Part 5
Behind my dwelling, but hidden from view by a very lofty curtain of trees, there is a Buddhist temple, with a cemetery attached to it. The cemetery itself is in a grove of pines, many centuries old; and the temple stands in a great quaint lonesome garden. Its religious name is _Ji-shō-in_; but the people call it Kobudera, which means the Gnarled, or Knobby Temple, because it is built of undressed timber,--great logs of _hinoki_, selected for their beauty or strangeness of shape, and simply prepared for the builder by the removal of limbs and bark. But such gnarled and knobby wood is precious: it is of the hardest and most enduring, and costs far more than common building-material,--as might be divined from the fact that the beautiful alcoves and the choicest parts of Japanese interiors are finished with wood of a similar kind. To build Kobudera was an undertaking worthy of a prince; and, as a matter of history, it was a prince who erected it, for a place of family worship. There is a doubtful tradition that two designs were submitted to him by the architect, and that he chose the more fantastic one under the innocent impression that undressed timber would prove cheap. But whether it owes its existence to a mistake or not, Kobudera remains one of the most interesting temples of Japan. The public have now almost forgotten its existence;--but it was famous in the time of Iyemitsu; and its appellation, Ji-shō-in, was taken from the kaimyō of one of the great Shogun’s ladies, whose superb tomb may be seen in its cemetery. Before Meiji, the temple was isolated among woods and fields; but the city has now swallowed up most of the green spaces that once secluded it, and has pushed out the ugliest of new streets directly in front of its gate.
This gate--a structure of gnarled logs, with a tiled and tilted Chinese roof--is a fitting preface to the queer style of the temple itself. From either gable-end of the gate-roof, a demon-head, grinning under triple horns, looks down upon the visitor.[16] Within, except at the hours of prayer, all is green silence. Children do not play in the court--perhaps because the temple is a private one. The ground is everywhere hidden by a fine thick moss of so warm a color, that the brightest foliage of the varied shrubbery above it looks sombre by contrast; and the bases of walls, the pedestals of monuments, the stonework of the bell-tower, the masonry of the ancient well, are muffled with the same luminous growth. Maples and pines and cryptomerias screen the façade of the temple; and, if your visit be in autumn, you may find the whole court filled with the sweet heavy perfume of the _mokusei_[17]-blossom. After having looked at the strange temple, you would find it worth while to enter the cemetery, by the black gate on the west side of the court.
* * * * *
I like to wander in that cemetery,--partly because in the twilight of its great trees, and in the silence of centuries which has gathered about them, one can forget the city and its turmoil, and dream out of space and time,--but much more because it is full of beauty, and of the poetry of great faith. Indeed of such poetry it possesses riches quite exceptional. Each Buddhist sect has its own tenets, rites, and forms; and the special character of these is reflected in the iconography and epigraphy of its burial-grounds,--so that for any experienced eye a Tendai graveyard is readily distinguishable from a Shingon graveyard, or a Zen graveyard from one belonging to a Nichiren congregation. But at Kobudera the inscriptions and the sculptures peculiar to several Buddhist sects can be studied side by side. Founded for the Hokké, or Nichiren rite, the temple nevertheless passed, in the course of generations, under the control of other sects--the last being the Tendai;--and thus its cemetery now offers a most interesting medley of the emblems and the epitaphic formularies of various persuasions. It was here that I first learned, under the patient teaching of an Oriental friend, something about the Buddhist literature of the dead.
* * * * *
No one able to feel beauty could refuse to confess the charm of the old Buddhist cemeteries,--with their immemorial trees, their evergreen mazes of shrubbery trimmed into quaintest shapes, the carpet-softness of their mossed paths, the weird but unquestionable art of their monuments. And no great knowledge of Buddhism is needed to enable you, even at first sight, to understand something of this art. You would recognize the lotos chiselled upon tombs or water-tanks, and would doubtless observe that the designs of the pedestals represent a lotos of eight petals,--though you might not know that these eight petals symbolize the Eight Intelligences. You would recognize the _manji_, or svastika, figuring the Wheel of the Law,--though ignorant of its relation to the Mahâyâna philosophy. You would perhaps be able to recognize also the images of certain Buddhas,--though not aware of the meaning of their attitudes or emblems in relation to mystical ecstasy or to the manifestation of the Six Supernatural Powers. And you would be touched by the simple pathos of the offerings,--the incense and the flowers before the tombs, the water poured out for the dead,--even though unable to divine the deeper pathos of the beliefs that make the cult. But unless an excellent Chinese scholar as well as a Buddhist philosopher, all book-knowledge of the great religion would still leave you helpless in a world of riddles. The marvellous texts,--the exquisite Chinese scriptures chiselled into the granite of tombs, or limned by a master-brush upon the smooth wood of the _sotoba_,--will yield their secrets only to an interpreter of no common powers. And the more you become familiar with their aspect, the more the mystery of them tantalizes,--especially after you have learned that a literal translation of them would mean, in the majority of cases, exactly nothing!
* * * * *
What strange thoughts have been thus recorded and yet concealed? Are they complex and subtle as the characters that stand for them? Are they beautiful also like those characters,--with some undreamed-of, surprising beauty, such as might inform the language of another planet?
II
As for subtlety and complexity, much of this mortuary literature is comparable to the Veil of Isis. Behind the mystery of the text--in which almost every character has two readings--there is the mystery of the phrase; and again behind this are successions of riddles belonging to a gnosticism older than all the wisdom of the Occident, and deep as the abysses of Space. Fortunately the most occult texts are also the least interesting, and bear little relation to the purpose of this essay. The majority are attached, not to the sculptured, but to the written and impermanent literature of cemeteries,--not to the stone monuments, but to the sotoba: those tall narrow laths of unpainted wood which are planted above the graves at fixed, but gradually increasing intervals, during a period of one hundred years.[18]
The uselessness of any exact translation of these inscriptions may be exemplified by a word-for-word rendering of two sentences written upon the sotoba used by the older sects. What meaning can you find in such a term as “Law-sphere-substance-nature-wisdom,” or such an invocation as “Ether, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth!”--for an invocation it really is? To understand these words one must first know that, in the doctrine of the mystical sects, the universe is composed of Five Great Elements which are identical with Five Buddhas; that each of the Five Buddhas contains the rest; and that the Five are One by essence, though varying in their phenomenal manifestations. The name of an element has thus three significations. The word Fire, for example, means flame as objective appearance; it means flame also as the manifestation of a particular Buddha; and it likewise means the special quality of wisdom or power attributed to that Buddha. Perhaps this doctrine will be more easily understood by the help of the following Shingon classification of the Five Elements in their Buddhist relations:--
I. _Hō-kai-tai-shō-chi_
(Sansc. Dhârma-dhâtu-prakrit-gñâna), or “Law-sphere-substance-nature-wisdom,”--signifying the wisdom that becomes the substance of things. This is the element Ether. Ether personified is Dai-Nichi-Nyōrai, the “Great Sun-Buddha” (Mahâvairokana Tathâgata), who “holds the seal of Wisdom.”
II. _Dai-en-kyō-chi_
(Âdarsana-gñâna), or “Great-round-mirror-wisdom,”--that is to say the divine power making images manifest. This is the element Earth. Earth personified is Ashuku Nyōrai, the “Immovable Tathâgata” (Akshobhya).
III. _Byō-dō-shō-chi_
(Samatâ-gñâna), “Even-equal-nature-wisdom,”--that is, the wisdom making no distinction of persons or of things. The element Fire. Personified, Fire is Hō-shō Nyōrai, or “Gem-Birth” Buddha (Ratnasambhava Tathâgata), presiding over virtue and happiness.
IV. _Myō-kwan-zatsu-chi_
(Pratyavekshana-gñâna), “Wondrously-observing-considering-wisdom;”--that is, the wisdom distinguishing clearly truth from error, destroying doubts, and presiding over the preaching of the Law. The element Water. Water personified is Amida Nyōrai, the Buddha of Immeasurable Light (Amitâbha Tathâgata).
V. _Jō-shō-sa-chi_
(Krityânushthâna-gñâna), the “Wisdom-of-accomplishing-what-is-to-be-done;”--that is to say, the divine wisdom that helps beings to reach Nirvana. The element Air. Air personified is Fu-kū-jō-ju, the “Unfailing-of-Accomplishment,”--more commonly called Fuku-Nyōrai (Amoghasiddhi, or Sâkyamuni).[19]
Now the doctrine that each of the Five Buddhas contains the rest, and that all are essentially One, is symbolized in these texts by an extraordinary use of characters called _Bon-ji_,--which are recognizably Sanscrit letters. The name of each element can be written with any one of four characters,--all having for Buddhists the same meaning, though differing as to sound and form. Thus the characters standing for Fire would read, according to Japanese pronunciation, _Ra_, _Ran_, _Raän_, and _Raku_;--and the characters signifying Ether, _Kya_, _Ken_, _Keën_, and _Kyaku_. By different combinations of the twenty characters making the five sets, different supernatural powers and different Buddhas are indicated; and the indication is further helped by an additional symbolic character, called _Shū-ji_ or “seed-word,” placed immediately after the names of the elements. The reader will now comprehend the meaning of the invocatory “Ether, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth!” and of the strange names of divine wisdom written upon sotoba; but the enigmas offered by even a single sotoba may be much more complicated than the foregoing examples suggest. There are unimaginable acrostics; there are rules, varying according to sect, for the position of texts in relation to the points of the compass; and there are kabalisms based upon the multiple values of certain Chinese ideographs. The whole subject of esoteric inscriptions would require volumes to explain; and the reader will not be sorry, I fancy, to abandon it at this point in favor of texts possessing a simpler and a more humane interest.
The really attractive part of Buddhist cemetery-literature mostly consists of sentences taken from the sûtras or the sastras; and the attraction is due not only to the intrinsic beauty of the faith which these sentences express, but also to the fact that they will be found to represent, in epitome, a complete body of Buddhist doctrine. Like the mystical inscriptions above-mentioned, they belong to the sotoba, not to the gravestones; but, while the invocations usually occupy the upper and front part of the sotoba, these sutra-texts are commonly written upon the back. In addition to scriptural and invocatory texts, each sotoba bears the name of the giver, the kaimyō of the dead, and the name of a commemorative anniversary. Sometimes a brief prayer is also inscribed, or a statement of the pious purpose inspiring the erection of the sotoba. Before considering the scripture-texts proper, in relation to their embodiment of doctrine, I submit examples of the general character and plan of sotoba inscriptions. They are written upon both sides of the wood, be it observed; but I have not thought it necessary to specify which texts belong to the front, and which to the back of the sotoba,--since the rules concerning such position differ according to sect:--
I.--SOTOBA OF THE NICHIREN SECT.
(Invocation.)
_Ether, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth!--Hail to the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law!_
(Commemorative text.)
To-day, the service of the third year has been performed in order that our lay-brother [_kaimyō_] may be enabled to cut off the bonds of illusion, to open the Eye of Enlightenment, to remain free from all pain, and to enter into bliss.
(Sastra text.)
MYŌ-HŌ-KYŌ-RIKI-SOKU-SHIN-JŌ-BUTSU!
Even this body [of flesh] by the virtue of the Sutra of the Excellent Law, enters into Buddhahood.
II.--SOTOBA OF THE NICHIREN SECT.
(Invocation.)
_Hail to the Sutra of the Lotos of the Good Law!_
(Commemorative text.)
The rite of feeding the hungry spirits having been fulfilled, and the service for the dead having been performed, this sotoba is set up in commemoration of the service and the offerings made with prayer for the salvation of Buddha on behalf of--(_kaimyō_ follows).
(Prayer--with English translation.)
_Gan i shi kudoku Fu-gyū o issai Gatō yo shujō Kai-gu jō butsudo._
By virtue of this good action I beseech that the merit of it may be extended to all, and that we and all living beings may fulfil the Way of Buddha.[20]
_The fifth day of the seventh month of the thirtieth year of Meiji, by ---- ----, this sotoba has been set up._
III.--SOTOBA OF THE JŌDO SECT.
(Invocation.)
_Hail to the Buddha Amida!_
(Commemorative mention.)
This for the sake of--(_here kaimyō_ follows).
(Sutra text.)
_The Buddha of the Golden Mouth, who possesses the Great-Round-Mirror-Wisdom,[21] has said: “The glorious light of Amida illuminates all the worlds of the Ten Directions, and takes into itself and never abandons all living beings who fix their thoughts upon that Buddha!”_
IV.--SOTOBA OF THE ZEN SECT.
(Sastra text.)
_The Dai-en-kyō-chi-kyō declares:--“By entering deeply into meditation, one may behold the Buddhas of the Ten Directions.”_
(Commemorative text.)
That the noble Elder Sister[22] Chi-Shō-In-Kō-Un-Tei-Myō,[23] now dwelling in the House of Shining Wisdom, may instantly attain to Bodhi.[24]
(Prayer.)
Let whomsoever looks upon this sotoba be forever delivered from the Three Evil Ways.[25]
(Record.)
_In the thirtieth year of Meiji, on the first day of the fifth month, by the house of Inouyé, this sotoba has been set up._
The foregoing will doubtless suffice as specimens of the ordinary forms of inscription. The Buddha praised or invoked is always the Buddha especially revered by the sect from whose sutra or sastra the quotation is chosen;--sometimes also the divine power of a Bodhisattva is extolled, as in the following Zen inscription:--
_“The Sutra of Kwannon says:--‘In all the provinces of all the countries in the Ten Directions, there is not even one temple where Kwannon is not self-revealed.’”_
Sometimes the scripture text more definitely assumes the character of a praise-offering, as the following juxtaposition suggests:--
“_The Buddha of Immeasurable Light illuminates all worlds in the Ten Directions of Space._”
This for the sake of the swift salvation into Buddhahood of our lay-brother named the Great-Secure-Retired-Scholar.
Sometimes we also find a verse of praise or an invocation addressed to the apotheosized spirit of the founder of the sect,--a common example being furnished by the sotoba of the Shingon rite:--
“_Hail to the Great Teacher Haijō-Kongō!_”[26]
Rarely the little prayer for the salvation of the dead assumes, as in the following beautiful example, the language of unconscious poetry:--
“_This for the sake of our noble Elder Sister ----. May the Lotos of Bliss by virtue of these prayers be made to bloom for her, and to bear the fruit of Buddhahood!_”[27]
But usually the prayers are of the simplest, and differ from each other only in the use of peculiar Buddhist terms:--
--“This for the sake of the true happiness of our lay-brother--[_kaimyō_],--that he may obtain the Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.”
--“This tower is set up for the sake of ----, that he may obtain complete Sambodhi.”[28]
--“This precious tower and these offerings for the sake of ---- ----,--that he may obtain the _Anattra-Sammyak-Sambodhi_.”[29]
One other subject of interest belonging to the merely commemorative texts of sotoba remains to be mentioned,--the names of certain Buddhist services for the dead. There are two classes of such services: those performed within one hundred days after death, and those celebrated at fixed intervals during a term of one hundred years,--on the 1st, 2d, 7th, 13th, 17th, 24th, 33d, 50th, and 100th anniversaries of the death. In the Zen rite these commemorative services--(perhaps we might call them masses)--have singular mystical names by which they are recorded upon the sotoba of the sect,--such as Lesser Happiness, Greater Happiness, Broad Repose, The Bright Caress, and The Great Caress.
But we shall now turn to the study of the scripture-texts proper,--those citations from sûtra or sastra which form the main portion of a sotoba-writing; expounding the highest truth of Buddhist belief, or speaking the deepest thought of Eastern philosophy.
III
At the beginning of my studies in the Kobudera cemetery, I was not less impressed by the quiet cheerfulness of the sotoba-texts, than by their poetry and their philosophy. In none did I find even a shadow of sadness: the greater number were utterances of a faith that seemed to me wider and deeper than our own,--sublime proclamations of the eternal and infinite nature of Thought, the unity of all mind, and the certainty of universal salvation. And other surprises awaited me in this strange literature. Texts or fragments of texts, that at first rendering appeared of the simplest, would yield to learned commentary profundities of significance absolutely startling. Phrases, seemingly artless, would suddenly reveal a dual suggestiveness,--a two-fold idealism,--a beauty at once exoteric and mystical. Of this latter variety of inscription the following is a good example:--
“_The flower having bloomed last night, the World has become fragrant._”[30]
In the language of the higher Buddhism, this means that through death a spirit has been released from the darkness of illusion, even as the perfume of a blossom is set free at the breaking of the bud, and that the divine Absolute, or World of Law, is refreshed by the new presence, as a whole garden might be made fragrant by the blooming of some precious growth. But in the popular language of Buddhism, the same words signify that in the Lotos-Lake of Paradise another magical flower has opened for the Apparitional Rebirth into highest bliss of the being loved and lost on earth, and that Heaven rejoices for the advent of another Buddha.
* * * * *
But I desire rather to represent the general result of my studies, than to point out the special beauties of this epitaphic literature: and my purpose will be most easily attained by arranging and considering the inscriptions in a certain doctrinal order.
A great variety of sotoba-texts refer, directly or indirectly, to the Lotos-Flower Paradise of Amida,--or, as it is more often called, the Paradise of the West. The following are typical:--
“_The Amida-Kyō says:--‘All who enter into that country enter likewise into that state of virtue from which there can be no turning back.’_”[31]
“_The Text of Gold proclaims:--‘In that world they receive bliss only: therefore that world is called Gokuraku,--exceeding bliss.’_”[32]
“_Hail unto the Lord Amida Buddha! The Golden Mouth has said,--‘All living beings that fix their thoughts upon the Buddha shall be received and welcomed into his Paradise;--never shall they be forsaken.’_”[33]
But texts like these, though dear to popular faith, make no appeal to the higher Buddhism, which admits heaven as a temporary condition only, not to be desired by the wise. Indeed, the Mahâyâna texts, describing Sukhâvatî, themselves suggest its essentially illusive character,--a world of jewel-lakes and perfumed airs and magical birds, but a world also in which the voices of winds and waters and singers perpetually preach the unreality of self and the impermanency of all things. And even the existence of this Western Paradise might seem to be denied in other sotoba-texts of deeper significance,--such as this:--
“_Originally there is no East or West: where then can South or North be?_”[34]
“Originally,”--that is to say, in relation to the Infinite. The relations and the ideas of the Conditioned cease to exist for the Unconditioned. Yet this truth does not really imply denial of other worlds of relation,--states of bliss to which the strong may rise, and states of pain to which the weak may descend. It is a reminder only. All conditions are impermanent, and so, in the profounder sense, unreal. The Absolute,--the Supreme Buddha,--is the sole Reality. This doctrine appears in many sotoba-inscriptions:--
“_The Blue Mountain of itself remains eternally unmoved: the White Clouds come of themselves and go._”[35]
By “the Blue Mountain” is meant the Sole Reality of Mind;--by “the White Clouds,” the phenomenal universe. Yet the universe exists but as a dream of Mind:--
“_If any one desire to obtain full knowledge of all the Buddhas of the past, the present, and the future, let him learn to comprehend the true nature of the World of Law. Then will he perceive that all things are but the production of Mind._”[36]
“_By the learning and the practice of the True Doctrine, the Non-Apparent becomes [for us] the only Reality._”[37]
The universe is a phantom, and a phantom likewise the body of man, together with all emotions, ideas, and memories that make up the complex of his sensuous Self. But is this evanescent Self the whole of man’s inner being? Not so, proclaim the sotoba:--
“_All living beings have the nature of Buddha. The Nyōrai,[38] eternally living, is alone unchangeable._”[39]
“_The Kegon-Kyō[40] declares:--‘In all living creatures there exists, and has existed from the beginning, the Real-Law Nature: all by their nature contain the original essence of Buddha.’_”
Sharing the nature of the Unchangeable, we share the Eternal Reality. In the highest sense, man also is divine:--
“_The Mind becomes Buddha: the Mind itself is Buddha._”[41]
“_In the Engaku-Kyō[42] it is written: ‘Now for the first time I perceive that all living beings have the original Buddha-nature,--wherefore Birth and Death and Nirvana have become for me as a dream of the night that is gone.’_”
Yet what of the Buddhas who successively melt into Nirvana, and nevertheless “return in their order”? Are they, too, phantoms?--is their individuality also unreal? Probably the question admits of many different answers,--since there is a Buddhist Realism as well as a Buddhist Idealism; but, for present purposes, the following famous text is a sufficient reply:--
NAMU ITSU SHIN SAN-ZÉ SHŌ BUTSU!
“_Hail to all the Buddhas of the Three Existences,[43] who are but one in the One Mind!_”[44]