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Sometimes Katsugor says:—"I am a Nono-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 Ontak 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-Koz" (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 Genz, his wife, or Tsuya, could any of them remember having done any virtuous deeds. Genz 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 the Nembutsu every morning and evening, and that she never failed to give two mon[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 Katsugor.)
7.—(Note by the Translator.) The foregoing is taken from a manuscript entitled Chin Setsu Sh 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: Kurumach, Shiba, Yedo" Under this, again, is the following note:—"Bought from Yamatoya Sakujir 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 rnin 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. The ji-san kwaiki is 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,—called Kam. 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 invocation Namu Amida Butsu! is thus named. The nembutsu is repeated by many Buddhist sects besides the sect of Amida proper,—the Shinsh.
[9] Botamochi, a kind of sugared rice-cake.
[10] Such advice is a commonplace in Japanese Buddhist literature. By Hotok 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 the kamado is 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 (or Sama) is the child-word for the Spirits of the dead, for the Buddhas, and for the Shint 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 Shint thought.
[14] The reference here to Ontak Sama has a particular interest, but will need some considerable explanation.
Ontak, or Mitak, is the name of a celebrated holy peak in the province of Shinano—a great resort for pilgrims. During the Tokugawa Shgunate, a priest called Isshin, of the Rissh Buddhists, made a pilgrimage to that mountain. Returning to his native place (Sakamoto-ch, 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 Ontak. The Shgunate considered him a dangerous person, and banished him to the island of Hachij, 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-Ky. It was Buddhist teaching in a Shint 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 (fud); 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 Osuk, originally an oil-merchant in Heiyemon-ch, Asakusa, Yedo, organized, on the basis of Isshin's teaching, a religious association named Tomoy-Ko. It flourished until the overthrow of the Shgunate, when a law was issued forbidding the teaching of mixed doctrines, and the blending of Shint with Buddhist religion. Shimo-yama Osuk then applied for permission to establish a new Shinto sect, under the name of Mitak-Ky,—popularly called Ontak-Ky; and the permission was given in the sixth year of Meiji (1873). Osuk then remodeled the Buddhist sutra Fud Ky into a Shinto prayer-book, under the title, Shint-Fud-Norito. The sect still flourishes; and one of its chief temples is situated about a mile from my present residence in Tky.
"Ontak San" (or "Sama") is a popular name given to the deities adored by this sect. It really means the Deity dwelling on the peak Mitak, or Ontak. 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 Ontak, and to make revelations of truth through the power of the divinity. In the mouth of the boy Katsugoro "Ontak Sama" means the high-priest of that time (1823), almost certainly Osuk himself,—then chief of the Tomoy-Ky.
