Part 7

Besides expressing a pious hope for the higher happiness of the departed, or uttering some assurance of special conditions in the spiritual world, a great number of kaimyō also refer, directly or indirectly, to the character of the vanished personality. Thus a man of widely-recognized integrity and strong moral purpose, may--like my dead friend--be not unfitly named: “Bright-Sun-on-the-Way-of-the-Wise.” The child-daughter or the young wife, especially remembered for sweetness of character, may be commemorated by some such posthumous name as “Plumflower-Light,” or “Luminous-Shadow-of-the-Plumflower-Chamber;”--the word “plumflower” in either case at once suggesting the quality of the virtue of the dead, because this blossom in Japan is the emblem of feminine moral charm,--more particularly faithfulness to duty and faultless modesty. Again, the memory of any person noted for deeds of charity may be honoured by such a kaimyō as, “Effective-Benevolence-Listening-with-Pure-Heart-to-the-Supplications- of-the-Poor.” Finally I may observe that the kaimyō-terms expressing altitude, luminosity, and fragrance, have most often a moral-exemplary signification. But in all countries epitaphic literature has its conventional hypocrisies or extravagances. Buddhist kaimyō frequently contain a great deal of religious flattery; and beautiful posthumous names are often given to those whose lives were the reverse of beautiful.

When we find among feminine kaimyō such appellations as “Wondrous-Lotos,” or “Beautiful-as-the-Lotos-of-the-Dawn,” we may be sure in the generality of cases that the charm, to which reference is so made, was ethical only. Yet there are exceptions; and the more remarkable of these are furnished by the kaimyō of children. Names like “Dream-of-Spring,” “Radiant-Phantasm,” “Snowy-Bubble,” do actually refer to the lost form,--or at least to the supposed parental idea of vanished beauty and grace. But such names also exemplify a peculiar consolatory application of the Buddhist doctrine of Impermanency. We might say that through the medium of these kaimyō the bereaved are thus soothed in the loftiest language of faith:--“Beautiful and brief was the being of your child,--a dream of spring, a radiant passing vision,--a snowy bubble. But in the order of eternal law all forms must pass; material permanency there is none: only the divine Absolute dwelling in every being,--only the Buddha in the heart of each of us,--forever endures. Be this great truth at once your comfort and your hope!”

* * * * *

Extraordinary examples of the retrospective significance sometimes given to posthumous names, are furnished by the kaimyō of the Forty-Seven Rōnin buried at Sengakuji in Tōkyō. (Their story is now well-known to all the English-reading world through Mitford’s eloquent and sympathetic version of it in the “Tales of Old Japan.”) The noteworthy peculiarity of these kaimyō is that each contains the two words, “dagger” and “sword,”--used in a symbolic sense, but having also an appropriate military suggestiveness. Ōïshi Kuranosuké Yoshiwo, the leader, is alone styled _Koji_;--the kaimyō of his followers have the humbler suffix _Shinshi_. Ōïshi’s kaimyō reads:--“_Dagger-of-Emptiness-and-stainless-Sword, in the Mansion of Earnest Loyalty_.” I need scarcely call attention to the historic meaning of the mansion-name. Three of the kaimyō of his followers will serve as examples of the rest. That of Masé Kyudayu Masaake is:--“_Dagger-of-Fame-and-Sword-of-the-Way [or Doctrine.]_” The kaimyō of Ōïshi Sezayémon Nobukiyo is:--“_Dagger-of-Magnanimity-and-Sword-of-Virtue._” And the kaimyō of Horibei Yasubei is:--“_Dagger-of-Cloud-and-Sword-of-Brightness._”

The first and the last of these four kaimyō will be found obscure; and several more of the forty-seven inscriptions are equally enigmatic at first sight. Usually in a kaimyō the word “Emptiness,” or “Void,” signifies the Buddhist state of absolute spiritual purity,--the state of Unconditioned Being. But in the kaimyō of Ōïshi Kuranosuké the meaning of it, though purely Buddhist, is very different. By “emptiness” here, we must understand “illusion,” “unreality,”--and the full meaning of the phrase “dagger-emptiness” is:--“_Wisdom that, seeing the emptiness of material forms, pierces through illusion as a dagger._” In Horibei Yasubei’s kaimyō we must similarly render the word “cloud” by illusion; and “Dagger-of-Cloud” should be interpreted, “_Illusion-penetrating Dagger of Wisdom._” The wisdom that perceives the emptiness of phenomena, is the sharply-dividing, or distinguishing wisdom,--is _Myō-kwan-zatsu-chi_ (Pratyavekshana-gñâna).

V

Possibly I have presumed too much upon the patience of my readers; yet I feel that these studies can yield scarcely more than the glimpse of a subject wide and deep as a sea. If they should arouse any Western interest in the philosophy and the poetry of Buddhist epitaphic literature, then they will certainly have accomplished all that I could reasonably hope.

Not improbably I shall be accused, as I have been on other occasions, of trying to make Buddhist texts “more beautiful than they are.” This charge usually comes from persons totally ignorant of the originals, and betrays a spirit of disingenuousness with which I have no sympathy. Whoever confesses religion to have been a developing influence in the social and moral history of races,--whoever grants that respect is due to convictions which have shaped the nobler courses of human conduct for thousands of years,--whoever acknowledges that in any great religion something of eternal truth must exist,--will hold it the highest duty of a translator to interpret the concepts of an alien faith as generously as he would wish his own thoughts or words interpreted by his fellow-men. In the rendering of Chinese sentences this duty presents itself under a peculiar aspect. Any attempt at literal translation would result in the production either of nonsense, or of a succession of ideas totally foreign to far-Eastern thought. The paramount necessity in treating such texts is to discover and to expound the thought conveyed to Oriental minds by the original ideographs,--which are very different things indeed from “written words.” The translations given in this essay were made by Japanese scholars, and, in their present form, have the approval of competent critics.

* * * * *

As I write these lines a full moon looks into my study over the trees of the temple-garden, and brings me the recollection of a little Buddhist poem:--

“_From the foot of the mountain, many are the paths ascending in shadow; but from the cloudless summit all who climb behold the self-same Moon._”

* * * * *

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

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Such figures are really elaborate tiles, and are called _onigawara_, or “demon-tiles.” It may naturally be asked why demon-heads should be ever placed above Buddhist gate-ways. Originally they were not intended to represent demons, in the Buddhist sense, but guardian-spirits whose duty it was to drive demons away. The _onigawara_ were introduced into Japan either from China or Korea--not improbably Korea; for we read that the first roof-tiles made in Japan were manufactured shortly after the introduction of the new faith by Korean priests, and under the supervision of Shōtoku Taishi, the princely founder and supporter of Japanese Buddhism. They were baked at Koizumi-mura, in Yamato;--but we are not told whether there were any of this extraordinary shape among them. It is worth while remarking that in Korea to-day you can see hideous faces painted upon house-doors,--even upon the gates of the royal palace; and these, intended merely to frighten away evil spirits, suggest the real origin of the demon-tiles. The Japanese, on first seeing such tiles, called them demon-tiles because the faces upon them resembled those conventionally given to Buddhist demons; and now that their history has been forgotten, they are popularly supposed to represent demon-guardians. There would be nothing contrary to Buddhist faith in the fancy;--for there are many legends of good demons. Besides, in the eternal order of divine law, even the worst demon must at last become a Buddha.

[17] _Osmanthus fragrans._ This is one of the very few Japanese plants having richly-perfumed flowers.

[18] The word “sotoba” is identical with the Sanscrit “stûpa.” Originally a mausoleum, and later a simple monument--commemorative or otherwise,--the stûpa was introduced with Buddhism into China, and thence, perhaps by way of Korea, into Japan. Chinese forms of the stone stûpa are to be found in many of the old Japanese temple-grounds. The wooden _sotoba_ is only a symbol of the stûpa; and the more elaborate forms of it plainly suggest its history. The slight carving along its upper edges represents that superimposition of cube, sphere, crescent, pyramid, and body-pyriform (symbolizing the Five Great Elements), which forms the design of the most beautiful funeral monuments.

[19] These relations of the elements to the Buddhas named are not, however, permanently fixed in the doctrine,--for obvious philosophical reasons. Sometimes Sakyamuni is identified with Ether, and Amitâbha with Air, etc., etc. In the above enumeration I have followed the order taken by Professor Bunyiu Nanjio, who nevertheless suggests that this order is not to be considered perpetual.

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

[21] Dai-en-kyō-chi (Âdarsana-gñâna). Amida is the Japanese form of the name Amitâbha.

[22] “Great (or Noble) Elder Sister” is the meaning of the title _dai-shi_ affixed to the _kaimyō_ of a woman. In the rite of the Zen sect _dai-shi_ always signifies a married woman; _shin-nyo_, a maid.

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

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

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

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

[27] From a Zen sotoba.

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

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

[30] From a sotoba of the Jodo sect.

[31] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect. The Amida-Kyō, or Sûtra of Amida, is the Japanese [Chinese] version of the smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha Sûtra.

[32] _Gokuraku_ is the common word in Japan for the Buddhist heaven. The above inscription, translated for me from a sotoba of the Jōdo sect, is an abbreviated form of a verse in the Smaller Sukhâvatî-Vyûha (see _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East”), which Max Müller has thus rendered in full:--“In that world Sukhâvatî, O Sâriputra, there is neither bodily nor mental pain for living beings. The sources of happiness are innumerable there. For that reason is that world called Sukhâvatî, the happy.”

[33] From a sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[34] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[35] Sotoba of the Jōdo sect.

[36] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[37] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[38] Tathâgata.

[39] From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[40] Avatamsaka Sûtra.--This text is also from a Zen sotoba.

[41] From a tombstone of the Jōdo sect. The text is evidently from the Chinese version of the Amitâyur-Dhyâna-Sûtra (see _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East”). It reads in the English version thus:--“In fine, it is your mind that becomes Buddha;--nay, it is your mind that is indeed Buddha.”

[42] Pratyeka-Buddha sastra?--From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

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

[44] “Mind” is here expressed by the character _shin_ or _kokoro_.--The text is from a Zen sotoba, but is used also, I am told, by the mystical sects of Tendai and Shingon.

[45] Krityânushthâna-gñâna.--The text is from a sotoba of the Shingon sect.

[46] More literally, “Self and Other:” i. e., the Ego and the Non-Ego in the meaning of “I” and “Thou.” There is no “I” and “Thou” in Buddhahood.--This text was copied from a Zen sotoba.

[47] From a Zen sotoba.

[48] The Chinese word literally means “void,”--as in the expression “Void Supreme,” to signify the state of Nirvana. But the philosophical reference here is to the ultimate substance, or primary matter; and the rendering of the term by “Ether” (rather in the Greek than the modern sense, of course) has the sanction of Bunyiu Nanjio, and the approval of other eminent Sanscrit and Chinese scholars.

[49] Literally, “illuminates the Zenjō-mind.” Zenjō is the Sanscrit _Dhyâna_. It is believed that in real _Dhyâna_ the mind can hold communication with the Absolute.--From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[50] From a sotoba of the Tendai sect.

[51] From a Jōdo sotoba.

[52] Literally, “the Great-Round-Mirror-Wisdom-Sûtra.” Sansc., _Adarsana-gñâna_.--From a Zen sotoba.

[53] Sotoba of the Zen sect.

[54] _Pratyavekshana-gñâna._

[55] From a Zen sotoba.

[56] _Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts_: “Sacred Books of the East,” vol. xlix. p. 180.

[57] From a sotoba of the Zen sect.

[58] Lit.: “the Inscription of the Tower of Diamond,”--name of a Buddhist text.

[59] The Six States of Existence are Heaven, Man, Demons, Hell, Hungry Spirits (_Pretas_), and Animals.--The above is from a Zen sotoba.

[60] Sotoba of the Nichiren sect.

[61] _San-doku_ or _Mitsu-no-doku_, viz.:--Anger, Ignorance, and Desire.--From a Zen sotoba.

[62] Japanese title of the Saddhârma-Pundarika Sûtra. See, for legend, chap. xi. of Kern’s translation in the _Sacred Books of the East_ series.

[63] There is a great variety of _sîla_;--five, eight, and ten for different classes of laity; two hundred and fifty for priests;--five hundred for nuns, etc., etc.--Be it here observed that the posthumous Buddhist name given to the dead must not be studied as referring always to conduct in this world, but rather as referring to _sîla_ in another world. The _kaimyō_ is thus a title of spiritual initiation.--Some Japanese Buddhist sects hold what are called _Ju-Kai-E_ (“_sîla_-giving assemblies”), at which the initiated are given _kaimyō_ of another sort,--_sîla_-names of admission as neophytes.

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

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

[66] The second year of the period Shōtoku corresponds to 1712 A.D.--(For the meaning of the phrase “Dragon of Elder Water” the reader will do well to consult Professor Rein’s _Japan_, pp. 434-436.)

[67] This beautiful kaimyō is identical with that placed upon the monument of my dear friend Nishida, buried in the Nichiren cemetery of Chōmanji, in Matsué.

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

[69] This is the kaimyō of the lady for whose sake the temple of Kobudera was built; and the words “Mansion of Self-witness” here refer to the temple itself, which is thus named (_Ji-Shō In_). The Chinese text reads:--“Ji-Shō-In den, Kwo-zan Kyō-kei, Daishi,”--literally, “Great Elder-Sister, Dawn-Katsura-of-Luminous-Mountain, dwelling in the August Mansion of Self-witness.” The katsura (_olea fragrans_) is a tree mysteriously connected, in Japanese poetical fancy, with the moon; and its name is often used, as here, to signify the moon. _Katsura-no-hana_, or “katsura-flower” is a poetical term for moonlight.--This kaimyō is remarkable in having the honorific term “August” prefixed to the name of the mansion or temple,--a sign of the high rank of the dead lady. The full date inscribed is “twenty-eighth day of Mid-Autumn” (the old eighth month) “of the seventeenth year of Kwansei” (1640 A. D.)

[70] The prefix _dai_ (great) before the ordinary term _dōji_ (male child) is of rare occurrence. Probably the lad was of princely birth. The grave is in a reserved part of the Kobudera cemetery; and the year-date of death is “the fourth of Enkyō”--corresponding to 1747.

[71] The tomb bearing this kaimyō is set beside that inscribed with the kaimyō preceding. Probably the boys were brothers. In both instances we have the honorific prefix “dai,” and the term “August” qualifying the mansion-name. The year-date of death is “the second of Kwan-en” (1749).

[72] Probably a princely child,--sister apparently of the highborn boys before referred to. She is buried beside them in Kobudera. Observe here again the use of the prefix _dai_,--this time before the term _dōnyo_, “child-girl” or “child-daughter.” Perhaps the _dai_ here would be better rendered by “grand” than by “great.” Notice that the term “August” precedes the mansion-name in this case also. The date of death is given as “the sixth year of Hōreki” (1756).

Frogs

“With hands resting upon the floor, reverentially you repeat your poem, O frog!”

_Ancient Poem._

I

Few of the simpler sense-impressions of travel remain more intimately and vividly associated with the memory of a strange land than sounds,--sounds of the open country. Only the traveller knows how Nature’s voices--voices of forest and river and plain--vary according to zone; and it is nearly always some local peculiarity of their tone or character that appeals to feeling and penetrates into memory,--giving us the sensation of the foreign and the far-away. In Japan this sensation is especially aroused by the music of insects,--hemiptera uttering a sound-language wonderfully different from that of their Western congeners. To a lesser degree the exotic accent is noticeable also in the chanting of Japanese frogs,--though the sound impresses itself upon remembrance rather by reason of its ubiquity. Rice being cultivated all over the country,--not only upon mountain-slopes and hill-tops, but even within the limits of the cities,--there are flushed levels everywhere, and everywhere frogs. No one who has travelled in Japan will forget the clamor of the ricefields.

Hushed only during the later autumn and brief winter, with the first wakening of spring waken all the voices of the marsh-lands,--the infinite bubbling chorus that might be taken for the speech of the quickening soil itself. And the universal mystery of life seems to thrill with a peculiar melancholy in that vast utterance--heard through forgotten thousands of years by forgotten generations of toilers, but doubtless older by myriad ages than the race of man.

Now this song of solitude has been for centuries a favorite theme with Japanese poets; but the Western reader may be surprised to learn that it has appealed to them rather as a pleasant sound than as a nature-manifestation.

* * * * *

Innumerable poems have been written about the singing of frogs; but a large proportion of them would prove unintelligible if understood as referring to common frogs. When the general chorus of the ricefield finds praise in Japanese verse, the poet expresses his pleasure only in the great volume of sound produced by the blending of millions of little croakings,--a blending which really has a pleasant effect, well compared to the lulling sound of the falling of rain. But when the poet pronounces an individual frog-call melodious, he is not speaking of the common frog of the ricefields. Although most kinds of Japanese frogs are croakers, there is one remarkable exception--(not to mention tree-frogs),--the _kajika_, or true singing-frog of Japan. To say that it croaks would be an injustice to its note, which is sweet as the chirrup of a song-bird. It used to be called _kawazu_; but as this ancient appellation latterly became confounded in common parlance with _kaeru_, the general name for ordinary frogs, it is now called only _kajika_. The _kajika_ is kept as a domestic pet, and is sold in Tōkyō by several insect-merchants. It is housed in a peculiar cage, the lower part of which is a basin containing sand and pebbles, fresh water and small plants; the upper part being a framework of fine wire-gauze. Sometimes the basin is fitted up as a _ko-niwa_, or model landscape-garden. In these times the kajika is considered as one of the singers of spring and summer; but formerly it was classed with the melodists of autumn; and people used to make autumn-trips to the country for the mere pleasure of hearing it sing. And just as various places used to be famous for the music of particular varieties of night-crickets, so there were places celebrated only as haunts of the kajika. The following were especially noted:--

Tamagawa and Ōsawa-no-Iké,--a river and a lake in the province of Yamashiro.

Miwagawa, Asukagawa, Sawogawa, Furu-no-Yamada, and Yoshinogawa,--all in the province of Yamato.

Koya-no-Iké,--in Settsu.

Ukinu-no-Iké,--in Iwami.

Ikawa-no-Numa,--in Kōzuké.

Now it is the melodious cry of the kajika, or kawazu, which is so often praised in far-Eastern verse; and, like the music of insects, it is mentioned in the oldest extant collections of Japanese poems. In the preface to the famous anthology called _Kokinshū_, compiled by Imperial Decree during the fifth year of the period of Engi (A. D. 905), the poet Ki-no-Tsurayuki, chief editor of the work, makes these interesting observations:--

--“The poetry of Japan has its roots in the human heart, and thence has grown into a multi-form utterance. Man in this world, having a thousand millions of things to undertake and to complete, has been moved to express his thoughts and his feelings concerning all that he sees and hears. When we hear the _uguisu_[73] singing among flowers, and the voice of the kawazu which inhabits the waters, what mortal [_lit.: ‘who among the living that lives’_] does not compose poems?”

The kawazu thus referred to by Tsurayuki is of course the same creature as the modern kajika: no common frog could have been mentioned as a songster in the same breath with that wonderful bird, the uguisu. And no common frog could have inspired any classical poet with so pretty a fancy as this:--

Té wo tsuité, Uta moshi-aguru, Kawazu kana!

“With hands resting on the ground, reverentially you repeat your poem, O frog!” The charm of this little verse can best be understood by those familiar with the far-Eastern etiquette of posture while addressing a superior,--kneeling, with the body respectfully inclined, and hands resting upon the floor, with the fingers pointing outwards.[74]

It is scarcely possible to determine the antiquity of the custom of writing poems about frogs; but in the _Manyōshū_, dating back to the middle of the eighth century, there is a poem which suggests that even at that time the river Asuka had long been famous for the singing of its frogs:--

Ima mo ka mo Asuka no kawa no Yū sarazu Kawazu naku sé no Kiyoku aruran.

“Still clear in our day remains the stream of Asuka, where the kawazu nightly sing.” We find also in the same anthology the following curious reference to the singing of frogs:--

Omoboyezu Kimaseru kimi wo, Sasagawa no Kawazu kikasezu Kayeshi tsuru kamo!

“Unexpectedly I received the august visit of my lord.... Alas, that he should have returned without hearing the frogs of the river Sawa!” And in the _Rokujōshū_, another ancient compilation, are preserved these pleasing verses on the same theme:--

Tamagawa no Hito wo mo yogizu Naku kawazu, Kono yū kikéba Oshiku ya wa aranu?

“Hearing to-night the frogs of the Jewel River [or Tamagawa], that sing without fear of man, how can I help loving the passing moment?”

II