n\nThere still widely prevails in Europe and America the idea that Nirvana\nsignifies, to Buddhist minds, neither more nor less than absolute\nnothingness,--complete annihilation. This idea is erroneous. But it\nis erroneous only because it contains half of a truth. This half of a\ntruth has no value or interest, or even intelligibility, unless joined\nwith the other half. And of the other half no suspicion yet exists in\nthe average Western mind.\n\nNirvana, indeed, signifies an extinction. But if by this extinction of\nindividual being we understand soul-death, our conception of Nirvana\nis wrong. Or if we take Nirvana to mean such reabsorption of the finite\ninto the infinite as that predicted by Indian pantheism, again our idea\nis foreign to Buddhism.\n\nNevertheless, if we declare that Nirvana means the extinction of\nindividual sensation, emotion, thought,--the final disintegration of\nconscious personality,--the annihilation of everything that can be\nincluded under the term \"I,\"--then we rightly express one side of the\nBuddhist teaching.\n\n*\n\nThe apparent contradiction of the foregoing statements is due only to\nour Occidental notion of Self. Self to us signifies feelings, ideas,\nmemory, volition; and it can scarcely occur to any person not familiar\nwith German idealism even to imagine that consciousness might not\nbe Self. The Buddhist, on the contrary, declares all that we call\nSelf to be false. He defines the Ego as a mere temporary aggregate\nof sensations, impulses, ideas, created by the physical and mental\nexperiences of the race,--all related to the perishable body, and\nall doomed to dissolve with it. What to Western reasoning seems the\nmost indubitable of realities, Buddhist reasoning pronounces the\ngreatest of all illusions, and even the source of all sorrow and sin.\n\"_The mind, the thoughts, and all the senses are subject to the law\nof life and death. With knowledge of Self and the laws of birth and\ndeath, there is no grasping, and no sense-perception. Knowing one's\nself and knowing how the senses act, there is no room for the idea of\nor the ground for framing it The thought of 'Self' gives rise to all\nsorrows,--binding the world as with fetters; but having found there is\nno 'I' that can be bound, then all these bonds are severed._\"[1]\n\nThe above text suggests very plainly that the consciousness is not the\nReal Self, and that the mind dies with the body. Any reader unfamiliar\nwith Buddhist thought may well ask, \"What, then, is the meaning of the\ndoctrine of Karma, the doctrine of moral progression, the doctrine\nof the consequence of acts?\" Indeed, to try to study, only with the\nontological ideas of the West, even such translations of the Buddhist\nSutras as those given in the \"Sacred Books of the East,\" is to be at\nevery page confronted by seemingly hopeless riddles and contradictions.\nWe find a doctrine of rebirth; but the existence of a soul is denied.\nWe are told that the misfortunes of this life are punishments of faults\ncommitted in a previous life; yet personal transmigration does not take\nplace. We find the statement that beings are reindividualized; yet both\nindividuality and personality are called illusions. I doubt whether\nanybody not acquainted with the deeper forms of Buddhist belief could\npossibly understand the following extracts which I have made from the\nfirst volume of \"The Questions of King Milinda:\"--\n\n*\n\nThe King said: \"Nagasena, is there any one who after death is\nnot reindividualized?\" Nagasena answered: \"A sinful being is\nreindividualized; a sinless one is not.\" (p. 50.)\n\n\"Is there, Nagasena, such a thing as the soul?\" \"There is no such thing\nas soul.\" (pp. 86-89.) [The same statement is repeated in a later\nchapter (p. 111), with a qualification: \"_In the highest sense,_ O\nKing, there is no such thing.\"]\n\n\"Is there any being, Nagasena, who transmigrates from this body to\nanother?\" \"No: there is not.\" (p. 112.)\n\n\"Where there is no transmigration, Nagasena, can there be rebirth?\"\n\"Yes: there can.\"\n\n\"Does he, Nagasena, who is about to be reborn, know that he will be\nreborn?\" \"Yes: he knows it, O King.\" (p. 113.)\n\nNaturally the Western reader may ask,--\"How can there be\nreindividualization without a soul? How can there be rebirth without\ntransmigration? How can there be personal foreknowledge of rebirth\nwithout personality?\" But the answers to such questions will not be\nfound in the work cited.\n\nIt would be wrong to suppose that the citations given offer any\nexceptional difficulty. As to the doctrine of the annihilation of\nSelf, the testimony of nearly all those Buddhist texts now accessible\nto English readers is overwhelming. Perhaps the Sutra of the Great\nDecease furnishes the most remarkable evidence contained in the\n\"Sacred Books of the East.\" In its account of the Eight Stages of\nDeliverance leading to Nirvana, it explicitly describes what we should\nbe justified in calling, from our Western point of view, the process\nof absolute annihilation. We are told that in the first of these\neight stages the Buddhist seeker after truth still retains the ideas\nof form--subjective and objective. In the second stage he loses the\nsubjective idea of form, and views forms as external phenomena only.\nIn the third stage the sense of the approaching perception of larger\ntruth comes to him. In the fourth stage he passes beyond all ideas\nof form, ideas of resistance, and ideas of distinction; and there\nremains to him only the idea of infinite space. In the fifth stage the\nidea of infinite space vanishes, and the thought comes: _It is all\ninfinite reason._ [Here is the uttermost limit, many might suppose, of\npantheistic idealism; but it is only the half way resting-place on the\npath which the Buddhist thinker must pursue.] In the sixth stage the\nthought comes, _\"Nothing at all exists.\"_ In the seventh stage the idea\nof nothingness itself vanishes. In the eighth stage all sensations and\nideas cease to exist. And _after_ this comes Nirvana.\n\nThe same sutra, in recounting the death of the Buddha, represents\nhim as rapidly passing through the first, second, third, and fourth\nstages of meditation to enter into \"that state of mind to which the\nInfinity of Space alone is present,\"--and thence into \"that state\nof mind to which the Infinity of Thought alone is present,\"--and\nthence into \"that state of mind to which nothing at all is specially\npresent,\"--and thence into \"that state of mind between consciousness\nand unconsciousness,\"--and thence into \"that state of mind in which\nthe consciousness both of sensations and of ideas has wholly passed\naway.\"\n\nFor the reader who has made any serious attempt to obtain a general\nidea of Buddhism, such citations are scarcely necessary; since\nthe fundamental doctrine of the concatenation of cause and effect\ncontains the same denial of the reality of Self and suggests the same\nenigmas. Illusion produces action or Karma; Karma, self-consciousness;\nself-consciousness, individuality; individuality, the senses; the\nsenses, contact; contact, feeling; feeling, desire; desire, union;\nunion, conception; conception, birth; birth, sorrow and decrepitude\nand death. Doubtless the reader knows the doctrine of the destruction\nof the twelve Nidanas; and it is needless here to repeat it at length.\nBut he may be reminded of the teaching that by the cessation of contact\nfeeling is destroyed; by that of feeling, individuality; and by that\nof individuality, _self-consciousness._\n\n*\n\nEvidently, without a preliminary solution of the riddles offered by\nsuch texts, any effort to learn the meaning of Nirvana is hopeless.\nBefore being able to comprehend the true meaning of those sutras now\nmade familiar to English readers by translation, it is necessary to\nunderstand that the common Occidental ideas of God and Soul, of matter,\nof spirit, have no existence in Buddhist philosophy; their places being\noccupied by concepts having no real counterparts in Western religious\nthought. Above all, it is necessary that the reader should expel from\nhis mind the theological idea of Soul. The texts already quoted should\nhave made it clear that in Buddhist philosophy there is no personal\ntransmigration, and no individual permanent Soul.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Fo-Sho-Hing-Tsan-King._]\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n\"O Bhagavat, the idea of a self is no idea; and the idea of a being, or\na living person, or a person, is no idea. And why? Because the blessed\nBuddhas are freed from all ideas.\"--_The Diamond-Cutter._\n\n\nAnd now let us try to understand what it is that dies, and what\nit is that is reborn,--what it is that commits faults and what\nit is that suffers penalties,--what passes from states of woe to\nstates of bliss,--what enters into Nirvana after the destruction of\nself-consciousness,--what survives \"extinction\" and has power to return\nout of Nirvana,--what experiences the Four Infinite Feelings after all\nfinite feeling has been annihilated.\n\nIt is not the sentient and conscious Self that enters Nirvana. The Ego\nis only a temporary aggregate of countless illusions, a phantom-shell,\na bubble sure to break. It is a creation of Karma,--or rather, as a\nBuddhist friend insists, it _is_ Karma. To comprehend the statement\nfully, the reader should know that, in this Oriental philosophy, acts\nand thoughts are forces integrating themselves into material and mental\nphenomena,--into what we call objective and subjective appearances.\nThe very earth we tread upon,--the mountains and forests, the rivers\nand seas, the world and its moon, the visible universe in short,--_is\nthe integration of acts and thoughts,_ is Karma, or, at least, Being\nconditioned by Karma.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: \"The aggregate actions of all sentient beings give birth\nto the varieties of mountains, rivers, countries, etc. ... Their eyes,\nnostrils, ears, tongues, bodies,--as well as their gardens, woods,\nfarms, residences, servants, and maids,--men imagine to be their\nown possessions; but they are, in truth, only results produced by\ninnumerable actions.\"\n\n--KURODA, _Outlines of the Mah\u00e2yana._\n\n\"Grass, trees, earth,--all these shall become Buddha.\"\n\n--CH\u016a-IN-KY\u014c.\"\n\n\"Even swords and things of metal are manifestations of spirit: within\nthem exist all virtues (or '_power_') in their fullest development and\nperfection.\"--HIZ\u014c-H\u014c-YAKU.\n\n\"When called sentient or non-sentient, matter is Law-Body (or\n'_spiritual body_').\"--CHISH\u014c-HISH\u014c.\n\n\"The Apparent Doctrine treats of the four great elements _[earth, fire,\nwater, air]_ as non-sentient. But in the Hidden Doctrine these are said\nto be the Sammya-Shin (_Samya-Kaya_), or Body-Accordant of the Ny\u014drai\n(Tath\u00e2gata).\"--SOKU-SHIN-J\u014c-BUTSU-GI.\n\n\"When every phase of our mind shall be in accord with the mind of\nBuddha, ... then there will not be even one particle of dust that does\nnot enter into Buddhahood.\"--ENGAKU-SH\u014c.]\n\n\nThe Karma-Ego we call Self is mind and is body;--both perpetually\ndecay; both are perpetually renewed. From the unknown beginning, this\ndouble--phenomenon, objective and subjective, has been alternately\ndissolved and integrated: each integration is a birth; each dissolution\na death. There is no other birth or death but the birth and death of\nKarma in some form or condition. But at each rebirth the reintegration\nis never the reintegration of the identical phenomenon, but of another\nto which it gives rise,--as growth begets growth, as motion produces\nmotion. So that the phantom-self changes not only as to form and\ncondition, but as to actual personality with every re\u00ebmbodiment. There\nis one Reality; but there is no permanent individual, no constant\npersonality: there is only phantom-self, and phantom succeeds to\nphantom, as undulation to undulation, over the ghostly Sea of Birth and\nDeath. And even as the storming of a sea is a motion of undulation,\nnot of translation,--even as it is the form of the wave only, not the\nwave itself, that travels,--so in the passing of lives there is only\nthe rising and the vanishing of forms,--forms mental, forms material.\nThe fathomless Reality does not pass. \"All forms,\" it is written in the\n_Kong\u014d-hannya-haramitsu-Ky\u014d,_[2] \"are unreal: he who rises above all\nforms is the Buddha.\" But what can remain to rise above all forms after\nthe total disintegration of body and the final dissolution of mind?\n\n[Footnote 2: Vagra-pragn\u00e2-p\u00e2ramita-Sutra.]\n\n\nUnconsciously dwelling behind the false consciousness of imperfect\nman,--beyond sensation, perception, thought,--wrapped in the envelope\nof what we call soul (which in truth is only a thickly woven veil of\nillusion), is the eternal and divine, the Absolute Reality: not a soul,\nnot a personality, but the All-Self without selfishness,--the _Muga\nno Taiga,--_the Buddha enwombed in Karma. Within every phantom-self\ndwells this divine: yet the innumerable are but one. Within every\ncreature incarnate sleeps the Infinite Intelligence unevolved, hidden,\nunfelt, unknown,--yet destined from all the eternities to waken at\nlast, to rend away the ghostly web of sensuous mind, to break forever\nits chrysalis of flesh, and pass to the supreme conquest of Space and\nTime. Wherefore it is written in the _Kegon-Ky\u014d_ (Avatamsaka-Sutra):\n\"Child of Buddha, there is not even one living being that has not the\nwisdom of the Tath\u00e2gata. It is only because of their vain thoughts and\naffections that all beings are not conscious of this.... I will teach\nthem the holy Way;--I will make them forsake their foolish thoughts,\nand cause them to see that the vast and deep intelligence which dwells\nwithin them is not different from the wisdom of the very Buddha.\"\n\n*\n\nHere we may pause to consider the correspondence between these\nfundamental Buddhist theories and the concepts of Western science.\nIt will be evident that the Buddhist denial of the reality of the\napparitional world is not a denial of the reality of phenomena as\nphenomena, nor a denial of the forces producing phenomena objectively\nor subjectively. For the negation of Karma as Karma would involve the\nnegation of the entire Buddhist system. The true declaration is, that\nwhat we perceive is never reality in itself, and that even the Ego that\nperceives is an unstable plexus of aggregates of feelings which are\nthemselves unstable and in the nature of illusions. This position is\nscientifically strong,--perhaps impregnable. Of substance in itself\nwe certainly know nothing: we are conscious of the universe as a vast\nplay of forces only; and, even while we discern the general relative\nmeaning of laws expressed in the action of those forces, all that\nwhich is Non-Ego is revealed to us merely through the vibrations of\na nervous structure never exactly the same in any two human beings.\nYet through such varying and imperfect perception we are sufficiently\nassured of the impermanency of all forms,--of all aggregates objective\nor subjective.\n\nThe test of reality is persistence; and the Buddhist, finding in the\nvisible universe only a perpetual flux of phenomena, declares the\nmaterial aggregate unreal because non-persistent,--unreal, at least,\nas a bubble, a cloud, or a mirage. Again, relation is the universal\nform of thought; but since relation is impermanent, how can thought be\npersistent?... Judged from these points of view, Buddhist doctrine is\nnot Anti-Realism, but a veritable Transfigured Realism, finding just\nexpression in the exact words of Herbert Spencer:--\"Every feeling and\nthought being but transitory;--an entire life made up of such feelings\nand thoughts being also but transitory;--nay, the objects amid which\nlife is passed, though less transitory, being severally in the course\nof losing their individualities, whether quickly or slowly,--_we learn\nthat the one thing permanent is the Unknowable Reality hidden under all\nthese changing shapes._\"\n\nLikewise, the teaching of Buddhism, that what we call Self is an\nimpermanent aggregate,--a sensuous illusion,--will prove, if patiently\nanalyzed, scarcely possible for any serious thinker to deny. Mind,\nas known to the scientific psychologist, is composed of feelings and\nthe relations between feelings; and feelings are composed of units\nof simple sensation which are physiologically coincident with minute\nnervous shocks. All the sense-organs are fundamentally alike, being\nevolutional modifications of the same morphological elements;--and\nall the senses are modifications of touch. Or, to use the simplest\npossible language, the organs of sense--sight, smell, taste, even\nhearing--have been alike developed from the skin! Even the human brain\nitself, by the modern testimony of histology and embryology, \"is, at\nits first beginning, merely an infolding of the epidermic layer;\" and\nthought, physiologically and evolutionally, is thus a modification of\ntouch. Certain vibrations, acting through the visual apparatus, cause\nwithin the brain those motions which are followed by the sensations\nof light and color;--other vibrations, acting upon the auditory\nmechanism, give rise to the sensation of sound;--other vibrations,\nsetting up changes in specialized tissue, produce sensations of taste,\nsmell, touch. All our knowledge is derived and developed, directly or\nindirectly, from physical sensation,--from touch. Of course this is\nno ultimate explanation, because nobody can tell us _what feels the\ntouch._ \"Everything physical,\" well said Schopenhauer, \"is at the same\ntime meta-physical.\" But science fully justifies the Buddhist position\nthat what we call Self is a bundle of sensations, emotions, sentiments,\nideas, memories, all relating to the _physical_ experiences of the\nrace and the individual, and that our wish for immortality is a wish\nfor the eternity of this merely sensuous and selfish consciousness.\nAnd science even supports the Buddhist denial of the permanence of\nthe sensuous Ego. \"Psychology,\" says Wundt, \"proves that not only our\nsense-perceptions, but the memorial images that renew them, depend\nfor their origin upon the functionings of the organs of sense and\nmovement.... A continuance of this sensuous consciousness must appear\nto her irreconcilable with the facts of her experience. And surely we\nmay well doubt whether such continuance is an ethical requisite: more,\nwhether the fulfillment of the wish for it, if possible, were not an\nintolerable destiny.\"\n\n\nIII\n\n    \"O Subh\u00fbti, if I had had an idea of a being, of a living\n    being, or of a person, I should also have had an idea of\n    malevolence.... A gift should not be given by any one who\n    believes in form, sound, smell, taste, or anything that can\n    be touched.\"--_The Diamond-Cutter._\n\nThe doctrine of the impermanency of the conscious Ego is not only the\nmost remarkable in Buddhist philosophy: it is also, morally, one\nof the most important. Perhaps the ethical value of this teaching\nhas never yet been fairly estimated by any Western thinker. How much\nof human unhappiness has been caused, directly and indirectly, by\nopposite beliefs,--by the delusion of stability,--by the delusion\nthat distinctions of character, condition, class, creed, are settled\nby immutable law,--and the delusion of a changeless, immortal,\nsentient soul, destined, by divine caprice, to eternities of bliss or\neternities of fire! Doubtless the ideas of a deity moved by everlasting\nhate,--of soul as a permanent, changeless entity destined to changeless\nstates,--of sin as unatonable and of penalty as never-ending,--were not\nwithout value in former savage stages of social development. But in the\ncourse of our future evolution they must be utterly got rid of; and it\nmay be hoped that the contact of Western with Oriental thought will\nhave for one happy result the acceleration of their decay. While even\nthe feelings which they have developed linger with us, there can be no\ntrue spirit of tolerance, no sense of human brotherhood, no wakening of\nuniversal love.\n\nBuddhism, on the other hand, recognizing no permanency, no finite\nstabilities, no distinctions of character or class or race, except as\npassing phenomena,--nay, no difference even between gods and men,--has\nbeen essentially the religion of tolerance. Demon and angel are but\nvarying manifestations of the same Karma;--hell and heaven mere\ntemporary halting-places upon the journey to eternal peace. For all\nbeings there is but one law,--immutable and divine: the law by which\nthe lowest _must_ rise to the place of the highest,--the law by which\nthe worst _must_ become the best,--the law by which the vilest _must_\nbecome a Buddha. In such a system there is no room for prejudice and\nfor hatred. Ignorance alone is the source of wrong and pain; and all\nignorance must finally be dissipated in infinite light _through the\ndecomposition of Self._\n\n*\n\nCertainly while we still try to cling to the old theories of permanent\npersonality, and of a single incarnation only for each individual,\nwe can find no moral meaning in the universe as it exists. Modern\nknowledge can discover no justice in the cosmic process;--the very\nmost it can offer us by way of ethical encouragement is that the\nunknowable forces are not forces of pure malevolence. \"Neither moral\nnor immoral,\" to quote Huxley, \"but simply unmoral.\" Evolutional\nscience cannot be made to accord with the notion of indissoluble\npersonality; and if we accept its teaching of mental growth and\ninheritance, we must also accept its teaching of individual dissolution\nand of the cosmos as inexplicable. It assures us, indeed, that the\nhigher faculties of man have been developed through struggle and\npain, and will long continue to be so developed: but it also assures\nus that evolution is inevitably followed by dissolution,--that\nthe highest point of development is the point likewise from which\nretrogression begins. And if we are each and all mere perishable forms\nof being,--doomed to pass away like plants and trees,--what consolation\ncan we find in the assurance that we are suffering for the benefit of\nthe future? How can it concern us whether humanity become more or less\nhappy in another myriad ages, if there remains nothing for us but to\nlive and die in comparative misery? Or, to repeat the irony of Huxley,\n\"what compensation does the Eohippus get for his sorrows in the fact\nthat, some millions of years afterwards, one of his descendants wins\nthe Derby?\"\n\nBut the cosmic process may assume quite another aspect if we can\npersuade ourselves, like the Buddhist, that all being is Unity,\n--that personality is but a delusion hiding reality,--that all\ndistinctions of \"I\" and \"thou\" are ghostly films spun out of perishable\nsensation,--that even Time and Place as revealed to our petty senses\nare phantasms,--that the past and the present and the future are\nveritably One. Suppose the winner of the Derby quite well able to\nremember having been the Eohippus? Suppose the being, once man, able to\nlook back through all veils of death and birth, through all evolutions\nof evolution, even to the moment of the first faint growth of sentiency\nout of non-sentiency;--able to remember, like the Buddha of the\nJatakas, all the experiences of his myriad incarnations, and to relate\nthem like fairy-tales for the sake of another Ananda?\n\nWe have seen, that it is not the Self but the Non-Self--the one\nreality underlying all phenomena.--which passes from form, to form.\nThe striving for Nirvana is a struggle perpetual between false and\ntrue, light and darkness, the sensual and the supersensual; and the\nultimate victory can be gained only by the total decomposition of the\nmental and the physical individuality. Not one conquest of self can\nsuffice: millions of selves must be overcome. For the false Ego is\na compound of countless ages,--possesses a vitality enduring beyond\nuniverses. At each breaking and shedding of the chrysalis a new\nchrysalis appears,--more tenous, perhaps, more diaphanous, but woven of\nlike sensuous material,--a mental and physical texture spun by Karma\nfrom the inherited illusions, passions, desires, pains and pleasures,\nof innumerable lives. But what is it that feels?--the phantom or the\nreality?\n\nAll phenomena of _Self_-consciousness belong to the false self,--but\nonly as a physiologist might say that sensation is a product of the\nsensiferous apparatus, which would not explain sensation. No more in\nBuddhism than in physiological psychology is there any real teaching\nof _two_ feeling entities. In Buddhism the only entity is the Absolute;\nand to that entity the false self stands in the relation of a medium\nthrough which right perception is deflected and distorted,--in which\nand because of which sentiency and impulse become possible. The\nunconditioned Absolute is above all relations: it has nothing of what\nwe call pain or pleasure; it knows no difference of \"I\" and \"thou,\"--no\ndistinction of place or time. But while conditioned by the illusion of\npersonality, it is aware of pain or pleasure, as a dreamer perceives\nunrealities without being conscious of their unreality. Pleasures\nand pains and all the feelings relating to self-consciousness are\nhallucinations. The false self exists only as a state of sleep exists;\nand sentiency and desire, and all the sorrows and passions of being,\nexist only as illusions of that sleep.\n\nBut here we reach a point at which science and Buddhism diverge.\nModern psychology recognizes no feelings not evolutionally developed\nthrough the experiences of the race and the individual; but Buddhism\nasserts the existence of feelings which are immortal and divine. It\ndeclares that in this Karma-state the greater part of our sensations,\nperceptions, ideas, thoughts, are related only to the phantom\nself;--that our mental life is little more than a flow of feelings\nand desires belonging to selfishness;--that our loves and hates, and\nhopes and fears, and pleasures and pains, are illusions;[1]--but it\nalso declares there are higher feelings, more or less latent within us,\naccording to our degree of knowledge, which have nothing to do with the\nfalse self, and which are eternal.\n\nThough science pronounces the ultimate nature of pleasures and pains\nto be inscrutable, it partly confirms the Buddhist teaching of their\nimpermanent character. Both appear to belong rather to secondary than\nto primary elements of feeling, and both to be evolutions,--forms\nof sensation developed, through billions of life-experiences, out of\nprimal conditions in which there can have been neither real pleasure\nnor real pain, but only the vaguest dull sentiency. The higher the\nevolution the more pain, and the larger the volume of all sensation.\nAfter the state of equilibration has been reached, the volume of\nfeeling will begin to diminish. The finer pleasures and the keener\npains must first become extinct; then by gradual stages the less\ncomplex feelings, according to their complexity; till at last, in all\nthe refrigerating planet, there will survive not even the simplest\nsensation possible to the lowest form of life.\n\nBut, according to the Buddhist, the highest moral feelings survive\nraces and suns and universes. The purely unselfish feelings, impossible\nto grosser natures, belong to the Absolute. In generous natures the\ndivine becomes sentient,--quickens within the shell of illusion, as\na child quickens in the womb (whence illusion itself is called The\nWomb of the Tath\u00e2gata). In yet higher natures the feelings which are\nnot of self find room for powerful manifestation,--shine through\nthe phantom-Ego as light through a vase. Such are purely unselfish\nlove, larger than individual being,--supreme compassion,--perfect\nbenevolence: they are not of man, but of the Buddha within the man. And\nas these expand, all the feelings of self begin to thin and weaken.\nThe condition of the phantom-Ego simultaneously purifies: all those\nopacities which darkened the reality of Mind within the mirage of mind\nbegin to illumine; and the sense of the infinite, like a thrilling\nof light, passes through the dream of personality into the awakening\ndivine.[2]\n\nBut in the case of the average seeker after truth, this refinement\nand ultimate decomposition of self can be effected only with lentor\ninexpressible. The phantom-individuality, though enduring only for\nthe space of a single lifetime, shapes out of the sum of its innate\nqualities, and out of the sum of its own particular acts and thoughts,\nthe new combination which succeeds it,--a fresh individuality,\nanother prison of illusion for the Self-without-selfishness.[3] As\nname and form, the false self dissolves; but its impulses live on and\nrecombine; and the final destruction of those impulses--the total\nextinction of their ghostly vitality,--may require a protraction of\neffort through billions of centuries. Perpetually from the ashes\nof burnt-out passions subtler passions are born,--perpetually from\nthe graves of illusions new illusions arise. The most powerful of\nhuman passions is the last to yield: it persists far into superhuman\nconditions. Even when its grosser forms have passed away, its\ntendencies still lurk in those feelings originally derived from\nit or interwoven with it,--the sensation of beauty, for example,\nand the delight of the mind in graceful things. On earth these are\nclassed among the higher feelings. But in a supramundane state their\nindulgence is fraught with peril: a touch or a look may cause the\nbroken fetters of sensual bondage to reform. Beyond all worlds of\nsex there are strange zones in which thoughts and memories become\ntangible and visible objective facts,--in which emotional fancies are\nmaterialized,--in which the least unworthy wish may prove creative.\nIt may be said, in Western religious phraseology, that throughout\nthe greater part of this vast pilgrimage, and in all the zones of\ndesire, the temptations increase according to the spiritual strength\nof resistance. With every successive ascent there is a further\nexpansion of the possibilities of enjoyment, an augmentation of power,\na heightening of sensation. Immense the reward of self-conquest; but\nwhosoever strives for that reward strives after emptiness. One must not\ndesire heaven as a state of pleasure; it has been written, _Erroneous\nthoughts as to the joys of heaven are still entwined by the fast cords\nof lust._ One must not wish to become a god or an angel. \"Whatsoever\nbrother, O Bhikkus,\"--the Teacher said,--\"may have adopted the\nreligious life thinking, to himself, '_By this morality I shall become\nan angel;'_ his mind does not incline to zeal, perseverance, exertion.\"\nPerhaps the most vivid exposition of the duty of the winner of\nhappiness is that given in the Sutra of the Great King of Glory. This\ngreat king, coming into possession of all imaginable wealth and power,\nabstains from enjoyments, despises splendors, refuses the caresses of\na Queen dowered with \"the beauty of the gods,\" and bids her demand\nof him, out of her own lips, that he forsake her. She, with dutiful\nsweetness, but not without natural tears, obeys him; and he passes\nat once out of existence. Every such refusal of the prizes gained by\nvirtue helps to cause a still more fortunate birth in a still loftier\nstate of being. But no state should be desired; and it is only after\nthe wish for Nirvana itself has ceased that Nirvana can be attained.\n\n*\n\nAnd now we may venture for a little while into the most fantastic\nregion of Buddhist ontology,--since, without some definite notion of\nthe course of psychical evolution therein described, the suggestive\nworth of the system cannot be fairly judged. Certainly I am asking the\nreader to consider a theory about what is beyond the uttermost limit\nof possible human knowledge. But as much of the Buddhist doctrine\nas can be studied and tested within the limit of human knowledge is\nfound to accord with scientific opinion better than does any other\nreligious hypothesis; and some of the Buddhist teachings prove to be\nincomprehensible anticipations of modern scientific disco very,--can\nit, therefore, seem unreasonable to claim that even the pure fancies of\na faith so much older than our own, and so much more capable of being\nreconciled with the widest expansions of nineteenth-century thought,\ndeserve at least respectful consideration?\n\n\n[Footnote 1: \"Pleasures and pains have their origin from touch: where\nthere is no touch, they do not arise.\"--_Atthakavagga,_ 11.]\n\n[Footnote 2: \"To reach the state of the perfect and everlasting\nhappiness is the highest Nirvana; for then all mental phenomena--such\nas desires, etc.--are annihilated. And as such mental phenomena are\nannihilated, there appears the true nature of true mind with all its\ninnumerable functions and miraculous actions.\"--KURODA, _Outlines of\nthe Mah\u00e2yana._]\n\n[Footnote 3: It is on the subject of this propagation and perpetuation\nof characters that the doctrine of Karma is in partial agreement with\nthe modern scientific teaching-of the hereditary transmission of\ntendencies.]\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\n\"Non-existence is only the entrance to the Great Vehicle.\"\n--_Daibon-Ky\u014di._\n\n\"And in which way is it, Siha, that one speaking truly could say of me:\n'The Samana Gotama maintains annihilation;--he teaches the doctrine of\nannihilation'? I proclaim, Siha, the annihilation of lust, of ill-will,\nof delusion; I proclaim the annihilation of the manifold conditions (of\nheart) which are evil and not good.\"--_Mahavagga,_ vi. 31. 7.\n\n\n_\"Nin mit\u00e9, h\u014d tok\u00ea_\" (see first the person, then preach the law) is a\nJapanese proverb signifying that Buddhism should be taught according to\nthe capacity of the pupil. And the great systems of Buddhist doctrine\nare actually divided into progressive stages (five usually), to be\nstudied in succession, or otherwise, according to the intellectual\nability of the learner. Also there are many varieties of special\ndoctrine held by the different sects and sub-sects,--so that, to make\nany satisfactory outline of Buddhist ontology, it is necessary to shape\na synthesis of the more important and non-conflicting among these many\ntenets. I need scarcely say that popular Buddhism does not include\nconcepts such as we have been examining. The people hold to the simpler\ncreed of a veritable transmigration of simpler The people understand\nKarma only as the law that makes the punishment or reward of faults\ncommitted in previous lives. The people do not trouble themselves about\n_Nehan_ or Nirvana;[1] but they think much about heaven (_Gokuraku,_)\nwhich the members of many sects believe can be attained immediately\nafter this life by the spirits of the good. The followers of the\ngreatest and richest of the modern sects--the _Shinsh\u016b--_hold that,\nby the invocation of Amida, a righteous person can pass at once\nafter death to the great Paradise of the West,--the Paradise of the\nLotos-Flower-Birth. I am taking no account of popular beliefs in this\nlittle study, nor of doctrines peculiar to any one sect only.\n\nBut there are many differences in the higher teaching as to the\nattainment of Nirvana. Some authorities hold that the supreme happiness\ncan be won, or at least seen, even on this earth; while others declare\nthat the present world is too corrupt to allow of a perfect life, and\nthat only by winning, through good deeds, the privilege of rebirth into\na better world, can men hope for opportunity to practice that holiness\nwhich leads to the highest bliss. The latter opinion, which posits the\nsuperior conditions of being in other worlds, better expresses the\ngeneral thought of contemporary Buddhism in Japan.\n\n*\n\nThe conditions of human and of animal being belong to what are termed\nthe Worlds of Desire (_Yoku-Kai_),--which are four in number. Below\nthese are the states of torment or hells (_Jigoku,_) about which many\ncurious things are written; but neither the Yoku-Kai nor the Jigoku\nneed be considered in relation to the purpose of this little essay.\nWe have only to do with the course of spiritual progress from the\nworld of men up to Nirvana,--assuming, with modern Buddhism, that the\npilgrimage through death and birth must continue, for the majority of\nmankind at least, even after the attainment of the highest conditions\npossible upon this globe. The way rises from terrestrial conditions\nto other and superior worlds,--passing first through the Six Heavens\nof Desire (_Yoku-Ten_);--thence through the Seventeen Heavens of Form\n(_Shiki-Kai_);--and lastly through the Four Heavens of Formlessness\n(_Mushiki-Kai_), beyond which lies Nirvana.\n\nThe requirements of physical life--the need of food, rest, and sexual\nrelations--continue to be felt in the Heavens of Desire,--which\nwould seem to be higher physical worlds rather than what we commonly\nunderstand by the expression \"heavens.\" Indeed, the conditions in some\nof them are such as might be supposed to exist in planets more favored\nthan our own,--in larger spheres warmed by a more genial sun. And some\nBuddhist texts actually place them in remote constellations,--declaring\nthat the Path leads from star to star, from galaxy to galaxy, from\nuniverse to universe, up to the Limit of Existence.[2] In the first\nof the heavens of this zone, called the Heaven of the Four Kings\n(_Shi-Tenn\u014d-Ten_), life lasts five times longer than life on this\nearth according to number of years, and each year there is equal\nto fifty terrestrial years. But its inhabitants eat and drink, and\nmarry and give in marriage, much after the fashion of mankind. In the\nsucceeding heaven (_Sanjiu-san-Ten,_) the duration of life is doubled,\nwhile all other conditions are correspondingly improved; and the\ngrosser forms of passion disappear. The union of the sexes persists,\nbut in a manner curiously similar to that which a certain Father of\nthe Christian Church wished might become possible,--a simple embrace\nproducing a new being. In the third heaven (called _Emma-Ten_), where\nlongevity is again doubled, the slightest touch may create life. In\nthe fourth, or Heaven of Contentment (_Tochita-Ten,_) longevity is\nfurther increased. In the fifth, or Heaven of the Transmutation of\nPleasure (_Keraku-Ten,_) strange new powers are gained. Subjective\npleasures become changed at will into objective pleasures;--thoughts\nas well as wishes become creative forces;--and even the act of seeing\nmay cause conception and birth. In the sixth heaven (_Tak\u00e9-jizai-Ten,_)\nthe powers obtained in the fifth heaven are further developed; and the\nsubjective pleasures trans-muted into objective can be presented to\nothers, or shared with others,--like material gifts. But the look of an\ninstant,--one glance of the eye,--may generate a new Karma.\n\nThe Yoku-Kai are all heavens of sensuous life,--heavens such as might\nanswer to the dreams of artists and lovers and poets. But those who\nare able to traverse them without falling--(and a fall, be it observed,\nis not difficult)--pass into the Supersensual Zone, first entering the\nHeavens of Luminous Observation of Existence and of Calm Meditation\nupon Existence (_Ujin-ushi-sh\u014dryo,_ or _Kak-kwan_). These are in number\nthree,--each higher than the preceding,--and are named The Heaven\nof Sanctity, The Heaven of Higher Sanctity, and The Heaven of Great\nSanctity. After these come the heavens called the Heavens of Luminous\nObservation of Non-Existence and of Calm Meditation upon Non-Existence\n(_M\u016bjin-mushi-sh\u014dryo_). These also are three; and the names of them in\ntheir order signify, Lesser Light, Light Unfathomable, and Light Making\nSound, or, Light-Sonorous. Here there is attained the highest degree\nof supersensuous joy possible to temporary conditions. Above are the\nstates named _Riki-sh\u014dryo,_ or the Heavens of the Meditation of the\nAbandonment of Joy. The names of these states in their ascending order\nare, Lesser Purity, Purity Unfathomable, and Purity Supreme. In them\nneither joy nor pain, nor forceful feeling of any sort exist: there is\na mild negative pleasure only,--the pleasure of heavenly Equanimity.[3]\nHigher than these heavens are the eight spheres of Calm Meditation upon\nthe Abandonment of all Joy and Pleasure (_Riki-raku-sh\u014dryo._) They are\ncalled The Cloudless, Holiness-Manifest, Vast Results, Empty of Name,\nVoid of Heat, Fair-Appearing, Vision-Perfecting, and The Limit of Form.\nHerein pleasure and pain, and name and form, pass utterly away. But\nthere remain ideas and thoughts.\n\nHe who can pass through these supersensual realms enters at once\ninto the _Mushiki-Kai,--_the spheres of Formlessness. These\nare four. In the first state of the Mushiki-Kai, all sense of\nindividuality is lost: even the thought of name and form becomes\nextinct, and there survives only the idea of Infinite Space, or\nEmptiness. In the second state of the Mushiki-Kai, this idea of\nspace vanishes; and its place is filled by the Idea of Infinite\nReason. But this idea of reason is anthropomorphic: it is an\nillusion; and it fades out in the third state of the Mushiki-Kai,\nwhich is called the \"State-of-Nothing-to-take-hold-of,\" or\n_M\u016b-sho-\u016b-sh\u014d-j\u014d._ Here is only the Idea of Infinite Nothingness.\nBut even this condition has been reached by the aid of the action\nof the personal mind. This action ceases: then the fourth state of\nthe Mushiki-Kai is reached,--the _His\u014d-hihis\u014d-sh\u014d_, or the state of\n\"neither-namelessness-nor-not-namelessness.\" Something of personal\nmentality continues to float vaguely here,--the very uttermost\nexpiring vibration of Karma,--the last vanishing haze of being. It\nmelts;--and the immeasurable revelation comes. The dreaming Buddha,\nfreed from the last ghostly bond of Self, rises at once into the\n\"infinite bliss\" of Nirvana.[4]\n\n*\n\nBut every being does not pass through all the states above enumerated:\nthe power to rise swiftly or slowly depends upon the acquisition of\nmerit as well as upon the character of the Karma to be overcome. Some\nbeings pass to Nirvana immediately after the present life; some after\na single new birth; some after two or three births; while many rise\ndirectly from this world into one of the Supersensuous Heavens. All\nsuch are called _Ch\u014d,--_the Leapers,--of whom the highest class reach\nNirvana at once after their death as men or women. There are two great\ndivisions of Ch\u014d,--the _Fu-Kwan,_ or Never-Returning-Ones,[5] and the\n_Kwan,_ Returning Ones, or _revenants._ Sometimes the return may be in\nthe nature of a prolonged retrogression; and, according to a Buddhist\nlegend of the origin of the world, the first men were beings who had\nfallen from the _Kw\u014d-on-Ten,_ or Heaven of Sonorous Light. A remarkable\nfact about the whole theory of progression is that the progression\nis not conceived of (except in very rare cases) as an advance in\nstraight lines, but as an advance by undulations,--a psychical rhythm\nof motion. This is exemplified by the curious Buddhist classification\nof the different short courses by which the Kwan or _revenants_ may\nhope to reach Nirvana. These short courses are divided into Even and\nUneven;--the former includes an equal number of heavenly and of earthly\nrebirths; while in the latter class the heavenly and the earthly\nintermediate rebirths are not equal in number. There are four kinds\nof these intermediate stages. A Japanese friend has drawn for me the\naccompanying diagrams, which explain the subject clearly.\n\nFantastic this may be called; but it harmonizes with the truth that all\nprogress is necessarily rhythmical.\n\n[Illustration]\nNIRVANA REACHED FROM THE HEAVENS THROUGH 3 EVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nTHROUGH 3 UNEVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nNIRVANA REACHED FROM THE STATE OF MAN THROUGH 3 EVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nTHROUGH 3 UNEVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nNIRVANA REACHED FROM THE HEAVENS THROUGH 2 EVEN BIRTHS--\n\n--THROUGH 2 UNEVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nNIRVANA REACHED FROM THE--THROUGH 2 UNEVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nSTATE OF MAN THROUGH 2 EVEN BIRTHS:--\n\nThough all beings do not pass through every stage of the great\njourney, all beings who attain to the highest enlightenment, by\nany course whatever, acquire certain faculties not belonging to\nparticular conditions of birth, but only to particular conditions of\npsychical development. These are, the _Roku-Jindz\u016b_ (Abhidjn\u00e2),\nor Six Supernatural Powers:[6] (1) _Shin-Ky\u014d-Tsu,_ the power of\npassing any-whither through any obstacles,--through solid walls,\nfor example;--(2) _Tengen-Ts\u016b,_ the power of infinite vision;--(3)\n_Tenni-Ts\u016b,_ the power of infinite hearing;--(4) _Tashin-Ts\u016b,_ the\npower of knowing the thoughts of all other beings;--(5) _Shuku-j\u016b-Ts\u016b,_\nthe power of remembering former births;--(6) _Rojin--Ts\u016b,_ infinite\nwisdom with the power of entering at will into Nirvana. The Roku-jindz\u016b\nfirst begin to develop in the state of _Sh\u014dmon_ (Sravaka), and expand\nin the higher conditions of _Engaku_ (Pratyeka-Buddha) and of Bosatsu\n(Bodhisattva or Mah\u00e2sattva). The powers of the Sh\u014dmon may be exerted\nover two thousand worlds; those of the Engaku or Bosatsu, over three\nthousand;--but the powers of Buddhahood extend over the total cosmos.\nIn the first state of holiness, for example, comes the memory of a\ncertain number of former births, together with the capacity to foresee\na corresponding number of future births;--in the next higher state the\nnumber of births remembered increases;--and in the state of Bosatsu\nall former births are visible to memory. But the Buddha sees not only\nall of his own former births, but likewise all births that ever have\nbeen or can be,--and all the thoughts and acts, past, present, or\nfuture, of all past, present, or future beings.... Now these dreams\nof supernatural power merit attention because of the ethical teaching\nin regard to them,--the same which is woven through every Buddhist\nhypothesis, rational or unthinkable,--the teaching of self-abnegation.\nThe Supernatural Powers must never be used for personal pleasure, but\nonly for the highest beneficence,--the propagation of doctrine, the\nsaving of men. Any exercise of them for lesser ends might result in\ntheir loss,--would certainly signify retrogression in the path.[7]\nTo show them for the purpose of exciting admiration or wonder were\nto juggle wickedly with what is divine; and the Teacher himself is\nrecorded to have once severely rebuked a needless display of them by a\ndisciple.[8]\n\nThis giving up not only of one life, but of countless lives,--not only\nof one world, but of innumerable worlds,--not only of natural but also\nof supernatural pleasures,--not only of selfhood but of godhood,--is\ncertainly not for the miserable privilege of ceasing to be, but for\na privilege infinitely outweighing all that even paradise can give.\nNirvana is no cessation, but an emancipation. It means only the passing\nof conditioned being into unconditioned being,--the fading of all\nmental and physical phantoms into the light of Formless Omnipotence and\nOmniscience. But the Buddhist hypothesis holds some suggestion of the\npersistence of that which has once been able to remember all births\nand states of limited being,--the persistence of the identity of the\nBuddhas even in Nirvana notwithstanding the teaching that all Buddhas\nare one. How reconcile this doctrine of monism with the assurance of\nvarious texts that the being who enters Nirvana can, when so desirous,\nreassume an earthly personality? There are some very remarkable texts\non this subject in the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law: those for\ninstance in which the Tath\u00e2gata Prabh\u00fbtar\u00e2tna is pictured as sitting\n_\"perfectly extinct upon his throne\"_ and speaking before a vast\nassembly to which he has been introduced as \"the great Seer who,\n_although perfectly extinct for many k\u00f4tis of \u00e6ons,_ now comes to hear\nthe Law.\" These texts themselves offer us the riddle of multiplicity\nin unity; for the Tath\u00e2gata Prabh\u00fbtar\u00e2tna and the myriads of other\nextinct Buddhas who appear simultaneously, are said to have been all\nincarnations of but a single Buddha.\n\nA reconciliation is offered by the hypothesis of what might be\ncalled a _pluristic monism,_--a sole reality composed of groups of\nconsciousness, at once independent and yet interdependent,--or, to\nspeak of pure mind in terms of matter, _an atomic spiritual ultimate._\nThis hypothesis, though not doctrinably enunciated in Buddhist texts,\nis distinctly implied both by text and commentary. The Absolute of\nBuddhism is one as ether is one. Ether is conceivable only as a\ncomposition of units.[9] The Absolute is conceivable only (according to\nany attempt at a synthesis of the Japanese doctrines) as composed of\nBuddhas. But here the student finds himself voyaging farther, perhaps,\nbeyond the bar of the thinkable than Western philosophers have ever\nventured. All are One;--each by union becomes equal with All! We are\nnot only bidden to imagine the ultimate reality as composed of units of\nconscious being,--but to believe each unit permanently equal to every\nother _and infinite in potentiality_.[10] The central reality of every\nliving creature is a pure Buddha: the visible form and thinking self,\nwhich encell it, being but Karma. With some degree of truth it might be\nsaid that Buddhism substitutes for our theory of a universe of physical\natoms the hypothesis of a universe of psychical units. Not that it\nnecessarily denies our theory of physical atoms, but that it assumes a\nposition which might be thus expressed in words: \"What you call atoms\nare really combinations, unstable aggregates, essentially impermanent,\nand therefore essentially unreal. Atoms are but Karma.\" And this\nposition is suggestive. We know nothing whatever of the ultimate nature\nof substance and motion: but we have scientific evidence that the known\nhas been evolved from the unknown; that the atoms of our elements _are_\ncombinations; and that what we call matter and force are but different\nmanifestations of a single and infinite Unknown Reality.\n\nThere are wonderful Buddhist pictures which at first sight appear to\nhave been made, like other Japanese pictures, with bold free sweeps of\na skilled brush, but which, when closely examined, prove to have been\nexecuted in a much more marvelous manner. The figures, the features,\nthe robes, the aureoles,--also the scenery, the colors, the effects of\nmist or cloud,--all, even to the tiniest detail of tone or line, have\nbeen produced by groupings of microscopic Chinese characters,--tinted\naccording to position, and more or less thickly massed according to\nneed of light or shade. In brief, these pictures are composed entirely\nout of texts of Sutras: they are mosaics of minute ideographs,--each\nideograph a combination of strokes, and the symbol at once of a sound\nand of an idea.\n\nIs our universe so composed?--an endless phantasmagory made only by\ncombinations of combinations of combinations of combinations of units\nfinding quality and form through unimaginable affinities;--now thickly\nmassed in solid glooms; now palpitating in tremulosities of light\nand color; always and everywhere grouped by some stupendous art into\none vast mosaic of polarities;--yet each unit in itself a complexity\ninconceivable, and each in itself also a symbol only, a character, a\nsingle ideograph of the undecipherable text of the Infinite Riddle?...\nAsk the chemists and the mathematicians.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Scarcely a day passes that I do not hear such words\nuttered as ingwa, gokuraku, g\u014dsh\u014d,--or other words referring to Karma,\nheaven, future life, past life, etc. But I have never heard a man or\nwoman of the people use the word \"Nehan;\" and whenever I have ventured\nto question such about Nirvana, I found that its philosophical meaning\nwas unknown. On the other hand, the Japanese scholar speaks of Nehan\nas the reality,--of heaven, either as a temporary condition or as a\nparable.]\n\n[Footnote 2: This astronomical localization of higher conditions\nof being, or of other \"Buddha-fields,\" may provoke a smile; but it\nsuggests undeniable possibilities. There is no absurdity in supposing\nthat potentialities of life and growth and development really pass,\nwith nebular diffusion and concentration, from expired systems to\nnew systems. Indeed, not to suppose this, in our present state of\nknowledge, is scarcely possible for the rational mind.]\n\n[Footnote 3: One is reminded by this conception of Mr. Spencer's\nbeautiful definition of Equanimity:--\"Equanimity may be compared to\nwhite light, which, though composed of numerous colors, is colorless;\nwhile pleasurable and painful moods of mind may be compared to the\nmodifications of light that result from increasing the proportions of\nsome rays, and decreasing the proportions of others.\"--_Principles of\nPsychology._]\n\n[Footnote 4: The expression \"infinite bliss\" as synonymous with Nirvana\nis taken from the _Questions of King Milinda._]\n\n[Footnote 5: In the Sutra of the Great Decease we find the instance\nof a woman reaching this condition:--\"The Sister Nanda, O Ananda, by\nthe destruction of the five bonds that bind people to this world, has\nbecome an inhabitant of the highest heaven,--there to pass entirely\naway,--thence never to return.\"]\n\n[Footnote 6: Different Buddhist systems give different enumerations\nof these mysterious powers whereof the Chinese names literally\nsignify:--(1) Calm--Meditation-outward-pouring-no-obstacle-wisdom\n(2) Heaven-Eye-no-obstacle-wisdom; (3) Heaven\nEar-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(4) Other-minds-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(5)\nFornier-States-no-obstacle-wisdom;--(6)\nLeak-Extinction-no-obstacle-wisdom.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Beings who have reached the state of Engaku or of Sosatsu\nare not supposed capable of retrogression, or of any serious error; but\nit is otherwise in lower spiritual states.]\n\n[Footnote 8: See a curious legend in the Vinaya texts,--_Kullavagga,_\nV. 8, 2.]\n\n[Footnote 9: This position, it will be observed, is very dissimilar\nfrom that of Hartmann, who holds that \"all plurality of individuation\nbelongs to the sphere of phenomenality.\" (vol. ii. page 233 of\nEnglish translation.) One is rather reminded of the thought of Galton\nthat human beings \"may contribute more or less unconsciously to the\nmanifestation of a far higher life than our own,--somewhat as the\nindividual cells of one of the more complex animals contribute to\nthe manifestation of its higher order of personality.\" (_Hereditary\nGenius,_ p. 361.) Another thought of Galton's, expressed on the same\npage of the work just quoted from, is still more strongly suggestive\nof the Buddhist concept:--\"We must not permit ourselves to consider\neach human or other personality as something supernaturally added\nto the stock of nature, but rather as a segregation of what already\nexisted, under a new shape, and as a regular consequence of previous\nconditions.... Neither must we be misled by the word 'individuality.'\n... We may look upon each individual as something not wholly detached\nfrom its parent-source,--as a wave that has been lifted and shaped by\nnormal conditions in an unknown and illimitable ocean.\"\n\nThe reader should remember that the Buddhist hypothesis does not imply\neither individuality or personality in Nirvana, but simple entity,--not\na spiritual _body,_ in our meaning of the term, but only a divine\nconsciousness. \"Heart,\" in the sense of divine mind, is a term used\nin some Japanese texts to describe such entity. In the _Dai-Nichi Ky\u014d_\nS\u014d (Commentary on the Dai-Nichi Sutra), for example, is the statement\n\"When all seeds of Karma-life are entirely burnt out and annihilated,\nthen the _vacuum-pure_ Bodhi-heart is reached.\" (I may observe that\nBuddhist metaphysicians use the term \"vacuum-bodies\" to describe one\nof the high conditions of entity.) The following, from the fifty-first\nvolume of the work called _Daiz\u014d-h\u014d-s\u016b_ will also be found interesting\n\"By experience the Tath\u00e2gata possesses all forms,--forms for multitude\nnumberless as the dust-grains of the universe.... The Tath\u00e2gata gets\nhimself born in such places as he desires, or in accord with the desire\nof others, and there saves [lit., 'carries over'--that is, over the Sea\nof Birth and Death] all sentient beings. Wheresoever his will finds an\nabiding-point, there is he embodied: this is called Will-Birth Body....\nThe Buddha makes Law his body, and remains pure as empty space: this is\ncalled Law-Body.\"]\n\n[Footnote 10: Half of this Buddhist thought is really embodied in\nTennyson's line,--\"Boundless inward, in the atom; boundless outward, in\nthe Whole.\"]\n\n\n\nV\n\n\n    ... \"All beings that have life shall lay\n    Aside their complex form,--that aggregation\n    Of mental and material qualities\n    That gives them, or in heaven or on earth,\n    Their fleeting individuality.\"\n    _The Book of the Great Decease_.\n\nIn every teleological system there are conceptions which cannot bear\nthe test of modern psychological analysis, and in the foregoing\nunfilled outline of a great religious hypothesis there will doubtless\nbe recognized some \"ghosts of beliefs haunting those mazes of verbal\npropositions in which metaphysicians habitually lose themselves.\"\nBut truths will be perceived also,--grand recognitions of the law of\nethical evolution, of the price of progress, and of our relation to the\nchangeless Reality abiding beyond all change.\n\n\nThe Buddhist estimate of the enormity of that opposition to moral\nprogress which humanity must overcome is fully sustained by our\nscientific knowledge of the past and perception of the future.\nMental and moral advance has thus far been effected only through\nconstant struggle against inheritances older than reason or moral\nfeeling,--against the instincts and the appetites of primitive brute\nlife. And the Buddhist teaching, that the average man can hope to\nleave his worse nature behind him only after the lapse of millions of\nfuture lives, is much more of a truth than of a theory. Only through\nmillions of births have we been able to reach even this our present\nimperfect state; and the dark bequests of our darkest past are still\nstrong enough betimes to prevail over reason and ethical feeling. Every\nfuture forward pace upon the moral path will have to be taken against\nthe massed effort of millions of ghostly wills. For those past selves\nwhich priest and poet have told us to use as steps to higher things are\nnot dead, nor even likely to die for a thousand generations to come:\nthey are too much alive;--they have still power to clutch the climbing\nfeet,--sometimes even to fling back the climber into the primeval slime.\n\nAgain, in its legend of the Heavens of Desire,--progress through which\ndepends upon the ability of triumphant virtue to refuse what it has\nwon,--Buddhism gives us a wonder-story full of evolutional truth.\nThe difficulties of moral self-elevation do not disappear with the\namelioration of material social conditions;--in our own day they rather\nincrease. As life becomes more complex, more multiform, so likewise\ndo the obstacles to ethical advance,--so likewise do the results of\nthoughts and acts. The expansion of intellectual power, the refinement\nof sensibility, the enlargement of the sympathies, the intensive\nquickening of the sense of beauty,--all multiply ethical dangers just\nas certainly as they multiply ethical opportunities. The highest\nmaterial results of civilization, and the increase of possibilities of\npleasure, exact an exercise of self-mastery and a power of, ethical\nbalance, needless and impossible in older and lower states of existence.\n\nThe Buddhist doctrine of impermanency is the doctrine also of\nmodern science: either might be uttered in the words of the other.\n\"Natural knowledge,\" wrote Huxley in one of his latest and finest\nessays, \"tends more and more to the conclusion that 'all the choir\nof heaven and furniture of the earth' are the transitory forms of\nparcels of cosmic substance wending along the road of evolution from\nnebulous potentiality,--through endless growths of sun and planet\nand satellite,--through all varieties of matter,--through infinite\ndiversities of life and thought,--possibly through modes of being of\nwhich we neither have a conception nor are competent to form any,--back\nto the indefinable latency from which they arose. Thus the most obvious\nattribute of the Cosmos is its impermanency.\"[1]\n\nAnd, finally, it may be said that Buddhism not only presents remarkable\naccordance with nineteenth century thought in regard to the instability\nof all integrations, the ethical signification of heredity, the lesson\nof mental evolution, the duty of moral progress, but it also agrees\nwith science in repudiating equally our doctrines of materialism and\nof spiritualism, our theory of a Creator and of special creation,\nand our belief in the immortality of the soul. Yet, in spite of this\nrepudiation of the very foundations of Occidental religion, it has been\nable to give us the revelation of larger religious possibilities,--the\nsuggestions of a universal scientific creed nobler than any which\nhas ever existed. Precisely in that period of our own intellectual\nevolution when faith in a personal God is passing away,--when the\nbelief in an individual soul is becoming impossible,--when the most\nreligious minds shrink from everything that we have been calling\nreligion,--when the universal doubt is an ever-growing weight upon\nethical aspiration,--light is offered from the East. There we find\nourselves in presence of an older and a vaster faith,--holding no gross\nanthropomorphic conceptions of the immeasurable Reality, and denying\nthe existence of soul, but nevertheless inculcating a system of morals\nsuperior to any other, and maintaining a hope which no possible future\nform of positive knowledge can destroy. Reinforced by the teaching\nof science, the teaching of this more ancient faith is that for\nthousands of years we have been thinking inside-out and upside-down.\nThe only reality is One;--all that we have taken for Substance is only\nShadow;--the physical is the unreal;--_and the outer-man is the ghost_.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Evolution and Ethics_.]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nTHE REBIRTH OF KATSUGOR\u014c\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe following is not a story,--at least it is not one of _my_ stories.\nIt is only the translation of an old Japanese document--or rather\nseries of documents--very much signed and sealed, and dating back to\nthe early part of the present century. Various authors appear to have\nmade use of these documents: especially the compiler of the curious\ncollection of Buddhist stories entitled _Bukky\u014d-hyakkwa-zensh\u014d_, to\nwhom they furnished the material of the twenty-sixth narrative in that\nwork. The present translation, however, was made from a manuscript copy\ndiscovered in a private library in T\u014dky\u014d. I am responsible for nothing\nbeyond a few notes appended to the text.\n\nAlthough the beginning will probably prove dry reading, I presume to\nadvise the perusal of the whole translation from first to last, because\nit suggests many things besides the possibility of remembering former\nbirths. It will be found to reflect something of the feudal Japan\npassed away, and something of the old-time faith,--not the higher\nBuddhism, but what is incomparably more difficult for any Occidental\nto obtain a glimpse of: the common ideas of the people concerning\npre\u00ebxistence and rebirth. And in view of this fact, the exactness\nof the official investigations, and the credibility of the evidence\naccepted, necessarily become questions of minor importance.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\n\n1.--COPY OF THE REPORT OF TAMON DEMPACHIR\u014c.\n\n_The case of Katsugor\u014d, nine years old, second son of Genz\u014d, a farmer\non my estate, dwelling in the Village called Nakano-mura in the\nDistrict called Tamag\u014dri in the Province of Musashi._\n\nSome time during the autumn of last year, the above-mentioned\nKatsugor\u014d, the son of Genz\u014d, told to his elder sister the story of his\nprevious existence and of his rebirth. But as it seemed to be only the\nfancy of a child, she gave little heed to it. Afterwards, however, when\nKatsugor\u014d had told her the same story over and over again, she began to\nthink that it was a strange thing, and she told her parents about it.\n\nDuring the twelfth month of the past year, Genz\u014d himself questioned\nKatsugor\u014d about the matter, whereupon Katsugor\u014d declared,--\n\nThat he had been in his former existence the son of a certain Ky\u016bbei,\na farmer of Hodokubo-mura, which is a village within the jurisdiction\nof the Lord Komiya, in the district called Tamag\u014dri, in the province of\nMusashi;--\n\nThat he, Katsugor\u014d, the son of Ky\u016bbei, had died of smallpox at the age\nof six years,--and\n\nThat he had been reborn thereafter into the family of the Genz\u014d\nbefore-mentioned.\n\nThough this seemed unbelievable, the boy repeated all the circumstances\nof his story with so much exactness and apparent certainty, that the\nHeadman and the elders of the village made a formal investigation\nof the case. As the news of this event soon spread, it was heard\nby the family of a certain Hanshir\u014d, living in the village called\nHodokubo-mura; and Hanshir\u014d then came to the house of the Genz\u014d\naforesaid, a farmer belonging to my estate, and found that everything\nwas true which the boy had said about the personal appearance and the\nfacial characteristics of his former parents, and about the aspect of\nthe house which had been his home in his previous birth. Katsugor\u014d was\nthen taken to the house of Hanshir\u014d in Hodokubo-mura; and the people\nthere said that he looked very much like their T\u014dz\u014d, who had died a\nnumber of years before, at the age of six. Since then the two families\nhave been visiting each other at intervals. The people of other\nneighboring villages seem to have heard of the matter; and now persons\ncome daily from various places to see Katsugor\u014d.\n\n*\n\nA deposition regarding the above facts having been made before me by\npersons dwelling on my estate, I summoned the man Genz\u014d to my house,\nand there examined him. His answers to my questions did not contradict\nthe statements before-mentioned made by other parties.\n\nOccasionally in the world some rumor of such a matter as this spreads\namong the people. Indeed, it is hard to believe such things. But I beg\nto make report of the present case, hoping the same will reach your\naugust ear,--so that I may not be charged with negligence.\n\n[Signed] TAMON DEMPACHIR\u014c.\n\n_The Fourth Month and the Sixth Year of Bunsei_ [1823].\n\n\n\n2.--COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN BY KAZUNAWO TO TEIKIN, PRIEST OF SENGAKUJI.\n\nI have been favored with the accompanying copy of the report of Tamon\nDempachir\u014d by Shiga Hyo\u00ebmon Sama, who brought it to me; and I take\ngreat pleasure in sending it to you. I think that it might be well for\nyou to preserve it, together with the writing from Kwan-zan Sama, which\nyou kindly showed me the other day.\n\n[Signed] KAZUNAWO.\n\n_The twenty-first day of the Sixth Month_. [No other date.]\n\n\n\n3.--COPY OF THE LETTER OF MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN [DAIMY\u014c] TO THE PRIEST\nTEIKIN OF THE TEMPLE CALLED SENGAKUJI.\n\nI herewith enclose and send you the account of the rebirth of\nKatsugor\u014d. I have written it in the popular style, thinking that it\nmight have a good effect in helping to silence those who do not believe\nin the doctrines of the Buddha. As a literary work it is, of course, a\nwretched thing. I send it to you supposing that it could only amuse you\nfrom that point of view. But as for the relation itself, it is without\nmistake; for I myself heard it from the grandmother of Katsugor\u014d. When\nyou have read it, please return it to me.\n\n[Signed] KWANZAN.\n\nTwentieth day. [No date.]\n\n\n\n[COPY.]\n\nRELATION OF THE REBIRTH OF KATSUGOR\u014c.\n\n4.--(Introductory Note by the Priest Teikin.)\n\nThis is the account of a true fact; for it has been written by\nMatsudaira Kwanzan Sama, who himself went [to Nakano-mura] on the\ntwenty-second day of the third month of this year for the special\npurpose of inquiring about the matter.\n\nAfter having obtained a glimpse of Katsugoro, he questioned the boy's\ngrandmother as to every particular; and he wrote down her answers\nexactly as they were given.\n\nAfterwards, the said Kwanzan Sama condescended to honor this temple\nwith a visit on the fourteenth day of this fourth month, and with his\nown august lips told me about his visit to the family of the aforesaid\nKatsugor\u014d. Furthermore, he vouchsafed me the favor of permitting me to\nread the before-mentioned writing, on the twentieth day of this same\nmonth. And, availing myself of the privilege, I immediately made a copy\nof the writing.\n\n[Signed]      TEIKIN S\u014c\n\nSengaku-ji\n                                                    Facsimile of the\n                                                    priest's kakihan,\n                                                    or private\n                                                    sign-manual,\n                                                    made with the\n                                                    brush.\n\n_The twenty-first day of the Fourth Month of the Sixth Year of Bunsei_\n[1823]\n\n\n\n[COPY.]\n\n5.--[NAMES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE TWO FAMILIES CONCERNED.]\n\n\n[_Family of Genz\u014d_.]\n\nKATSUGOR\u014c.--Born the 10th day of the 10th month of the twelfth year\nof Bunkwa [1815]. Nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei [1823].[1]\nSecond son of Genz\u014d, a farmer living in Tanitsuiri in Nakano-mura,\ndistrict of Tamag\u014dri, province of Musashi.--Estate of Tamon\nDempachir\u014d, whose yashiki is in the street called Shichikench\u014d, Nedzu,\nYedo.--Jurisdiction of Yusuki.\n\nGENZ\u014c.--Father of Katsugor\u014d. Family name, Koyada. Forty-nine years old\nthis sixth year of Bunsei. Being poor, he occupies himself with the\nmaking of baskets, which he sells in Yedo. The name of the inn at which\nhe lodges while in Yedo is Sagamiya, kept by one Kihei, in Bakuro-ch\u014d.\n\nSEI.--Wife of Genz\u014d and mother of Katsugoro. Thirty-nine years old this\nsixth year of Bunsei. Daughter of Murata Kichitar\u014d, samurai,--once an\narcher in the service of the Lord of Owari. When Sei was twelve years\nold she was a maid-servant, it is said, in the house of Honda Dainoshin\nDono. When she was thirteen years old, her father, Kichitar\u014d was\ndismissed forever for a certain cause from the service of the Lord of\nOwari, and he became a r\u014dnin.[2] He died at the age of seventy-five, on\nthe twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Bunkwa\n[1807]. His grave is in the cemetery of the temple called Eirin-ji, of\nthe Zen sect, in the village of Shimo-Yusuki.\n\nTSUYA.--Grandmother of Katsugoro. Seventy-two years old this sixth year\nof Bunsei. When young she served as maid in the household of Matsudaira\nOki-no-Kami Dono [Daimy\u014d].\n\nFUSA.--Elder sister of Katsugoro. Fifteen years old this year.\n\nOTOJIR\u014c.--Elder brother of Katsugoro. Fourteen years old this year.\n\nTSUN\u00c9.--Younger sister of Katsugoro. Four years old this year.\n\n\n[_Family of Hanshir\u014d_.]\n\nT\u014cZ\u014c.--Died at the age of six in Hodo-kubo-mura, in the district\ncalled Tamagori in the province of Musashi. Estate of Nakan\u00e9 Uyemon,\nwhose yashiki is in the street Ata-rashi-bashi-d\u014dri, Shitaya, Yedo.\nJurisdiction of Komiya.--[T\u014dz\u014d] was born in the second year of\nBunkwa [1805], and died at about the fourth hour of the day [10\n_o'clock in the morning_] on the fourth clay of the second month of\nthe seventh year of Bunkwa [1810]. The sickness of which he died\nwas smallpox. Buried in the graveyard on the hill above the village\nbefore-mentioned,--Hodokubo-mura.--Parochial temple: Iw\u014dji in\nMisawa-mura. Sect: Zen-sh\u016b. Last year the fifth year of Bunkwa [1822],\nthe _ji\u016b-san kwaiki_[3] was said for T\u014dz\u014d.\n\nHANSHIR\u014c.--Stepfather of T\u014dz\u014d. Family name: Suzaki. Fifty years old\nthis sixth year of Bunsei.\n\nSHIDZU.--Mother of T\u014dz\u014d. Forty-nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei.\n\nKY\u016aBEI (afterwards TOG\u014cR\u014c).--Real father of T\u014dz\u014d. Original name,\nKy\u016bbei, afterwards changed to Tog\u014dr\u014d. Died at the age of forty-eight,\nin the sixth year of Bunkwa [1809], when T\u00f6z\u00f6 was five years old. To\nreplace him, Hanshir\u014d became an _iri-muko_.[4]\n\nCHILDREN: TWO BOYS AND TWO GIRLS.--These are Hanshir\u014d's children by the\nmother of T\u014dz\u014d.\n\n6.--[COPY OF THE ACCOUNT WRITTEN IN POPULAR STYLE BY MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN\nDONO, DAIMY\u014c.]\n\nSome time in the eleventh month of the past year, when Katsugor\u014d was\nplaying in the rice-field with his elder sister, Fusa, he asked her,--\n\"Elder Sister, where did you come from before you were born into our\nhousehold?\"\n\nFusa answered him:--\n\n\"How can I know what happened to me before I was born?\"\n\nKatsugoro looked surprised and exclaimed:\n\n\"Then you cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?\"\n\n\"Do _you_ remember?\" asked Fusa.\n\n\"Indeed I do,\" replied Katsugor\u014d. \"I used to be the son of Ky\u016bbei San\nof Hodo-kubo, and my name was then T\u014dz\u014d--do you not know all that?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Fusa, \"I shall tell father and mother about it.\"\n\nBut Katsugor\u014d at once began to cry, and said:--\n\n\"Please do not tell!--it would not be good to tell father and mother.\"\n\nFusa made answer, after a little while:--\n\n\"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do\nanything naughty, then I will tell.\"\n\nAfter that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister\nwould threaten the brother, saying, \"Very well, then--I shall tell\nthat thing to father and mother.\" At these words the boy would always\nyield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day\noverheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugor\u014d must have been\ndoing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and\nFusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genz\u014d and his wife,\nand Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugor\u014d, thought it a very strange\nthing. They called Katsugor\u014d, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing,\nand then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those\nwords.\n\nAfter hesitation, Katsugor\u014d said:--\"I will tell you everything. I used\nto be the son of Ky\u016bbei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother\nthen was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Ky\u016bbei San died; and\nthere came in his place a man called Hanshir\u014d San, who loved me very\nmuch. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of\nsmallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable\nwomb, and was born again.\"\n\nThe parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing\nthis; and they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man\ncalled Hanshir\u014d of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard\nevery day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any\nother matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.\n\nNow Sei, the mother of Katsugor\u014d, had nightly to suckle her little\ndaughter Tsun\u00e9, who was four years old;[5]--and Katsugor\u014d therefore\nslept with his grandmother, Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her\nin bed; and one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she\npersuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had\ndied. Then he said:--\"Until I was four years old I used to remember\neverything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and\nnow I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of\nsmallpox; I remember that I was put into a jar;[6] I remember that I\nwas buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground; and the\npeople let the jar drop into that hole. It fell pon!--I remember that\nsound well. Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on\nmy own pillow there.[7] In a short time some old man,--looking like\na grandfather--came and took me away. I do not know who or what he\nwas. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it\nwas neither night nor day as we went: it was always like sunset-time.\nI did not feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I\nthink; but still I could hear always, faintly, the voices of people\ntalking at home; and the sound of the Nembutsu[8] being said for me.\nI remember also that when the people at home set offerings of hot\n_botamochi_[9] before the household shrinen [_butsudan_], I inhaled\nthe vapor of the offerings.... Grandmother, never forget to offer warm\nfood to the honorable dead [_Hotok\u00e9 Sama_], and do not forget to give\nto priests--I am sure it is very good to do these things.[10] ... After\nthat, I only remember that the old man led me by some roundabout way\nto this place--I remember we passed the road beyond the village. Then\nwe came here, and he pointed to this house, and said to me:--'Now you\nmust be reborn,--for it is three years since you died. You are to be\nreborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is\nvery kind; so it will be well for you to be conceived and born there.'\nAfter saying this, the old man went away. I remained a little time\nunder the kaki-tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was\ngoing to enter when I heard talking inside: some one said that because\nfather was now earning so little, mother would have to go to service in\nYedo. I thought, \"I will not go into that house;\" and I stopped three\ndays in the garden. On the third clay it was decided that, after all,\nmother would not have to go to Yedo. The same night I passed into the\nhouse through a knot-hole in the sliding-shutters;--and after that I\nstayed for three days beside the _kamado_.[11] Then I entered mother's\nhonorable womb.[12] ... I remember that I was born without any pain at\nall.--Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please\nnever tell it to anybody else.\"\n\n*\n\nThe grandmother told Genz\u014d and his wife what Katsugor\u014d had related to\nher; and after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his\nparents on the subject of his former existence, and would often say\nto them: \"I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the\ntomb of Ky\u016bbei San.\" Genz\u014d thought that Katsugor\u014d, being a strange\nchild, would probably die before long, and that it might therefore be\nbetter to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man\nin Hodokubo called Hanshir\u014d. But he did not wish to make the inquiry\nhimself, because for a man to do so [_under such circumstances?_] would\nseem inconsiderate or forward. Therefore, instead of going himself to\nHodokubo, he asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first\nmonth of this year, to take her grandson there.\n\nTsuya went with Katsugor\u014d to Hodokubo; and when they entered the\nvillage she pointed to the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy,\"\nWhich house is it?--is it this house or that one?\" \"No,\" answered\nKatsugor\u014d,--\"it is further on--much further,\"--and he hurried before\nher. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, \"This is the\nhouse!\"--and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya\nfollowed him in, and asked the people there what was the name of the\nowner of the house. \"Hanshir\u014d,\" one of them answered. She asked the\nname of Hanshir\u014d's wife. \"Shidzu,\" was the reply. Then she asked\nwhether there had ever been a son called T\u014dz\u014d born in that house.\n\"Yes,\" was the answer; \"but that boy died thirteen years ago, when he\nwas six years old.\"\n\nThen for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugor\u014d had spoken\nthe truth; and she could not help shedding tears. She related to\nthe people of the house all that Katsugor\u014d had told her about his\nremembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshir\u014d and his wife wondered\ngreatly. They caressed Katsugor\u014d and wept; and they remarked that he\nwas much handsomer now than he had been as T\u00f6z\u00f6 before dying at the\nage of six. In the mean time, Katsugor\u014d was looking all about; and\nseeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshir\u014d,\nhe pointed to it, and said:--\"That used not to be there.\" And he also\nsaid,--\"The tree yonder used not to be there.\" All this was true. So\nfrom the minds of Hanshir\u014d and his wife every doubt departed [_ga wo\norishi_].\n\nOn the same day Tsuya and Katsugor\u014d returned to Tanitsuiri,\nNakano-mura. Afterwards Genz\u014d sent his son several times to Hanshir\u014d's\nhouse, and allowed him to visit the tomb of Ky\u016bbei his real father in\nhis previous existence.\n\nSometimes Katsugor\u014d says:--\"I am a _Nono-Sama_:[13] therefore please\nbe kind to me.\" Sometimes he also says to his grandmother:--\"I think\nI shall die when I am sixteen; but, as Ontak\u00e9 Sama[14] has taught us,\ndying is not a matter to be afraid of.\" When his parents ask him,\n\"Would you not like to become a priest?\" he answers, \"I would rather\nnot be a priest.\"\n\nThe village people do not call him Katsugoro any more; they have\nnicknamed him \"Hodokubo-Koz\u014d\" (the Acolyte of Hodokubo).[15] When any\none visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once, and runs to\nhide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any\ndirect conversation with him. I have written down this account exactly\nas his grandmother gave it to me.\n\nI asked whether Genz\u014d, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember\nhaving done any virtuous deeds. Genz\u014d and his wife said that they\nhad never done anything especially virtuous; but that Tsuya, the\ngrandmother, had always been in the habit of repeating the _Nembutsu_\nevery morning and evening, and that she never failed to give two\n_mon_[16] to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting\nthese small matters, she never had done anything which could be called\na particularly virtuous act.\n\n(--This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugor\u014d.)\n\n7.--(Note by the Translator.) The foregoing is taken from a manuscript\nentitled _Chin Setsu Sh\u016b Ki_; or, \"Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon\nStories,\"--made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei\nand the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo [1823-1835]. At the\nend of the manuscript is written,--\"From the years of Bunsei to the\nyears of Tempo.--Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumach\u014d, Shiba, Yedo\" Under\nthis, again, is the following note:--\"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujir\u014d\nNishinohubo: twenty-first day [?], Second Year of Meiji [1869].\"\nFrom which it would appear that the manuscript had been written by\nMinamisempa, who collected stories told to him, or copied them from\nmanuscripts obtained by him, during the thirteen years from 1823 to\n1835, inclusive.\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nPerhaps somebody will now be unreasonable enough to ask whether I\nbelieve this story,--as if my belief or disbelief had anything to\ndo with the matter! The question of the possibility of remembering\nformer births seems to me to depend upon the question what it is that\nremembers. If it is the Infinite All-Self in each one of us, then I can\nbelieve the whole of the Jatakas without any trouble. As to the False\nSelf, the mere woof and warp of sensation and desire, then I can best\nexpress my idea by relating a dream which I once dreamed. Whether it\nwas a dream of the night or a dream of the day need not concern any\none, since it was only a dream.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The Western reader is requested to bear in mind that the\nyear in which a Japanese child is born is counted always as one year in\nthe reckoning of age.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Lit.: \"A wave-man,\"--a wandering samurai without a lord.\nThe r\u014dnin were generally a desperate and very dangerous class; but\nthere were some fine characters among them.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The Buddhist services for the dead are celebrated at\nregular intervals, increasing successively in length, until the time\nof one hundred years after death. The _ji\u016b-san kwaiki_ is the service\nfor the thirteenth year after death. By \"thirteenth\" in the context the\nreader must understand that the year in which the death took place is\ncounted for one year.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The second husband, by adoption, of a daughter who lives\nwith her own parents.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Children in Japan, among the poorer classes, are not\nweaned until an age much later than what is considered the proper age\nfor weaning children in Western countries. But \"four years old\" in this\ntext may mean considerably less, than three by Western reckoning.]\n\n[Footnote 6: From very ancient time in Japan it has been the custom\nto bury the dead in large jars,--usually of red earthenware,--called\n_Kam\u00e9_. Such jars are still used, although a large proportion of the\ndead are buried in wooden coffins of a form unknown in the Occident.]\n\n[Footnote 7: The idea expressed is not that of lying down with the\npillow under the head, but of hovering about the pillow, or resting\nupon it as an insect might do. The bodiless spirit is usually said to\nrest upon the roof of the home. The apparition of the aged man referred\nto in the next sentence seems a thought of Shinto rather than of\nBuddhism.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The repetition of the Buddhist invocation _Namu Amida\nButsu_! is thus named. The _nembutsu_ is repeated by many Buddhist\nsects besides the sect of Amida proper,--the Shinsh\u016b.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Botamochi, a kind of sugared rice-cake.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Such advice is a commonplace in Japanese Buddhist\nliterature. By Hotok\u0117 Sama here the boy means, not the Buddhas proper,\nbut the spirits of the dead, hopefully termed Buddhas by those who\nloved them,--much as in the West we sometimes speak of our dead as\n\"angels.\"]\n\n[Footnote 11: The cooking-place in a Japanese kitchen. Sometimes the\nword is translated \"kitchen-range,\" but the _kamado_ is something very\ndifferent from a Western kitchen-range.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Here I think it better to omit a couple of sentences\nin the original rather too plain for Western taste, yet not without\ninterest. The meaning of the omitted passages is only that even in the\nwomb the child acted with consideration, and according to the rules of\nfilial piety.]\n\n[Footnote 13: _Nono-San_ (or _Sama_) is the child-word for the\nSpirits of the dead, for the Buddhas, and for the Shint\u014d Gods,--Kami.\n_Nono-San wo ogamu_,--\"to pray to the Nono-San,\" is the child-phrase\nfor praying to the gods. The spirits of the ancestors become\nNono-San,--_Kami_,--according to Shint\u014d thought.]\n\n[Footnote 14: The reference here to Ontak\u00e9 Sama has a particular\ninterest, but will need some considerable explanation.\n\nOntak\u00e9, or Mitak\u00e9, is the name of a celebrated holy peak in the\nprovince of Shinano--a great resort for pilgrims. During the\nTokugawa Sh\u014dgunate, a priest called Isshin, of the Rissh\u016b Buddhists,\nmade a pilgrimage to that mountain. Returning to his native place\n(Sakamoto-ch\u014d, Shitaya, Yedo), he began to preach certain new\ndoctrines, and to make for himself a reputation as a miracle-worker,\nby virtue of powers said to have been gained during his pilgrimage to\nOntak\u00e9. The Sh\u014dgunate considered him a dangerous person, and banished\nhim to the island of Hachij\u014d, where he remained for some years.\nAfterwards he was allowed to return to Yedo, and there to preach his\nnew faith,--to which he gave the name of Azuma-Ky\u014d. It was Buddhist\nteaching in a Shint\u014d disguise,--the deities especially adored by its\nfollowers being Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-hi-kona as Buddhist avatars. In\nthe prayer of the sect called Kaibyaku-Norito it is said:--\"The divine\nnature is immovable (fud\u014d); yet it moves. It is formless, yet manifests\nitself in forms. This is the Incomprehensible Divine Body. In Heaven\nand Earth it is called Kami; in all things it is called Spirit; in Man\nit is called Mind.... From this only reality came the heavens, the four\noceans, the great whole of the three thousand universes;--from the One\nMind emanate three thousands of great thousands of forms.\" ...\n\nIn the eleventh year of Bunkwa (1814) a man called Shi moyama Osuk\u00e9,\noriginally an oil-merchant in Heiyemon-ch\u014d, Asakusa, Yedo, organized,\non the basis of Isshin's teaching, a religious association named\nTomoy\u00e9-Ko. It flourished until the overthrow of the Sh\u014dgunate, when\na law was issued forbidding the teaching of mixed doctrines, and the\nblending of Shint\u014d with Buddhist religion. Shimo-yama Osuk\u00e9 then\napplied for permission to establish a new Shinto sect, under the name\nof Mitak\u00e9-Ky\u014d,--popularly called Ontak\u00e9-Ky\u014d; and the permission was\ngiven in the sixth year of Meiji (1873). Osuk\u00e9 then remodeled the\nBuddhist sutra Fud\u014d Ky\u014d into a Shinto prayer-book, under the title,\nShint\u014d-Fud\u014d-Norito. The sect still flourishes; and one of its chief\ntemples is situated about a mile from my present residence in T\u014dky\u014d.\n\n\"Ontak\u00e9 San\" (or \"Sama\") is a popular name given to the deities adored\nby this sect. It really means the Deity dwelling on the peak Mitak\u00e9,\nor Ontak\u00e9. But the name is also sometimes applied to the high-priest\nof the sect, who is supposed to be oracularly inspired by the deity\nof Ontak\u00e9, and to make revelations of truth through the power of the\ndivinity. In the mouth of the boy Katsugoro \"Ontak\u00e9 Sama\" means the\nhigh-priest of that time (1823), almost certainly Osuk\u00e9 himself,--then\nchief of the Tomoy\u00e9-Ky\u014d.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Koz\u014d is the name given to a Buddhist acolyte, or a youth\nstudying for the priesthood. But it is also given to errand-boys and\nlittle boy-servants sometimes,--perhaps because in former days the\nheads of little boys were shaved. I think that the meaning in this text\nis \"acolyte.\"]\n\n[Footnote 16: In that time the name of the smallest of coins = 1/10 of\n1 cent. It was about the same as that now called rin, a copper with a\nsquare hole in the middle and bearing Chinese characters.]\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nWITHIN THE CIRCLE\n\n\nNeither personal pain nor personal pleasure can be really expressed\nin words. It is never possible to communicate them in their original\nform. It is only possible, by vivid portrayal of the circumstances\nor conditions causing them, to awaken in sympathetic minds some\nkindred qualities of feeling. But if the circumstances causing the\npain or the pleasure be totally foreign to common human experience,\nthen no representation of them can make fully known the sensations\nwhich they evoked. Hopeless, therefore, any attempt to tell the real\npain of seeing my former births. I can say only that no combination\nof suffering possible to _individual_ being could be likened to such\npain,--the pain of countless lives interwoven. It seemed as if every\nnerve of me had been prolonged into some monstrous web of sentiency\nspun back through a million years,--and as if the whole of that\nmeasureless woof and warp, over all its shivering threads, were pouring\ninto my consciousness, out of the abysmal past, some ghastliness\nwithout name,--some horror too vast for human brain to hold. For, as\nI looked backward, I became double, quadruple, octuple;--I multiplied\nby arithmetical progression;--I became hundreds and thousands,--and\nfeared with the terror of thousands,--and despaired with the anguish\nof thousands,--and shuddered with the agony of thousands; yet knew\nthe pleasure of none. All joys, all delights appeared but mists or\nmockeries: only the pain and the fear were real,--and always, always\ngrowing. Then in the moment when sentiency itself seemed bursting into\ndissolution, one divine touch ended the frightful vision, and brought\nagain to me the simple consciousness of the single present. Oh! how\nunspeakably delicious that sudden shrinking back out of multiplicity\ninto unity!--that immense, immeasurable collapse of Self into the blind\noblivious numbness of individuality!\n\n*\n\n\"To others also,\" said the voice of the divine one who had thus\nsaved me,--\"to others in the like state it has been permitted to see\nsomething of their pre\u00ebxistence. But no one of them ever could endure\nto look far. Power to see all former births belongs only to those\neternally released from the bonds of Self. Such exist outside of\nillusion,--outside of form and name; and pain cannot come nigh them.\n\n\"But to you, remaining in illusion, not even the Buddha could give\npower to look back more than a little way.\n\n\"Still you are bewitched by the follies of art and of poetry and of\nmusic,--the delusions of color and form,--the delusions of sensuous\nspeech, the delusions of sensuous sound.\n\n\"Still that apparition called Nature--which is but another name for\nemptiness and shadow--deceives and charms you, and fills you with\ndreams of longing for the things of sense.\n\n\"But he who truly wishes to know, must not love this phantom\nNature,--must not find delight in the radiance of a clear sky,--nor in\nthe sight of the sea,--nor in the sound of the flowing of rivers,--nor\nin the forms of peaks and woods and valleys,--nor in the colors of them.\n\n\"He who truly wishes to know must not find delight in contemplating\nthe works and the deeds of men, nor in hearing their converse, nor in\nobserving the puppet-play of their passions and of their emotions.\nAll this is but a weaving of smoke,--a shimmering of vapors,--an\nimpermanency,--a phantasmagory.\n\n\"For the pleasures that men term lofty or noble or sublime are\nbut larger sensualisms, subtler falsities: venomous fair-seeming\nflowerings of selfishness,--all rooted in the elder slime of appetites\nand desires. To joy in the radiance of a cloudless day,--to see the\nmountains shift their tintings to the wheeling of the sun,--to watch\nthe passing of waves, the fading of sunsets,--to find charm in the\nblossoming of plants or trees: all this is of the senses. Not less\ntruly of the senses is the pleasure of observing actions called great\nor beautiful or heroic,--since it is one with the pleasure of imagining\nthose things for which men miserably strive in this miserable world:\nbrief love and fame and honor,--all of which are empty as passing foam.\n\n\"Sky, sun, and sea;--the peaks, the woods, the plains;--all splendors\nand forms and colors,--are spectres. The feelings and the thoughts and\nthe acts of men,--whether deemed high or low, noble or ignoble,--all\nthings imagined or done for any save the eternal purpose, are but\ndreams born of dreams and begetting hollowness. To the clear of\nsight, all feelings of self,--all love and hate, joy and pain, hope\nand regret, are alike shadows;--youth and age, beauty and horror,\nsweetness and foulness, are not different;--death and life are one and\nthe same; and Space and Time exist but as the stage and the order of\nthe perpetual Shadow-play.\n\n\"All that exists in Time must perish. To the Awakened there is no Time\nor Space or Change,--no night or day,--no heat or cold,--no moon or\nseason,--no present, past, or future. Form and the names of form are\nalike nothingness:--Knowledge only is real; and unto whomsoever gains\nit, the universe becomes a ghost. But it is written:--'_He who hath\novercome Time in the past and the future must be of exceedingly pure\nunderstanding_.'\n\n\"Such understanding is not yours. Still to your eyes the shadow seems\nthe substance,--and darkness, light,--and voidness, beauty. And\ntherefore to see your former births could give you only pain.\"\n\n*\n\nI asked:--\n\n\"Had I found strength to look back to the beginning,--back to the verge\nof Time,--could I have read the Secret of the universe?\"\n\n\"Nay,\" was answer made. \"Only by Infinite Vision can the Secret be\nread. Could you have looked back incomparably further than your power\npermitted, then the Past would have become for you the Future. And\ncould you have endured even yet more, the Future would have orbed back\nfor you into the Present.\"\n\n\"Yet why?\" I murmured, marveling.... \"What is the Circle?\"\n\n\"Circle there is none,\" was the response;--\"Circle there is none but\nthe great phantom-whirl of birth and death to which, by their own\nthoughts and deeds, the ignorant remain condemned. But this has being\nonly in Time; and Time itself is illusion.\"","title":"Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: Studies of Hand and Soul in the Far East","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":53158}