Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-21
lit. And many happinesses will come to


| ilarly-with the sole differences that instead
| of Kivannon, the deities of wealth and pros
| perity-Daikoku. Bishamon and Benin
| are to be worshiped, and that the Tor
| tunate man will not have to wait at all for
| the woman loved. But the Kyo paper reads
| thus:
He who draweth forth this mikuji it will
be well for HIM TO obey the heavenly Iaw
and to worship Kivannon the Mercltnl. II
| he have any sickness, even much more SICK
he shall become. If he have lost aught IL
| shall never beTound again. II he nave
suit-at-law. he shall never gain it. Ii ne
love woman, let him have no more & s1-
| pectation of winning her: Only by the
most diligent piety can he hope to escape
the most frightful calamities. Ana tnere
| shall be no felicity in his portion.
"AU the same we are fortunate, laughs
Akira 'Twice out Of three times we have
found luck. Now we will 60 to see an
other statue of Buddha."
And he guides me, through many laby-
| rinthine curious streets, to the southern
verge of the city.
Before US towers hill, which q broad
| flight of stone steps sloping to its summit
between foliage Of cedars and naples. We
climb; and see above me the lions Of
Buddha waiting-the male yawning menacej
the female with mouth closed. Passing be-
tween, them, we enter huge court, at whose
This One of Respectable Size.
peer in through the blue smoke that
curls up from halt dozen tiny rods planted
in a small brazier full Of ashes; and far back
in the shadow 1 see standing a swarthy
Buddha, tiara-coiffed, with head bowed and
hands joined-just as 1 see the Japanese
praying erect in the sun before the thresh-
olds of temples. The figure is of wood,
rudely wrought and rudely colored; still
the placid face has beauty-beauty Of sug-
gestion.
Crossing the court to the left of the build
ing find another flight of steps before me
leading up slope to something mysterious
still high gher-among enormous trees l
ascend these steps also, reach the top,
guarded by two small symbolic lions, and
suddenly find myself in cool shadow, and
started into immobility by spectacle to-
tally unexpected and unfamiliar.
Dark-almost black-soil; and the shad-
owing trees immemorially old, through
whose vaulted foliage the sunlight leaks
thinly down in rare fecksj q corpuscular
light, tender and solemn, revealing the
weirdest host of unfamiliar shapes-a vast
congregation Of grey columnar, messy
things, stony, monumental, strangely sculp
tured with Chinese ideographs. And about
them, behind them, rising high above
them-thickly set as rushes in marsh
verge-tall, slender wooden tablets, like
laths, black-written with similar fantastic
lettering, pierce the green gloom by thou
sands, by tens of thousands
An Ancient Buddhist Cemetery.
And before I can note other details I
know that am in hakaba-a cemetery-a
very ancient Buddhist cemetery These
laths are called in the Japanese tongue
sotobas. ALI have notches cut upon their
edges on both sides near the top-fve
notches; and all are painted with Chinese
characters on both faces. One inscription is
always the phrase, 'To Promote Buddha-
hood" painted Immediately below the dead
man name; the inscription upon the other
surface is always a sentence in Sanscrit,
whose meaning has been forgotten even by
those priests who perform the funeral rites.
One such lath is planted behind the tomb
as soon as the monument (haka) is set up,
then another every seven days for 49 days,
then one after the lapse of 100 days, then
one after the passing of three years. then at
successively longer periods others are
erected during 100 years.
And in almost every group notice one
quite new, of freshly planed, unpainted
white wood standing beside others gray or
even black with age, and there are many
still older, from whose surface all the char
acters have disappeared, lying on the
somber clay. Hundreds stand so loose in
the soil that thetleast breeze jostles and
clatters them together with bony sound.
Not less unfamiliar in their forms, but far
more interesting, are the monuments of
stone One shape know represents five of
the Buddhist elements: A cube support
ing a sphere which upholds pyramid, on
which rests a shallow square cup with four
crescent edges and tiled corners-and in the
cup pyriform body poised with the point
upward These successfully typify Earth,
Water, Fire, Wind Ether-the five SUBJ
stances wherefrom the bodyis shapen, and
into which it is resolved by death; the ab-
sence of any emblem for the sixth element,
knowledge, touches more than any imagery
conceivable can do.
For the Little Children.
Roku Jize-NThe Six Jizo''-these images
are called in the speech of the people, and
such groups may be seen in many Japan
ese cemetery. They are representations of
the most beautiful and tender figure in JAP
anese popular faith-that charming divinity
who cares for the souls of little children,
and consoles them in Dlaces of unrest and