Chapter I: First Impressions 187 (2)

Chūzō, the father and founder of all this curious commerce, died without children; and sometime in the period of Bunsei (1818-1829) his business was taken over by a distant relative named Yamasaki Seïchirō. To Chūzō’s business, Yamasaki joined his own,--that of a toy-merchant. About the same time a law was passed limiting the number of insect-dealers in the municipality to thirty-six. The thirty-six then formed themselves into a guild, called the Ōyama-Kō (“Ōyama Society”), having for patron the divinity Sekison-Sama of the mountain Ōyama in Sagami Province.[9] But in business the association was known as the Yedō-Mushi-Kō, or Yedo Insect-Company.

It is not until after this consolidation of the trade that we hear of the _kirigirisu_,--the same musical insect which the poet Kikaku had vainly tried to buy in the city in 1687,--being sold in Yedo. One of the guild known as Mushiya Kojirō (“Kojirō the Insect-Merchant”), who did business in Honjō-Ku, returning to the city after a short visit to his native place in Kadzusa, brought back with him a number of _kirigirisu_, which he sold at a good profit. Although long famous elsewhere, these insects had never before been sold in Yedo.

“When Midzu Echizen-no-Kami,” says the chronicle, “became _machi-bugyō_ (or chief magistrate) of Yedo, the law limiting the number of insect-dealers to thirty-six, was abolished.” Whether the guild was subsequently dissolved the chronicle fails to mention.

Kiriyama, the first to breed singing-insects artificially, had, like Chūzō, built up a prosperous trade. He left a son, Kaméjirō, who was adopted into the family of one Yumoto, living in Waséda, Ushigomé-ku. Kaméjirō brought with him to the Yumoto family the valuable secrets of his father’s occupation; and the Yumoto family is still celebrated in the business of insect breeding.

To-day the greatest insect-merchant in Tōkyō is said to be Kawasumi Kanésaburō, of Samon-chō in Yotsuya-ku. A majority of the lesser dealers obtain their autumn stock from him. But the insects bred artificially, and sold in summer, are mostly furnished by the Yumoto house. Other noted dealers are Mushi-Sei, of Shitaya-ku, and Mushi-Toku, of Asakusa. These buy insects caught in the country, and brought to the city by the peasants. The wholesale dealers supply both insects and cages to multitudes of itinerant vendors who do business in the neighborhood of the parish-temples during the _en-nichi_, or religious festivals,--especially after dark. Almost every night of the year there are _en-nichi_ in some quarter of the capital; and the insect-sellers are rarely idle during the summer and autumn months.

* * * * *

Perhaps the following list of current Tōkyō prices[10] for singing-insects may interest the reader:--

Suzumushi 3 sen 5 rin, to 4 sen.
Matsumushi 4 „ 5 „
Kantan 10 „ 12 „
Kin-hibari 10 „ 12 „
Kusa-hibari 10 „ 12 „
Kuro-hibari 8 „ 12 „
Kutsuwamushi 10 „ 15 „
Yamato-suzu 8 „ 12 „
Kirigirisu 12 „ 15 „
Emma-kōrogi 5 „
Kanétataki 12 „
Umaoi 10 „

These prices, however, rule only during the busy period of the insect trade. In May and the latter part of June the prices are high,--for only artificially bred insects are then in the market. In July _kirigirisu_ brought from the country will sell as low as one sen. The _kantan_, _kusa-hibari_, and _Yamato-suzu_ sell sometimes as low as two sen. In August the _Emma-kōrogi_ can be bought even at the rate of ten for one sen; and in September the _kuro-hibari_, _kanétataki_, and _umaoi_ sell for one or one and a half sen each. But there is little variation at any season in the prices of _suzumushi_ and of _matsumushi_. These are never very dear, but never sell at less than three sen; and there is always a demand for them. The _suzumushi_ is the most popular of all; and the greater part of the profits annually made in the insect-trade is said to be gained on the sale of this insect.

IV

As will be seen from the foregoing price-list, twelve varieties of musical insects are sold in Tōkyō. Nine can be artificially bred,--namely the _suzumushi_, _matsumushi_, _kirigirisu_, _kantan_, _kutsuwamushi_, _Emma-kōrogi_, _kin-hibari_, _kusa-hibari_ (also called _Asa-suzu_), and the _Yamato-suzu_, or _Yoshino-suzu_. Three varieties, I am told, are not bred for sale, but captured for the market: these are the _kanétataki_, _umaoi_ or _hataori_, and _kuro-hibari_. But a considerable number of all the insects annually offered for sale, are caught in their native haunts.

The night-singers are, with few exceptions, easily taken. They are captured with the help of lanterns. Being quickly attracted by light, they approach the lanterns; and when near enough to be observed, they can readily be covered with nets or little baskets. Males and females are usually secured at the same time, for the creatures move about in couples. Only the males sing; but a certain number of females are always taken for breeding purposes. Males and females are kept in the same vessel only for breeding: they are never left together in a cage, because the male ceases to sing when thus mated, and will die in a short time after pairing.

The breeding pairs are kept in jars or other earthen vessels half-filled with moistened clay, and are supplied every day with fresh food. They do not live long: the male dies first, and the female survives only until her eggs have been laid. The young insects hatched from them, shed their skin in about forty days from birth, after which they grow more rapidly, and soon attain their full development. In their natural state these creatures are hatched a little before the Doyō, or Period of Greatest Heat by the old calendar,--that is to say, about the middle of July;--and they begin to sing in October. But when bred in a warm room, they are hatched early in April; and, with careful feeding, they can be offered for sale before the end of May. When very young, their food is triturated and spread for them upon a smooth piece of wood; but the adults are usually furnished with unprepared food,--consisting of parings of egg-plant, melon-rind, cucumber-rind, or the soft interior parts of the white onion. Some insects, however, are specially nourished;--the _abura-kirigirisu_, for example, being fed with sugar-water and slices of musk-melon.

V

All the insects mentioned in the Tōkyō price-list are not of equal interest; and several of the names appear to refer only to different varieties of one species,--though on this point I am not positive. Some of the insects do not seem to have yet been scientifically classed; and I am no entomologist. But I can offer some general notes on the more important among the little melodists, and free translations of a few out of the countless poems about them,--beginning with the _matsumushi_, which was celebrated in Japanese verse a thousand years ago:

_Matsumushi._[11]

As ideographically written, the name of this creature signifies “pine-insect;” but, as pronounced, it might mean also “waiting-insect,”-- since the verb “_matsu_,” “to wait,” and the noun “_matsu_,” “pine,” have the same sound. It is chiefly upon this double meaning of the word as uttered that a host of Japanese poems about the _matsumushi_ are based. Some of these are very old,--dating back to the tenth century at least.

Although by no means a rare insect, the matsumushi is much esteemed for the peculiar clearness and sweetness of its notes--(onomatopoetically rendered in Japanese by the syllables _chin-chirorīn, chin-chirorīn_),-- little silvery shrillings which I can best describe as resembling the sound of an electric bell heard from a distance. The matsumushi haunts pine-woods and cryptomeria-groves, and makes its music at night. It is a very small insect, with a dark-brown back, and a yellowish belly.

* * * * *

Perhaps the oldest extant verses upon the matsumushi are those contained in the _Kokinshū_,--a famous anthology compiled in the year 905 by the court-poet Tsurayuki and several of his noble friends. Here we first find that play on the name of the insect as pronounced, which was to be repeated in a thousand different keys by a multitude of poets through the literature of more than nine hundred years:--

Aki no no ni
Michi mo madoinu;
Matsumushi no
Koe suru kata ni
Yadoya karamashi.

“In the autumn-fields I lose my way;--perhaps I might ask for lodging in the direction of the cry of the waiting-insect;”--that is to say, “might sleep to-night in the grass where the insects are waiting for me.” There is in the same work a much prettier poem on the matsumushi by Tsurayuki.

With dusk begins to cry the male of the Waiting-insect;--
I, too, await my beloved, and, hearing, my longing grows.

The following poems on the same insect are less ancient but not less interesting:--

Forever past and gone, the hour of the promised advent!--
Truly the Waiter’s voice is a voice of sadness now!

Parting is sorrowful always,--even the parting with autumn!
O plaintive matsumushi, add not thou to my pain!

Always more clear and shrill, as the hush of the night grows deeper,
The Waiting-insect’s voice;--and I that wait in the garden,
Feel enter into my heart the voice and the moon together.

_Suzumushi._[12]

The name signifies “bell-insect;” but the bell of which the sound is thus referred to is a very small bell, or a bunch of little bells such as a Shinto priestess uses in the sacred dances. The _suzumushi_ is a great favorite with insect-fanciers, and is bred in great numbers for the market. In the wild state it is found in many parts of Japan; and at night the noise made by multitudes of _suzumushi_ in certain lonesome places might easily be mistaken,--as it has been by myself more than once,--for the sound of rapids. The Japanese description of the insect as resembling “a watermelon seed”--the black kind--is excellent. It is very small, with a black back, and a white or yellowish belly. Its tintinnabulation--_ri-ï-ï-ï-in_, as the Japanese render the sound--might easily be mistaken for the tinkling of a _suzu_. Both the _matsumushi_ and the _suzumushi_ are mentioned in Japanese poems of the period of Engi (901-922).

Some of the following poems on the suzumushi are very old; others are of comparatively recent date:--

Yes, my dwelling is old: weeds on the roof are growing;--
But the voice of the suzumushi that will never be old!

To-day united in love,--we who can meet so rarely!
Hear how the insects ring!--their bells to our hearts keep time.

The tinkle of tiny bells,--the voices of suzumushi,
I hear in the autumn-dusk,--and think of the fields at home.

Even the moonshine sleeps on the dews of the garden-grasses;
Nothing moves in the night but the suzumushi’s voice.

Heard in these alien fields, the voice of the suzumushi,--
Sweet in the evening-dusk,--sounds like the sound of home.

Vainly the suzumushi exhausts its powers of pleasing,
Always, the long night through, my tears continue to flow!

Hark to those tinkling tones,--the chant of the suzumushi!
--If a jewel of dew could sing, it would tinkle with such a voice!

Foolish-fond I have grown;--I feel for the suzumushi!--
In the time of the heavy rains, what will the creature do?

_Hataori-mushi._

The _hataori_ is a beautiful bright-green grasshopper, of very graceful shape. Two reasons are given for its curious name, which signifies “the Weaver.” One is that, when held in a particular way, the struggling gestures of the creature resemble the movements of a girl weaving. The other reason is that its music seems to imitate the sound of the reed and shuttle of a hand-loom in operation,--_Ji-ï-ï-ï--chon-chon!--ji-ï-ï-ï--chon-chon!_

* * * * *

There is a pretty folk-story about the origin of the _hataori_ and the _kirigirisu_, which used to be told to Japanese children in former times.--Long, long ago, says the tale, there were two very dutiful daughters who supported their old blind father by the labor of their hands. The elder girl used to weave, and the younger to sew. When the old blind father died at last, these good girls grieved so much that they soon died also. One beautiful morning, some creatures of a kind never seen before were found making music above the graves of the sisters. On the tomb of the elder was a pretty green insect, producing sounds like those made by a girl weaving,--_ji-ï-ï-ï, chon-chon! ji-ï-ï-ï, chon-chon!_ This was the first _hataori-mushi_. On the tomb of the younger sister was an insect which kept crying out, “_Tsuzuré--sasé, sasé!--tsuzuré, tsuzuré--sasé, sasé, sasé!_” (Torn clothes--patch, patch them up!--torn clothes, torn clothes--patch up, patch up, patch up!) This was the first _kirigirisu_. Then everybody knew that the spirits of the good sisters had taken those shapes. Still every autumn they cry to wives and daughters to work well at the loom, and warn them to repair the winter garments of the household before the coming of the cold.

* * * * *

Such poems as I have been able to obtain about the _hataori_ consist of nothing more than pretty fancies. Two, of which I offer free renderings, are ancient,--the first by Tsurayuki; the second by a poetess classically known as “Akinaka’s Daughter”:--

Weaving-insects I hear; and the fields, in their autumn-colors,
Seem of Chinese-brocade:--was this the weavers’ work?

Gossamer-threads are spread over the shrubs and grasses:
Weaving-insects I hear;--do they weave with spider-silk?

_Umaoi._

The _umaoi_ is sometimes confounded with the _hataori_, which it much resembles. But the true umaoi--(called _junta_ in Izumo)--is a shorter and thicker insect than the _hataori_; and has at its tail a hook-shaped protuberance, which the weaver-insect has not. Moreover, there is some difference in the sounds made by the two creatures. The music of the umaoi is not “_ji-ï-ï-ï,--chon-chon_,” but, “_zu-ï-in-tzō!--zu-ï-in-tzō!_”--say the Japanese.

_Kirigirisu._[13]

There are different varieties of this much-prized insect. The _abura-kirigirisu_, a day-singer, is a delicate creature, and must be carefully nourished in confinement. The _tachi-kirigirisu_, a night-singer, is more commonly found in the market. Captured _kirigirisu_ sold in Tōkyō are mostly from the neighborhood of Itabashi, Niiso, and Todogawa; and these, which fetch high prices, are considered the best. They are large vigorous insects, uttering very clear notes. From Kujiukuri in Kadzusa other and much cheaper _kirigirisu_ are brought to the capital; but these have a disagreeable odor, suffer from the attacks of a peculiar parasite, and are feeble musicians.

As stated elsewhere, the sounds made by the kirigirisu are said to resemble those of the Japanese words, “_Tsuzuré--sasé! sasé!_” (Torn clothes--patch up! patch up!); and a large proportion of the many poems written about the insect depend for interest upon ingenious but untranslatable allusions to those words. I offer renderings therefore of only two poems on the _kirigirisu_,--the first by an unknown poet in the _Kokinshū_; the second by Tadafusa:--

O Kirigirisu! when the clover changes color,
Are the nights then sad for you as for me that cannot sleep?

O Kirigirisu! cry not, I pray, so loudly!
Hearing, my sorrow grows, and the autumn-night is long!

_Kusa-hibari._

The _kusa-hibari_, or “Grass-Lark,”--also called _Asa-suzu_, or “Morning-Bell;” _Yabu-suzu_, or “the Little Bell of the Bamboo-grove;” _Aki-kazé_, or “Autumn-Wind;” and _Ko-suzu-mushi_, or “the Child of the Bell-Insect,”--is a day-singer. It is very small,--perhaps the smallest of the insect-choir, except the _Yamato-suzu_.

_Kin-hibari._

The _kin-hibari_, or “Golden Lark” used to be found in great numbers about the neighborhood of the well-known Shino-bazu-no-iké,--the great lotos-pond of Uyeno in Tōkyō;--but of late years it has become scarce there. The _kin-hibari_ now sold in the capital are brought from Todogawa and Shimura.

_Kuro-hibari._

The _kuro-hibari_, or “Black Lark,” is rather uncommon, and comparatively dear. It is caught in the country about Tōkyō, but is never bred.

_Kōrogi._

There are many varieties of this night-cricket,--called _kōrogi_ from its music:--“_kiri-kiri-kiri-kiri!--kōro-kōro-kōro-kōro!--ghi-ï-ï-ï-ï-ï-ï!_” One variety, the _ebi-kōrogi_, or “shrimp-kōrogi,” does not make any sound. But the _uma-kōrogi_, or “horse-kōrogi;” the _Oni-kōrogi_, or “Demon-kōrogi;” and the _Emma-kōrogi_, or “Cricket-of-Emma[14] [King of the Dead],” are all good musicians. The color is blackish-brown, or black;--the best singing-varieties have curious wavy markings on the wings.

An interesting fact regarding the _kōrogi_ is that mention of it is made in the very oldest collection of Japanese poems known, the _Manyōshu_, probably compiled about the middle of the eighth century. The following lines, by an unknown poet, which contain this mention, are therefore considerably more than eleven hundred years old:--

Niwa-kusa ni
Murasamé furité
Kōrogi no
Naku oto kikeba
Aki tsukinikeri.

[“Showers have sprinkled the garden-grass. Hearing the sound of the crying of the kōrogi, I know that the autumn has come.”]

_Kutsuwamushi._

There are several varieties of this extraordinary creature,--also called onomatopoetically _gatcha-gatcha_,--which is most provokingly described in dictionaries as “a kind of noisy cricket”! The variety commonly sold in Tōkyō has a green back, and a yellowish-white abdomen; but there are also brown and reddish varieties. The _kutsuwamushi_ is difficult to capture, but easy to breed. As the _tsuku-tsuku-bōshi_ is the most wonderful musician among the sun-loving cicadæ or _semi_, so the _kutsuwamushi_ is the most wonderful of night-crickets. It owes its name, which means “The Bridle-bit-Insect,” to its noise, which resembles the jingling and ringing of the old-fashioned Japanese bridle-bit (_kutsuwa_). But the sound is really much louder and much more complicated than ever was the jingling of a single _kutsuwa_; and the accuracy of the comparison is not easily discerned while the creature is storming beside you. Without the evidence of one’s own eyes, it were hard to believe that so small a life could make so prodigious a noise. Certainly the vibratory apparatus in this insect must be very complicated. The sound begins with a thin sharp whizzing, as of leaking steam, and slowly strengthens;--then to the whizzing is suddenly added a quick dry clatter, as of castanets;--and then, as the whole machinery rushes into operation, you hear, high above the whizzing and the clatter, a torrent of rapid ringing tones like the tapping of a gong. These, the last to begin, are also the first to cease; then the castanets stop; and finally the whizzing dies;--but the full orchestra may remain in operation for several hours at a time, without a pause. Heard from far away at night the sound is pleasant, and is really so much like the ringing of a bridle-bit, that when you first listen to it you cannot but feel how much real poetry belongs to the name of this insect,--celebrated from of old as “playing at ghostly escort in ways where no man can pass.”

The most ancient poem on the _kutsuwamushi_ is perhaps the following, by the Lady Idzumi-Shikibu:--

Waga seko wa
Koma ni makasété
Kinikeri to,
Kiku ni kikasuru
Kutsuwamushi kana!

--which might be thus freely rendered:

Listen!--his bridle rings;--that is surely my husband
Homeward hurrying now--fast as the horse can bear him!...
Ah! my ear was deceived!--only the Kutsuwamushi!

_Kantan._

This insect--also called _kantan-gisu_, and _kantan-no-kirigirisu_,--is a dark-brown night-cricket. Its note--“_zi-ï-ï-ï-in_” is peculiar: I can only compare it to the prolonged twang of a bow-string. But this comparison is not satisfactory, because there is a penetrant metallic quality in the twang, impossible to describe.

VI

Besides poems about the chanting of particular insects, there are countless Japanese poems, ancient and modern, upon the voices of night-insects in general,--chiefly in relation to the autumn season. Out of a multitude I have selected and translated a few of the more famous only, as typical of the sentiment or fancy of hundreds. Although some of my renderings are far from literal as to language, I believe that they express with tolerable faithfulness the thought and feeling of the originals:--

Not for my sake alone, I know, is the autumn’s coming;--
Yet, hearing the insects sing, at once my heart grows sad.

KOKINSHŪ.

Faint in the moonshine sounds the chorus of insect-voices:
To-night the sadness of autumn speaks in their plaintive tone.

I never can find repose in the chilly nights of autumn,
Because of the pain I hear in the insects’ plaintive song.

How must it be in the fields where the dews are falling thickly!
In the insect-voices that reach me I hear the tingling of cold.

Never I dare to take my way through the grass in autumn:
Should I tread upon insect-voices[15]--what would my feelings be!

The song is ever the same, but the tones of the insects differ,
Maybe their sorrows vary, according to their hearts.

IDZUMI-SHIKIBU.

Changed is my childhood’s home--all but those insect-voices:
I think they are trying to speak of happier days that were.

These trembling dews on the grass--are they tears for the death of
autumn?--
Tears of the insect-singers that now so sadly cry?

It might be thought that several of the poems above given were intended to express either a real or an affected sympathy with imagined insect-pain. But this would be a wrong interpretation. In most compositions of this class, the artistic purpose is to suggest, by indirect means, various phases of the emotion of love,--especially that melancholy which lends its own passional tone to the aspects and the voices of nature. The baroque fancy that dew might be insect-tears, is by its very exaggeration intended to indicate the extravagance of grief, as well as to suggest that human tears have been freshly shed. The verses in which a woman declares that her heart has become too affectionate, since she cannot but feel for the bell-insect during a heavy shower, really bespeak the fond anxiety felt for some absent beloved, travelling in the time of the great rains. Again, in the lines about “treading on insect-voices,” the dainty scruple is uttered only as a hint of that intensification of feminine tenderness which love creates. And a still more remarkable example of this indirect double-suggestiveness is offered by the little poem prefacing this article,--

“O insect, insect!--think you that Karma can be exhausted by song?”

The Western reader would probably suppose that the insect-condition, or insect-state-of-being, is here referred to; but the real thought of the speaker, presumably a woman, is that her own sorrow is the result of faults committed in former lives, and is therefore impossible to alleviate.

It will have been observed that a majority of the verses cited refer to autumn and to the sensations of autumn. Certainly Japanese poets have not been insensible to the real melancholy inspired by autumn,--that vague strange annual revival of ancestral pain: dim inherited sorrow of millions of memories associated through millions of years with the death of summer;--but in nearly every utterance of this melancholy, the veritable allusion is to grief of parting. With its color-changes, its leaf-whirlings, and the ghostly plaint of its insect-voices, autumn Buddhistically symbolizes impermanency, the certainty of bereavement, the pain that clings to all desire, and the sadness of isolation.

* * * * *

But even if these poems on insects were primarily intended to shadow amorous emotion, do they not reflect also for us the subtlest influences of nature,--wild pure nature,--upon imagination and memory? Does not the place accorded to insect-melody, in the home-life as well as in the literature of Japan, prove an æsthetic sensibility developed in directions that yet remain for us almost unexplored? Does not the shrilling booth of the insect-seller at a night-festival proclaim even a popular and universal comprehension of things divined in the West only by our rarest poets:--the pleasure-pain of autumn’s beauty, the weird sweetness of the voices of the night, the magical quickening of remembrance by echoes of forest and field? Surely we have something to learn from the people in whose mind the simple chant of a cricket can awaken whole fairy-swarms of tender and delicate fancies. We may boast of being their masters in the mechanical,--their teachers of the artificial in all its varieties of ugliness;--but in the knowledge of the natural,--in the feeling of the joy and beauty of earth,--they exceed us like the Greeks of old. Yet perhaps it will be only when our blind aggressive industrialism has wasted and sterilized their paradise,--substituting everywhere for beauty the utilitarian, the conventional, the vulgar, the utterly hideous,--that we shall begin with remorseful amazement to comprehend the charm of that which we destroyed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Nowaki_ is the name given to certain destructive storms usually occurring toward the end of autumn. All the chapters of the Genji Monogatari have remarkably poetical and effective titles. There is an English translation, by Mr. Kenchō Suyematsu, of the first seventeen chapters.

[2] The Kurando, or Kurōdo, was an official intrusted with the care of the imperial records.

[3] A _chō_ is about one-fifteenth of a mile.

[4] _Hagi_ is the name commonly given to the bush-clover. _Ominameshi_ is the common term for the _valeriana officinalis_.

[5] That is to say, there are now many people who go every night to the graveyards, to decorate and prepare the graves before the great Festival of the Dead.

[6] Most of these names survive in the appellations of well-known districts of the present Tōkyō.

[7] _Katabira_ is a name given to many kinds of light textures used for summer-robes. The material is usually hemp, but sometimes, as in the case referred to here, of fine silk. Some of these robes are transparent, and very beautiful.--Hakata, in Kyūshū, is still famous for the silk girdles made there. The fabric is very heavy and strong.

[8] _Amé_ is a nutritive gelatinous extract obtained from wheat and other substances. It is sold in many forms--as candy, as a syrupy liquid resembling molasses, as a sweet hot drink, as a solid jelly. Children are very fond of it. Its principal element is starch-sugar.

[9] Ōyama mountain in Sagami is a great resort of Pilgrims. There is a celebrated temple there, dedicated to Iwanaga-Himé (“Long-Rock Princess”), sister of the beautiful Goddess of Fuji. Sekison-San is a popular name both for the divinity and for the mountain itself.

[10] Prices of the year 1897.

[11] _Calyptotryphus Marmoratus. (?)_

[12] _Homeogryllus Japonicus._

[13] _Locusta Japonica. (?)_

[14] Sanscrit: _Yama_. Probably this name was given to the insect on account of its large staring eyes. Images of King Emma are always made with very big and awful eyes.

[15] _Mushi no koe fumu._

A Question in the Zen Texts

I

My friend opened a thin yellow volume of that marvellous text which proclaims at sight the patience of the Buddhist engraver. Movable Chinese types may be very useful; but the best of which they are capable is ugliness itself when compared with the beauty of the old block-printing.

“I have a queer story for you,” he said.

“A Japanese story?”

“No,--Chinese.”

“What is the book?”

“According to Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters of the title, we call it _Mu-Mon-Kwan_, which means ‘The Gateless Barrier.’ It is one of the books especially studied by the Zen sect, or sect of Dhyâna. A peculiarity of some of the Dhyâna texts,--this being a good example,--is that they are not explanatory. They only suggest. Questions are put; but the student must think out the answers for himself. He must _think_ them out, but not write them. You know that Dhyâna represents human effort to reach, through meditation, zones of thought beyond the range of verbal expression; and any thought once narrowed into utterance loses all Dhyâna quality.... Well, this story is supposed to be true; but it is used only for a Dhyâna question. There are three different Chinese versions of it; and I can give you the substance of the three.”

Which he did as follows:--

II

--_The story of the girl Ts’ing, which is told in the Lui-shwo-li-hwan-ki, cited by the Ching-tang-luh, and commented upon in the Wu-mu-kwan (called by the Japanese Mu-Mon-Kwan), which is a book of the Zen sect:_--

* * * * *

There lived in Han-yang a man called Chang-Kien, whose child-daughter, Ts’ing, was of peerless beauty. He had also a nephew called Wang-Chau,--a very handsome boy. The children played together, and were fond of each other. Once Kien jestingly said to his nephew:--“Some day I will marry you to my little daughter.” Both children remembered these words; and they believed themselves thus betrothed.

When Ts’ing grew up, a man of rank asked for her in marriage; and her father decided to comply with the demand. Ts’ing was greatly troubled by this decision. As for Chau, he was so much angered and grieved that he resolved to leave home, and go to another province. The next day he got a boat ready for his journey, and after sunset, without bidding farewell to any one, he proceeded up the river. But in the middle of the night he was startled by a voice calling to him, “Wait!--it is I!”--and he saw a girl running along the bank towards the boat. It was Ts’ing. Chau was unspeakably delighted. She sprang into the boat; and the lovers found their way safely to the province of Chuh.

In the province of Chuh they lived happily for six years; and they had two children. But Ts’ing could not forget her parents, and often longed to see them again. At last she said to her husband:--“Because in former time I could not bear to break the promise made to you, I ran away with you and forsook my parents,--although knowing that I owed them all possible duty and affection. Would it not now be well to try to obtain their forgiveness?” “Do not grieve yourself about that,” said Chau;--“we shall go to see them.” He ordered a boat to be prepared; and a few days later he returned with his wife to Han-yang.

According to custom in such cases, the husband first went to the house of Kien, leaving Ts’ing alone in the boat. Kien, welcomed his nephew with every sign of joy, and said:--

“How much I have been longing to see you! I was often afraid that something had happened to you.”

Chau answered respectfully:--

“I am distressed by the undeserved kindness of your words. It is to beg your forgiveness that I have come.”

But Kien did not seem to understand. He asked:--

“To what matter do you refer?”

“I feared,” said Chau, “that you were angry with me for having run away with Ts’ing. I took her with me to the province of Chuh.”

“What Ts’ing was that?” asked Kien.

“Your daughter Ts’ing,” answered Chau, beginning to suspect his father-in-law of some malevolent design.

“What are you talking about?” cried Kien, with every appearance of astonishment. “My daughter Ts’ing has been sick in bed all these years,--ever since the time when you went away.”

“Your daughter Ts’ing,” returned Chau, becoming angry, “has not been sick. She has been my wife for six years; and we have two children; and we have both returned to this place only to seek your pardon. Therefore please do not mock us!”

For a moment the two looked at each other in silence. Then Kien arose, and motioning to his nephew to follow, led the way to an inner room where a sick girl was lying. And Chau, to his utter amazement, saw the face of Ts’ing,--beautiful, but strangely thin and pale.

“She cannot speak,” explained the old man; “but she can understand.” And Kien said to her, laughingly:--“Chau tells me that you ran away with him, and that you gave him two children.”

The sick girl looked at Chau, and smiled; but remained silent.

“Now come with me to the river,” said the bewildered visitor to his father-in-law. “For I can assure you,--in spite of what I have seen in this house,--that your daughter Ts’ing is at this moment in my boat.”

They went to the river; and there, indeed, was the young wife, waiting. And seeing her father, she bowed down before him, and besought his pardon.

Kien said to her:--

“If you really be my daughter, I have nothing but love for you. Yet though you seem to be my daughter, there is something which I cannot understand.... Come with us to the house.”

So the three proceeded toward the house. As they neared it, they saw that the sick girl,--who had not before left her bed for years,--was coming to meet them, smiling as if much delighted. And the two Ts’ings approached each other. But then--nobody could ever tell how--they suddenly melted into each other, and became one body, one person, one Ts’ing,--even more beautiful than before, and showing no sign of sickness or of sorrow.

Kien said to Chau:--

“Ever since the day of your going, my daughter was dumb, and most of the time like a person who had taken too much wine. Now I know that her spirit was absent.”

Ts’ing herself said:--

“Really I never knew that I was at home. I saw Chau going away in silent anger; and the same night I dreamed that I ran after his boat.... But now I cannot tell which was really I,--the I that went away in the boat, or the I that stayed at home.”

III

“That is the whole of the story,” my friend observed. “Now there is a note about it in the _Mu-Mon-Kwan_ that may interest you. This note says:--‘The fifth patriarch of the Zen sect once asked a priest,--”_In the case of the separation of the spirit of the girl Ts’ing, which was the true Ts’ing?_”’ It was only because of this question that the story was cited in the book. But the question is not answered. The author only remarks:--‘If you can decide which was the real Ts’ing, then you will have learned that to go out of one envelope and into another is merely like putting up at an inn. But if you have not yet reached this degree of enlightenment, take heed that you do not wander aimlessly about the world. Otherwise, when Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind shall suddenly be dissipated, you will be like a crab with seven hands and eight legs, thrown into boiling water. And in that time do not say that you were never told about the _Thing_.’... Now the _Thing_--”

“I do not want to hear about the Thing,” I interrupted,--“nor about the crab with seven hands and eight legs. I want to hear about the clothes.”

“What clothes?”

“At the time of their meeting, the two Ts’ings would have been differently dressed,--very differently, perhaps; for one was a maid, and the other a wife. Did the clothes of the two also blend together? Suppose that one had a silk robe and the other a robe of cotton, would these have mixed into a texture of silk and cotton? Suppose that one was wearing a blue girdle, and the other a yellow girdle, would the result have been a green girdle?... Or did one Ts’ing simply slip out of her costume, and leave it on the ground, like the cast-off shell of a cicada?”

“None of the texts say anything about the clothes,” my friend replied: “so I cannot tell you. But the subject is quite irrelevant, from the Buddhist point of view. The doctrinal question is the question of what I suppose you would call the personality of Ts’ing.”

“And yet it is not answered,” I said.

“It is best answered,” my friend replied, “by not being answered.”

“How so?”

“Because there is no such thing as personality.”

The Literature of the Dead

Shindaréba koso ikitaré.

“Only because of having died, does one enter into life.”
--_Buddhist proverb._

I

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 upper characters are “BONTI”--modified Sanskrit_)]

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.

* * * * *