🧚 Names of Incense Used., part 6 · page 2

IV.—_The Conch-Shell_ (Jap.71 “_Hora_”) or _Trumpet_.72 Emblem of the preaching of the Law.73 The book _Shin-zoku-butsu-ji-hen_ calls it the symbol of the voice of the Buddha.74 The _Dai-hi-kyō_ calls it the token of the preaching and of the power of the Mahayana doctrine.75 The _Dai-Nichi-Kyō_ says:—” At the sound of the blowing of the shell, all the heavenly deities are filled with delight, and come to hear the Law.”76

V.—_The Flower-Vase_ (Jap.77 “_Hanagamé_”).78 Emblem of _murō_,—a mystical word which might be literally rendered as “not-leaking,”—signifying that condition of supreme intelligence triumphant over birth and death.79

VI.—_The Wheel-of-a-Thousand-Spokes_ (Sansc.80 “Tchakra “).81 This emblem, called in Japanese _Senfuku-rin-sō_, is curiously explained by various quotations.82 The _Hokké-Monku_ says:—“The effect of a wheel is to crush something; and the effect of the Buddha’s preaching is to crush all delusions, errors, doubts, and superstitions.83 Therefore preaching the doctrine is called, ‘turning the Wheel.’”…84 The _Sei-Ri-Ron_ says: “Even as the common wheel has its spokes and its hub, so in Buddhism there are many branches of the _Hasshi Shōdo_ (‘Eight-fold Path,’ or eight rules of conduct).”85

VII.—_The Crown of Brahmâ_.86 Under the heel of the Buddha is the Treasure-Crown (_Hō-Kwan_) of Brahmâ (_Bon-Ten-O_),—in symbol of the Buddha’s supremacy above the gods.87

But I think that the inscriptions upon any of these _Butsu-soku-séki_ will be found of more significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems.88 The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical.89 On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there are engraved five Sanscrit characters which are symbols of the Five Elemental Buddhas, together with scriptural and commemorative texts.90 These latter have been translated for me as follows:—91

The HO-KO-HON-NYO-KYO says:—“In that time, from beneath his feet, the Buddha radiated a light having the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes.92 And all who saw that radiance became strictly upright, and obtained the Supreme Enlightenment.”93

The KWAN-BUTSU-SANMAI-KYO says:—“Whosoever looks upon the footprints of the Buddha shall be freed from the results even of innumerable thousands of imperfections.”94

The BUTSU-SETSU-MU-RYO-JU-KYO says:—“In the land that the Buddha treads in journeying, there is not even one person in all the multitude of the villages who is not benefited.95 Then throughout the world there is peace and good will.96 The sun and the moon shine clear and bright.97 Wind and rain come only at a suitable time.98 Calamity and pestilence cease.99 The country prospers; the people are free from care.100 Weapons become useless.101 All men reverence religion, and regulate their conduct in all matters with earnestness and modesty.”102

[Commemorative Text.]103

—The Fifth Month of the Eighteenth Year of Meiji, all the priests of this temple made and set up this pedestal-stone, bearing the likeness of the footprints of the Buddha, and placed the same within the main court of Dentsu-In, in order that the seed of holy enlightenment might be sown for future time, and for the sake of the advancement of Buddhism.104

TAIJO, priest,—being the sixty-sixth chief-priest by succession of this temple,—has respectfully composed.105

JUNYU, the minor priest, has reverentially inscribed.106

II107

Strange facts crowd into memory as one contemplates those graven footprints,—footprints giant-seeming, yet less so than the human personality of which they remain the symbol.108 Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men, and in an era barren of science anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy regarding the secret unity of life, the endless illusions of matter and of mind, and the birth and death of universes.109 He, by pure reason,—and he alone before our time,—found answers of worth to the questions of the Whence, the Whither, and the Why;—and he made with these answers another and a nobler faith than the creed of his fathers.110 He spoke, and returned to his dust; and the people worshipped the prints of his dead feet, because of the love that he had taught them.111 Thereafter waxed and waned the name of Alexander, and the power of Rome and the might of Islam;—nations arose and vanished;—cities grew and were not;—the children of another civilization, vaster than Romes, begirdled the earth with conquest, and founded far-off empires, and came at last to rule in the land of that pilgrim’s birth.112 And these, rich in the wisdom of four and twenty centuries, wondered at the beauty of his message, and caused all that he had said and done to be written down anew in languages unborn at the time when he lived and taught.113 Still burn his footprints in the East; and still the great West, marvelling, follows their gleam to seek the Supreme Enlightenment.114 Even thus, of old, Milinda the king followed the way to the house of Nagasena,—at first only to question, after the subtle method of the Greeks; yet, later, to accept with noble reverence the nobler method of the Master.115

Ululation116

She is lean as a wolf, and very old,—the white bitch that guards my gate at night.117 She played with most of the young men and women of the neighborhood when they were boys and girls.118 I found her in charge of my present dwelling on the day that I came to occupy it.119 She had guarded the place, I was told, for a long succession of prior tenants—apparently with no better reason than that she had been born in the woodshed at the back of the house.120 Whether well or ill treated she had served all occupants faultlessly as a watch.121 The question of food as wages had never seriously troubled her, because most of the families of the street daily contributed to her support.122

She is gentle and silent,—silent at least by day; and in spite of her gaunt ugliness, her pointed ears, and her somewhat unpleasant eyes, everybody is fond of her.123 Children ride on her back, and tease her at will; but although she has been known to make strange men feel uncomfortable, she never growls at a child.124 The reward of her patient good-nature is the friendship of the community.125 When the dog-killers come on their bi-annual round, the neighbors look after her interests.126 Once she was on the very point of being officially executed when the wife of the smith ran to the rescue, and pleaded successfully with the policeman superintending the massacres.127 “Put somebody’s name on the dog,” said the latter: “then it will be safe.128 Whose dog is it?”129 That question proved hard to answer.130 The dog was everybody’s and nobody’s—welcome everywhere but owned nowhere.131 “But where does it stay?” asked the puzzled constable.132 “It stays,” said the smith’s wife, “in the house of the foreigner.”133 “Then let the foreigner’s name be put upon the dog,” suggested the policeman.134

Accordingly I had my name painted on her back in big Japanese characters.135 But the neighbors did not think that she was sufficiently safeguarded by a single name.136 So the priest of Kobudera painted the name of the temple on her left side, in beautiful Chinese text; and the smith put the name of his shop on her right side; and the vegetable-seller put on her breast the ideographs for “eight-hundred,”—which represent the customary abbreviation of the word yaoya (vegetable-seller),—any yaoya being supposed to sell eight hundred or more different things.137 Consequently she is now a very curious-looking dog; but she is well protected by all that calligraphy.138