X

[4]The expression "infinite bliss" as synonymous with Nirvana is taken from theQuestions of King Milinda.

[5]In the Sutra of the Great Decease we find the instance of a woman reaching this condition:—"The Sister Nanda, O Ananda, by the destruction of the five bonds that bind people to this world, has become an inhabitant of the highest heaven,—there to pass entirely away,—thence never to return."

[6]Different Buddhist systems give different enumerations of these mysterious powers whereof the Chinese names literally signify:—(1) Calm—Meditation-outward-pouring-no-obstacle-wisdom (2) Heaven-Eye-no-obstacle-wisdom; (3) Heaven Ear-no-obstacle-wisdom;—(4) Other-minds-no-obstacle-wisdom;—(5) Fornier-States-no-obstacle-wisdom;—(6) Leak-Extinction-no-obstacle-wisdom.

[7]Beings who have reached the state of Engaku or of Sosatsu are not supposed capable of retrogression, or of any serious error; but it is otherwise in lower spiritual states.

[8]See a curious legend in the Vinaya texts,—Kullavagga,V. 8, 2.

[9]This position, it will be observed, is very dissimilar from that of Hartmann, who holds that "all plurality of individuation belongs to the sphere of phenomenality." (vol. ii. page 233 of English translation.) One is rather reminded of the thought of Galton that human beings "may contribute more or less unconsciously to the manifestation of a far higher life than our own,—somewhat as the individual cells of one of the more complex animals contribute to the manifestation of its higher order of personality." (Hereditary Genius,p. 361.) Another thought of Galton's, expressed on the same page of the work just quoted from, is still more strongly suggestive of the Buddhist concept:—"We must not permit ourselves to consider each human or other personality as something supernaturally added to the stock of nature, but rather as a segregation of what already existed, under a new shape, and as a regular consequence of previous conditions.... Neither must we be misled by the word 'individuality.' ... We may look upon each individual as something not wholly detached from its parent-source,—as a wave that has been lifted and shaped by normal conditions in an unknown and illimitable ocean."The reader should remember that the Buddhist hypothesis does not imply either individuality or personality in Nirvana, but simple entity,—not a spiritualbody,in our meaning of the term, but only a divine consciousness. "Heart," in the sense of divine mind, is a term used in some Japanese texts to describe such entity. In theDai-Nichi KyōSō (Commentary on the Dai-Nichi Sutra), for example, is the statement "When all seeds of Karma-life are entirely burnt out and annihilated, then thevacuum-pureBodhi-heart is reached." (I may observe that Buddhist metaphysicians use the term "vacuum-bodies" to describe one of the high conditions of entity.) The following, from the fifty-first volume of the work calledDaizō-hō-sūwill also be found interesting "By experience the Tathâgata possesses all forms,—forms for multitude numberless as the dust-grains of the universe.... The Tathâgata gets himself born in such places as he desires, or in accord with the desire of others, and there saves [lit., 'carries over'—that is, over the Sea of Birth and Death] all sentient beings. Wheresoever his will finds an abiding-point, there is he embodied: this is called Will-Birth Body.... The Buddha makes Law his body, and remains pure as empty space: this is called Law-Body."

The reader should remember that the Buddhist hypothesis does not imply either individuality or personality in Nirvana, but simple entity,—not a spiritualbody,in our meaning of the term, but only a divine consciousness. "Heart," in the sense of divine mind, is a term used in some Japanese texts to describe such entity. In theDai-Nichi KyōSō (Commentary on the Dai-Nichi Sutra), for example, is the statement "When all seeds of Karma-life are entirely burnt out and annihilated, then thevacuum-pureBodhi-heart is reached." (I may observe that Buddhist metaphysicians use the term "vacuum-bodies" to describe one of the high conditions of entity.) The following, from the fifty-first volume of the work calledDaizō-hō-sūwill also be found interesting "By experience the Tathâgata possesses all forms,—forms for multitude numberless as the dust-grains of the universe.... The Tathâgata gets himself born in such places as he desires, or in accord with the desire of others, and there saves [lit., 'carries over'—that is, over the Sea of Birth and Death] all sentient beings. Wheresoever his will finds an abiding-point, there is he embodied: this is called Will-Birth Body.... The Buddha makes Law his body, and remains pure as empty space: this is called Law-Body."

[10]Half of this Buddhist thought is really embodied in Tennyson's line,—"Boundless inward, in the atom; boundless outward, in the Whole."

... "All beings that have life shall layAside their complex form,—that aggregationOf mental and material qualitiesThat gives them, or in heaven or on earth,Their fleeting individuality."The Book of the Great Decease.

In every teleological system there are conceptions which cannot bear the test of modern psychological analysis, and in the foregoing unfilled outline of a great religious hypothesis there will doubtless be recognized some "ghosts of beliefs haunting those mazes of verbal propositions in which metaphysicians habitually lose themselves." But truths will be perceived also,—grand recognitions of the law of ethical evolution, of the price of progress, and of our relation to the changeless Reality abiding beyond all change.

The Buddhist estimate of the enormity of that opposition to moral progress which humanity must overcome is fully sustained by our scientific knowledge of the past and perception of the future. Mental and moral advance has thus far been effected only through constant struggle against inheritances older than reason or moral feeling,—against the instincts and the appetites of primitive brute life. And the Buddhist teaching, that the average man can hope to leave his worse nature behind him only after the lapse of millions of future lives, is much more of a truth than of a theory. Only through millions of births have we been able to reach even this our present imperfect state; and the dark bequests of our darkest past are still strong enough betimes to prevail over reason and ethical feeling. Every future forward pace upon the moral path will have to be taken against the massed effort of millions of ghostly wills. For those past selves which priest and poet have told us to use as steps to higher things are not dead, nor even likely to die for a thousand generations to come: they are too much alive;—they have still power to clutch the climbing feet,—sometimes even to fling back the climber into the primeval slime.

Again, in its legend of the Heavens of Desire,—progress through which depends upon the ability of triumphant virtue to refuse what it has won,—Buddhism gives us a wonder-story full of evolutional truth. The difficulties of moral self-elevation do not disappear with the amelioration of material social conditions;—in our own day they rather increase. As life becomes more complex, more multiform, so likewise do the obstacles to ethical advance,—so likewise do the results of thoughts and acts. The expansion of intellectual power, the refinement of sensibility, the enlargement of the sympathies, the intensive quickening of the sense of beauty,—all multiply ethical dangers just as certainly as they multiply ethical opportunities. The highest material results of civilization, and the increase of possibilities of pleasure, exact an exercise of self-mastery and a power of, ethical balance, needless and impossible in older and lower states of existence.

The Buddhist doctrine of impermanency is the doctrine also of modern science: either might be uttered in the words of the other. "Natural knowledge," wrote Huxley in one of his latest and finest essays, "tends more and more to the conclusion that 'all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth' are the transitory forms of parcels of cosmic substance wending along the road of evolution from nebulous potentiality,—through endless growths of sun and planet and satellite,—through all varieties of matter,—through infinite diversities of life and thought,—possibly through modes of being of which we neither have a conception nor are competent to form any,—back to the indefinable latency from which they arose. Thus the most obvious attribute of the Cosmos is its impermanency."[1]

And, finally, it may be said that Buddhism not only presents remarkable accordance with nineteenth century thought in regard to the instability of all integrations, the ethical signification of heredity, the lesson of mental evolution, the duty of moral progress, but it also agrees with science in repudiating equally our doctrines of materialism and of spiritualism, our theory of a Creator and of special creation, and our belief in the immortality of the soul. Yet, in spite of this repudiation of the very foundations of Occidental religion, it has been able to give us the revelation of larger religious possibilities,—the suggestions of a universal scientific creed nobler than any which has ever existed. Precisely in that period of our own intellectual evolution when faith in a personal God is passing away,—when the belief in an individual soul is becoming impossible,—when the most religious minds shrink from everything that we have been calling religion,—when the universal doubt is an ever-growing weight upon ethical aspiration,—light is offered from the East. There we find ourselves in presence of an older and a vaster faith,—holding no gross anthropomorphic conceptions of the immeasurable Reality, and denying the existence of soul, but nevertheless inculcating a system of morals superior to any other, and maintaining a hope which no possible future form of positive knowledge can destroy. Reinforced by the teaching of science, the teaching of this more ancient faith is that for thousands of years we have been thinking inside-out and upside-down. The only reality is One;—all that we have taken for Substance is only Shadow;—the physical is the unreal;—and the outer-man is the ghost.

[1]Evolution and Ethics.

The following is not a story,—at least it is not one ofmystories. It is only the translation of an old Japanese document—or rather series of documents—very much signed and sealed, and dating back to the early part of the present century. Various authors appear to have made use of these documents: especially the compiler of the curious collection of Buddhist stories entitledBukkyō-hyakkwa-zenshō, to whom they furnished the material of the twenty-sixth narrative in that work. The present translation, however, was made from a manuscript copy discovered in a private library in Tōkyō. I am responsible for nothing beyond a few notes appended to the text.

Although the beginning will probably prove dry reading, I presume to advise the perusal of the whole translation from first to last, because it suggests many things besides the possibility of remembering former births. It will be found to reflect something of the feudal Japan passed away, and something of the old-time faith,—not the higher Buddhism, but what is incomparably more difficult for any Occidental to obtain a glimpse of: the common ideas of the people concerning preëxistence and rebirth. And in view of this fact, the exactness of the official investigations, and the credibility of the evidence accepted, necessarily become questions of minor importance.

1.—COPY OF THE REPORT OF TAMON DEMPACHIRŌ.

The case of Katsugorō, nine years old, second son of Genzō, a farmer on my estate, dwelling in the Village called Nakano-mura in the District called Tamagōri in the Province of Musashi.

Some time during the autumn of last year, the above-mentioned Katsugorō, the son of Genzō, told to his elder sister the story of his previous existence and of his rebirth. But as it seemed to be only the fancy of a child, she gave little heed to it. Afterwards, however, when Katsugorō had told her the same story over and over again, she began to think that it was a strange thing, and she told her parents about it.

During the twelfth month of the past year, Genzō himself questioned Katsugorō about the matter, whereupon Katsugorō declared,—

That he had been in his former existence the son of a certain Kyūbei, a farmer of Hodokubo-mura, which is a village within the jurisdiction of the Lord Komiya, in the district called Tamagōri, in the province of Musashi;—

That he, Katsugorō, the son of Kyūbei, had died of smallpox at the age of six years,—and

That he had been reborn thereafter into the family of the Genzō before-mentioned.

Though this seemed unbelievable, the boy repeated all the circumstances of his story with so much exactness and apparent certainty, that the Headman and the elders of the village made a formal investigation of the case. As the news of this event soon spread, it was heard by the family of a certain Hanshirō, living in the village called Hodokubo-mura; and Hanshirō then came to the house of the Genzō aforesaid, a farmer belonging to my estate, and found that everything was true which the boy had said about the personal appearance and the facial characteristics of his former parents, and about the aspect of the house which had been his home in his previous birth. Katsugorō was then taken to the house of Hanshirō in Hodokubo-mura; and the people there said that he looked very much like their Tōzō, who had died a number of years before, at the age of six. Since then the two families have been visiting each other at intervals. The people of other neighboring villages seem to have heard of the matter; and now persons come daily from various places to see Katsugorō.

A deposition regarding the above facts having been made before me by persons dwelling on my estate, I summoned the man Genzō to my house, and there examined him. His answers to my questions did not contradict the statements before-mentioned made by other parties.

Occasionally in the world some rumor of such a matter as this spreads among the people. Indeed, it is hard to believe such things. But I beg to make report of the present case, hoping the same will reach your august ear,—so that I may not be charged with negligence.

[Signed]TAMON DEMPACHIRŌ.

The Fourth Month and the Sixth Year of Bunsei[1823].

2.—COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN BY KAZUNAWO TO TEIKIN, PRIEST OF SENGAKUJI.

I have been favored with the accompanying copy of the report of Tamon Dempachirō by Shiga Hyoëmon Sama, who brought it to me; and I take great pleasure in sending it to you. I think that it might be well for you to preserve it, together with the writing from Kwan-zan Sama, which you kindly showed me the other day.

[Signed]KAZUNAWO.

The twenty-first day of the Sixth Month. [No other date.]

3.—COPY OF THE LETTER OF MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN [DAIMYŌ] TO THE PRIEST TEIKIN OF THE TEMPLE CALLED SENGAKUJI.

I herewith enclose and send you the account of the rebirth of Katsugorō. I have written it in the popular style, thinking that it might have a good effect in helping to silence those who do not believe in the doctrines of the Buddha. As a literary work it is, of course, a wretched thing. I send it to you supposing that it could only amuse you from that point of view. But as for the relation itself, it is without mistake; for I myself heard it from the grandmother of Katsugorō. When you have read it, please return it to me.

[Signed]KWANZAN.

Twentieth day.[No date.]

[COPY.]

RELATION OF THE REBIRTH OF KATSUGORŌ.

4.—(Introductory Note by the Priest Teikin.)

This is the account of a true fact; for it has been written by Matsudaira Kwanzan Sama, who himself went [to Nakano-mura] on the twenty-second day of the third month of this year for the special purpose of inquiring about the matter.

After having obtained a glimpse of Katsugoro, he questioned the boy's grandmother as to every particular; and he wrote down her answers exactly as they were given.

Afterwards, the said Kwanzan Sama condescended to honor this temple with a visit on the fourteenth day of this fourth month, and with his own august lips told me about his visit to the family of the aforesaid Katsugorō. Furthermore, he vouchsafed me the favor of permitting me to read the before-mentioned writing, on the twentieth day of this same month. And, availing myself of the privilege, I immediately made a copy of the writing.

[Signed]TEIKIN SŌSengaku-jiFacsimile of the priest's kakihan, orprivate sign-manual,made with the brush.

The twenty-first day of the Fourth Month of the Sixth Year of Bunsei[1823]

[COPY.]

5.—[NAMES OF THE MEMBERS OF THE TWO FAMILIES CONCERNED.]

[Family of Genzō.]

KATSUGORŌ.—Born the 10th day of the 10th month of the twelfth year of Bunkwa [1815]. Nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei [1823].[1]Second son of Genzō, a farmer living in Tanitsuiri in Nakano-mura, district of Tamagōri, province of Musashi.—Estate of Tamon Dempachirō, whose yashiki is in the street called Shichikenchō, Nedzu, Yedo.—Jurisdiction of Yusuki.

GENZŌ.—Father of Katsugorō. Family name, Koyada. Forty-nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei. Being poor, he occupies himself with the making of baskets, which he sells in Yedo. The name of the inn at which he lodges while in Yedo is Sagamiya, kept by one Kihei, in Bakuro-chō.

SEI.—Wife of Genzō and mother of Katsugoro. Thirty-nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei. Daughter of Murata Kichitarō, samurai,—once an archer in the service of the Lord of Owari. When Sei was twelve years old she was a maid-servant, it is said, in the house of Honda Dainoshin Dono. When she was thirteen years old, her father, Kichitarō was dismissed forever for a certain cause from the service of the Lord of Owari, and he became a rōnin.[2]He died at the age of seventy-five, on the twenty-fifth day of the fourth month of the fourth year of Bunkwa [1807]. His grave is in the cemetery of the temple called Eirin-ji, of the Zen sect, in the village of Shimo-Yusuki.

TSUYA.—Grandmother of Katsugoro. Seventy-two years old this sixth year of Bunsei. When young she served as maid in the household of Matsudaira Oki-no-Kami Dono [Daimyō].

FUSA.—Elder sister of Katsugoro. Fifteen years old this year.

OTOJIRŌ.—Elder brother of Katsugoro. Fourteen years old this year.

TSUNÉ.—Younger sister of Katsugoro. Four years old this year.

[Family of Hanshirō.]

TŌZŌ.—Died at the age of six in Hodo-kubo-mura, in the district called Tamagori in the province of Musashi. Estate of Nakané Uyemon, whose yashiki is in the street Ata-rashi-bashi-dōri, Shitaya, Yedo. Jurisdiction of Komiya.—[Tōzō] was born in the second year of Bunkwa [1805], and died at about the fourth hour of the day [10o'clock in the morning] on the fourth clay of the second month of the seventh year of Bunkwa [1810]. The sickness of which he died was smallpox. Buried in the graveyard on the hill above the village before-mentioned,—Hodokubo-mura.—Parochial temple: Iwōji in Misawa-mura. Sect: Zen-shū. Last year the fifth year of Bunkwa [1822], thejiū-san kwaiki[3]was said for Tōzō.

HANSHIRŌ.—Stepfather of Tōzō. Family name: Suzaki. Fifty years old this sixth year of Bunsei.

SHIDZU.—Mother of Tōzō. Forty-nine years old this sixth year of Bunsei.

KYŪBEI(afterwardsTOGŌRŌ).—Real father of Tōzō. Original name, Kyūbei, afterwards changed to Togōrō. Died at the age of forty-eight, in the sixth year of Bunkwa [1809], when Tözö was five years old. To replace him, Hanshirō became aniri-muko.[4]

CHILDREN: TWO BOYS AND TWO GIRLS.—These are Hanshirō's children by the mother of Tōzō.

6.—[COPY OF THE ACCOUNT WRITTEN IN POPULAR STYLE BY MATSUDAIRA KWANZAN DONO, DAIMYŌ.]

Some time in the eleventh month of the past year, when Katsugorō was playing in the rice-field with his elder sister, Fusa, he asked her,— "Elder Sister, where did you come from before you were born into our household?"

Fusa answered him:—

"How can I know what happened to me before I was born?"

Katsugoro looked surprised and exclaimed:

"Then you cannot remember anything that happened before you were born?"

"Doyouremember?" asked Fusa.

"Indeed I do," replied Katsugorō. "I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodo-kubo, and my name was then Tōzō—do you not know all that?"

"Ah!" said Fusa, "I shall tell father and mother about it."

But Katsugorō at once began to cry, and said:—

"Please do not tell!—it would not be good to tell father and mother."

Fusa made answer, after a little while:—

"Well, this time I shall not tell. But the next time that you do anything naughty, then I will tell."

After that day whenever a dispute arose between the two, the sister would threaten the brother, saying, "Very well, then—I shall tell that thing to father and mother." At these words the boy would always yield to his sister. This happened many times; and the parents one day overheard Fusa making her threat. Thinking Katsugorō must have been doing something wrong, they desired to know what the matter was, and Fusa, being questioned, told them the truth. Then Genzō and his wife, and Tsuya, the grandmother of Katsugorō, thought it a very strange thing. They called Katsugorō, therefore; and tried, first by coaxing, and then by threatening, to make him tell what he had meant by those words.

After hesitation, Katsugorō said:—"I will tell you everything. I used to be the son of Kyūbei San of Hodokubo, and the name of my mother then was O-Shidzu San. When I was five years old, Kyūbei San died; and there came in his place a man called Hanshirō San, who loved me very much. But in the following year, when I was six years old, I died of smallpox. In the third year after that I entered mother's honorable womb, and was born again."

The parents and the grandmother of the boy wondered greatly at hearing this; and they decided to make all possible inquiry as to the man called Hanshirō of Hodokubo. But as they all had to work very hard every day to earn a living, and so could spare but little time for any other matter, they could not at once carry out their intention.

Now Sei, the mother of Katsugorō, had nightly to suckle her little daughter Tsuné, who was four years old;[5]—and Katsugorō therefore slept with his grandmother, Tsuya. Sometimes he used to talk to her in bed; and one night when he was in a very confiding mood, she persuaded him to tell her what happened at the time when he had died. Then he said:—"Until I was four years old I used to remember everything; but since then I have become more and more forgetful; and now I forget many, many things. But I still remember that I died of smallpox; I remember that I was put into a jar;[6]I remember that I was buried on a hill. There was a hole made in the ground; and the people let the jar drop into that hole. It fell pon!—I remember that sound well. Then somehow I returned to the house, and I stopped on my own pillow there.[7]In a short time some old man,—looking like a grandfather—came and took me away. I do not know who or what he was. As I walked I went through empty air as if flying. I remember it was neither night nor day as we went: it was always like sunset-time. I did not feel either warm or cold or hungry. We went very far, I think; but still I could hear always, faintly, the voices of people talking at home; and the sound of the Nembutsu[8]being said for me. I remember also that when the people at home set offerings of hotbotamochi[9]before the household shrinen [butsudan], I inhaled the vapor of the offerings.... Grandmother, never forget to offer warm food to the honorable dead [Hotoké Sama], and do not forget to give to priests—I am sure it is very good to do these things.[10]... After that, I only remember that the old man led me by some roundabout way to this place—I remember we passed the road beyond the village. Then we came here, and he pointed to this house, and said to me:—'Now you must be reborn,—for it is three years since you died. You are to be reborn in that house. The person who will become your grandmother is very kind; so it will be well for you to be conceived and born there.' After saying this, the old man went away. I remained a little time under the kaki-tree before the entrance of this house. Then I was going to enter when I heard talking inside: some one said that because father was now earning so little, mother would have to go to service in Yedo. I thought, "I will not go into that house;" and I stopped three days in the garden. On the third clay it was decided that, after all, mother would not have to go to Yedo. The same night I passed into the house through a knot-hole in the sliding-shutters;—and after that I stayed for three days beside thekamado.[11]Then I entered mother's honorable womb.[12]... I remember that I was born without any pain at all.—Grandmother, you may tell this to father and mother, but please never tell it to anybody else."

The grandmother told Genzō and his wife what Katsugorō had related to her; and after that the boy was not afraid to speak freely with his parents on the subject of his former existence, and would often say to them: "I want to go to Hodokubo. Please let me make a visit to the tomb of Kyūbei San." Genzō thought that Katsugorō, being a strange child, would probably die before long, and that it might therefore be better to make inquiry at once as to whether there really was a man in Hodokubo called Hanshirō. But he did not wish to make the inquiry himself, because for a man to do so [under such circumstances?] would seem inconsiderate or forward. Therefore, instead of going himself to Hodokubo, he asked his mother Tsuya, on the twentieth day of the first month of this year, to take her grandson there.

Tsuya went with Katsugorō to Hodokubo; and when they entered the village she pointed to the nearer dwellings, and asked the boy," Which house is it?—is it this house or that one?" "No," answered Katsugorō,—"it is further on—much further,"—and he hurried before her. Reaching a certain dwelling at last, he cried, "This is the house!"—and ran in, without waiting for his grandmother. Tsuya followed him in, and asked the people there what was the name of the owner of the house. "Hanshirō," one of them answered. She asked the name of Hanshirō's wife. "Shidzu," was the reply. Then she asked whether there had ever been a son called Tōzō born in that house. "Yes," was the answer; "but that boy died thirteen years ago, when he was six years old."

Then for the first time Tsuya was convinced that Katsugorō had spoken the truth; and she could not help shedding tears. She related to the people of the house all that Katsugorō had told her about his remembrance of his former birth. Then Hanshirō and his wife wondered greatly. They caressed Katsugorō and wept; and they remarked that he was much handsomer now than he had been as Tözö before dying at the age of six. In the mean time, Katsugorō was looking all about; and seeing the roof of a tobacco shop opposite to the house of Hanshirō, he pointed to it, and said:—"That used not to be there." And he also said,—"The tree yonder used not to be there." All this was true. So from the minds of Hanshirō and his wife every doubt departed [ga wo orishi].

On the same day Tsuya and Katsugorō returned to Tanitsuiri, Nakano-mura. Afterwards Genzō sent his son several times to Hanshirō's house, and allowed him to visit the tomb of Kyūbei his real father in his previous existence.

Sometimes Katsugorō says:—"I am aNono-Sama:[13]therefore please be kind to me." Sometimes he also says to his grandmother:—"I think I shall die when I am sixteen; but, as Ontaké Sama[14]has taught us, dying is not a matter to be afraid of." When his parents ask him, "Would you not like to become a priest?" he answers, "I would rather not be a priest."

The village people do not call him Katsugoro any more; they have nicknamed him "Hodokubo-Kozō" (the Acolyte of Hodokubo).[15]When any one visits the house to see him, he becomes shy at once, and runs to hide himself in the inner apartments. So it is not possible to have any direct conversation with him. I have written down this account exactly as his grandmother gave it to me.

I asked whether Genzō, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember having done any virtuous deeds. Genzō and his wife said that they had never done anything especially virtuous; but that Tsuya, the grandmother, had always been in the habit of repeating theNembutsuevery morning and evening, and that she never failed to give twomon[16]to any priest or pilgrim who came to the door. But excepting these small matters, she never had done anything which could be called a particularly virtuous act.

(—This is the End of the Relation of the Rebirth of Katsugorō.)

7.—(Note by the Translator.) The foregoing is taken from a manuscript entitledChin Setsu Shū Ki; or, "Manuscript-Collection of Uncommon Stories,"—made between the fourth month of the sixth year of Bunsei and the tenth month of the sixth year of Tempo [1823-1835]. At the end of the manuscript is written,—"From the years of Bunsei to the years of Tempo.—Minamisempa, Owner: Kurumachō, Shiba, Yedo" Under this, again, is the following note:—"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujirō Nishinohubo: twenty-first day [?], Second Year of Meiji [1869]." From which it would appear that the manuscript had been written by Minamisempa, who collected stories told to him, or copied them from manuscripts obtained by him, during the thirteen years from 1823 to 1835, inclusive.

Perhaps somebody will now be unreasonable enough to ask whether I believe this story,—as if my belief or disbelief had anything to do with the matter! The question of the possibility of remembering former births seems to me to depend upon the question what it is that remembers. If it is the Infinite All-Self in each one of us, then I can believe the whole of the Jatakas without any trouble. As to the False Self, the mere woof and warp of sensation and desire, then I can best express my idea by relating a dream which I once dreamed. Whether it was a dream of the night or a dream of the day need not concern any one, since it was only a dream.

[1]The Western reader is requested to bear in mind that the year in which a Japanese child is born is counted always as one year in the reckoning of age.

[2]Lit.: "A wave-man,"—a wandering samurai without a lord. The rōnin were generally a desperate and very dangerous class; but there were some fine characters among them.

[3]The Buddhist services for the dead are celebrated at regular intervals, increasing successively in length, until the time of one hundred years after death. Thejiū-san kwaikiis the service for the thirteenth year after death. By "thirteenth" in the context the reader must understand that the year in which the death took place is counted for one year.

[4]The second husband, by adoption, of a daughter who lives with her own parents.

[5]Children in Japan, among the poorer classes, are not weaned until an age much later than what is considered the proper age for weaning children in Western countries. But "four years old" in this text may mean considerably less, than three by Western reckoning.

[6]From very ancient time in Japan it has been the custom to bury the dead in large jars,—usually of red earthenware,—calledKamé. Such jars are still used, although a large proportion of the dead are buried in wooden coffins of a form unknown in the Occident.

[7]The idea expressed is not that of lying down with the pillow under the head, but of hovering about the pillow, or resting upon it as an insect might do. The bodiless spirit is usually said to rest upon the roof of the home. The apparition of the aged man referred to in the next sentence seems a thought of Shinto rather than of Buddhism.

[8]The repetition of the Buddhist invocationNamu Amida Butsu! is thus named. Thenembutsuis repeated by many Buddhist sects besides the sect of Amida proper,—the Shinshū.

[9]Botamochi, a kind of sugared rice-cake.

[10]Such advice is a commonplace in Japanese Buddhist literature. By Hotokė Sama here the boy means, not the Buddhas proper, but the spirits of the dead, hopefully termed Buddhas by those who loved them,—much as in the West we sometimes speak of our dead as "angels."

[11]The cooking-place in a Japanese kitchen. Sometimes the word is translated "kitchen-range," but thekamadois something very different from a Western kitchen-range.

[12]Here I think it better to omit a couple of sentences in the original rather too plain for Western taste, yet not without interest. The meaning of the omitted passages is only that even in the womb the child acted with consideration, and according to the rules of filial piety.

[13]Nono-San(orSama) is the child-word for the Spirits of the dead, for the Buddhas, and for the Shintō Gods,—Kami.Nono-San wo ogamu,—"to pray to the Nono-San," is the child-phrase for praying to the gods. The spirits of the ancestors become Nono-San,—Kami,—according to Shintō thought.

[14]The reference here to Ontaké Sama has a particular interest, but will need some considerable explanation.Ontaké, or Mitaké, is the name of a celebrated holy peak in the province of Shinano—a great resort for pilgrims. During the Tokugawa Shōgunate, a priest called Isshin, of the Risshū Buddhists, made a pilgrimage to that mountain. Returning to his native place (Sakamoto-chō, Shitaya, Yedo), he began to preach certain new doctrines, and to make for himself a reputation as a miracle-worker, by virtue of powers said to have been gained during his pilgrimage to Ontaké. The Shōgunate considered him a dangerous person, and banished him to the island of Hachijō, where he remained for some years. Afterwards he was allowed to return to Yedo, and there to preach his new faith,—to which he gave the name of Azuma-Kyō. It was Buddhist teaching in a Shintō disguise,—the deities especially adored by its followers being Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-hi-kona as Buddhist avatars. In the prayer of the sect called Kaibyaku-Norito it is said:—"The divine nature is immovable (fudō); yet it moves. It is formless, yet manifests itself in forms. This is the Incomprehensible Divine Body. In Heaven and Earth it is called Kami; in all things it is called Spirit; in Man it is called Mind.... From this only reality came the heavens, the four oceans, the great whole of the three thousand universes;—from the One Mind emanate three thousands of great thousands of forms." ...In the eleventh year of Bunkwa (1814) a man called Shi moyama Osuké, originally an oil-merchant in Heiyemon-chō, Asakusa, Yedo, organized, on the basis of Isshin's teaching, a religious association named Tomoyé-Ko. It flourished until the overthrow of the Shōgunate, when a law was issued forbidding the teaching of mixed doctrines, and the blending of Shintō with Buddhist religion. Shimo-yama Osuké then applied for permission to establish a new Shinto sect, under the name of Mitaké-Kyō,—popularly called Ontaké-Kyō; and the permission was given in the sixth year of Meiji (1873). Osuké then remodeled the Buddhist sutra Fudō Kyō into a Shinto prayer-book, under the title, Shintō-Fudō-Norito. The sect still flourishes; and one of its chief temples is situated about a mile from my present residence in Tōkyō."Ontaké San" (or "Sama") is a popular name given to the deities adored by this sect. It really means the Deity dwelling on the peak Mitaké, or Ontaké. But the name is also sometimes applied to the high-priest of the sect, who is supposed to be oracularly inspired by the deity of Ontaké, and to make revelations of truth through the power of the divinity. In the mouth of the boy Katsugoro "Ontaké Sama" means the high-priest of that time (1823), almost certainly Osuké himself,—then chief of the Tomoyé-Kyō.

[14]The reference here to Ontaké Sama has a particular interest, but will need some considerable explanation.

Ontaké, or Mitaké, is the name of a celebrated holy peak in the province of Shinano—a great resort for pilgrims. During the Tokugawa Shōgunate, a priest called Isshin, of the Risshū Buddhists, made a pilgrimage to that mountain. Returning to his native place (Sakamoto-chō, Shitaya, Yedo), he began to preach certain new doctrines, and to make for himself a reputation as a miracle-worker, by virtue of powers said to have been gained during his pilgrimage to Ontaké. The Shōgunate considered him a dangerous person, and banished him to the island of Hachijō, where he remained for some years. Afterwards he was allowed to return to Yedo, and there to preach his new faith,—to which he gave the name of Azuma-Kyō. It was Buddhist teaching in a Shintō disguise,—the deities especially adored by its followers being Okuni-nushi and Sukuna-hi-kona as Buddhist avatars. In the prayer of the sect called Kaibyaku-Norito it is said:—"The divine nature is immovable (fudō); yet it moves. It is formless, yet manifests itself in forms. This is the Incomprehensible Divine Body. In Heaven and Earth it is called Kami; in all things it is called Spirit; in Man it is called Mind.... From this only reality came the heavens, the four oceans, the great whole of the three thousand universes;—from the One Mind emanate three thousands of great thousands of forms." ...

In the eleventh year of Bunkwa (1814) a man called Shi moyama Osuké, originally an oil-merchant in Heiyemon-chō, Asakusa, Yedo, organized, on the basis of Isshin's teaching, a religious association named Tomoyé-Ko. It flourished until the overthrow of the Shōgunate, when a law was issued forbidding the teaching of mixed doctrines, and the blending of Shintō with Buddhist religion. Shimo-yama Osuké then applied for permission to establish a new Shinto sect, under the name of Mitaké-Kyō,—popularly called Ontaké-Kyō; and the permission was given in the sixth year of Meiji (1873). Osuké then remodeled the Buddhist sutra Fudō Kyō into a Shinto prayer-book, under the title, Shintō-Fudō-Norito. The sect still flourishes; and one of its chief temples is situated about a mile from my present residence in Tōkyō.

"Ontaké San" (or "Sama") is a popular name given to the deities adored by this sect. It really means the Deity dwelling on the peak Mitaké, or Ontaké. But the name is also sometimes applied to the high-priest of the sect, who is supposed to be oracularly inspired by the deity of Ontaké, and to make revelations of truth through the power of the divinity. In the mouth of the boy Katsugoro "Ontaké Sama" means the high-priest of that time (1823), almost certainly Osuké himself,—then chief of the Tomoyé-Kyō.

[15]Kozō is the name given to a Buddhist acolyte, or a youth studying for the priesthood. But it is also given to errand-boys and little boy-servants sometimes,—perhaps because in former days the heads of little boys were shaved. I think that the meaning in this text is "acolyte."

[16]In that time the name of the smallest of coins = 1/10 of 1 cent. It was about the same as that now called rin, a copper with a square hole in the middle and bearing Chinese characters.

Neither personal pain nor personal pleasure can be really expressed in words. It is never possible to communicate them in their original form. It is only possible, by vivid portrayal of the circumstances or conditions causing them, to awaken in sympathetic minds some kindred qualities of feeling. But if the circumstances causing the pain or the pleasure be totally foreign to common human experience, then no representation of them can make fully known the sensations which they evoked. Hopeless, therefore, any attempt to tell the real pain of seeing my former births. I can say only that no combination of suffering possible toindividualbeing could be likened to such pain,—the pain of countless lives interwoven. It seemed as if every nerve of me had been prolonged into some monstrous web of sentiency spun back through a million years,—and as if the whole of that measureless woof and warp, over all its shivering threads, were pouring into my consciousness, out of the abysmal past, some ghastliness without name,—some horror too vast for human brain to hold. For, as I looked backward, I became double, quadruple, octuple;—I multiplied by arithmetical progression;—I became hundreds and thousands,—and feared with the terror of thousands,—and despaired with the anguish of thousands,—and shuddered with the agony of thousands; yet knew the pleasure of none. All joys, all delights appeared but mists or mockeries: only the pain and the fear were real,—and always, always growing. Then in the moment when sentiency itself seemed bursting into dissolution, one divine touch ended the frightful vision, and brought again to me the simple consciousness of the single present. Oh! how unspeakably delicious that sudden shrinking back out of multiplicity into unity!—that immense, immeasurable collapse of Self into the blind oblivious numbness of individuality!

"To others also," said the voice of the divine one who had thus saved me,—"to others in the like state it has been permitted to see something of their preëxistence. But no one of them ever could endure to look far. Power to see all former births belongs only to those eternally released from the bonds of Self. Such exist outside of illusion,—outside of form and name; and pain cannot come nigh them.

"But to you, remaining in illusion, not even the Buddha could give power to look back more than a little way.

"Still you are bewitched by the follies of art and of poetry and of music,—the delusions of color and form,—the delusions of sensuous speech, the delusions of sensuous sound.

"Still that apparition called Nature—which is but another name for emptiness and shadow—deceives and charms you, and fills you with dreams of longing for the things of sense.

"But he who truly wishes to know, must not love this phantom Nature,—must not find delight in the radiance of a clear sky,—nor in the sight of the sea,—nor in the sound of the flowing of rivers,—nor in the forms of peaks and woods and valleys,—nor in the colors of them.

"He who truly wishes to know must not find delight in contemplating the works and the deeds of men, nor in hearing their converse, nor in observing the puppet-play of their passions and of their emotions. All this is but a weaving of smoke,—a shimmering of vapors,—an impermanency,—a phantasmagory.

"For the pleasures that men term lofty or noble or sublime are but larger sensualisms, subtler falsities: venomous fair-seeming flowerings of selfishness,—all rooted in the elder slime of appetites and desires. To joy in the radiance of a cloudless day,—to see the mountains shift their tintings to the wheeling of the sun,—to watch the passing of waves, the fading of sunsets,—to find charm in the blossoming of plants or trees: all this is of the senses. Not less truly of the senses is the pleasure of observing actions called great or beautiful or heroic,—since it is one with the pleasure of imagining those things for which men miserably strive in this miserable world: brief love and fame and honor,—all of which are empty as passing foam.

"Sky, sun, and sea;—the peaks, the woods, the plains;—all splendors and forms and colors,—are spectres. The feelings and the thoughts and the acts of men,—whether deemed high or low, noble or ignoble,—all things imagined or done for any save the eternal purpose, are but dreams born of dreams and begetting hollowness. To the clear of sight, all feelings of self,—all love and hate, joy and pain, hope and regret, are alike shadows;—youth and age, beauty and horror, sweetness and foulness, are not different;—death and life are one and the same; and Space and Time exist but as the stage and the order of the perpetual Shadow-play.

"All that exists in Time must perish. To the Awakened there is no Time or Space or Change,—no night or day,—no heat or cold,—no moon or season,—no present, past, or future. Form and the names of form are alike nothingness:—Knowledge only is real; and unto whomsoever gains it, the universe becomes a ghost. But it is written:—'He who hath overcome Time in the past and the future must be of exceedingly pure understanding.'

"Such understanding is not yours. Still to your eyes the shadow seems the substance,—and darkness, light,—and voidness, beauty. And therefore to see your former births could give you only pain."

I asked:—

"Had I found strength to look back to the beginning,—back to the verge of Time,—could I have read the Secret of the universe?"

"Nay," was answer made. "Only by Infinite Vision can the Secret be read. Could you have looked back incomparably further than your power permitted, then the Past would have become for you the Future. And could you have endured even yet more, the Future would have orbed back for you into the Present."

"Yet why?" I murmured, marveling.... "What is the Circle?"

"Circle there is none," was the response;—"Circle there is none but the great phantom-whirl of birth and death to which, by their own thoughts and deeds, the ignorant remain condemned. But this has being only in Time; and Time itself is illusion."

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