SUPERSTITIONS
grain of millet daily. Thus, having attained supernatural power, he departed from the earth in the year 901. His mantle was found hanging from the branch of a tree, with a scroll : "I bequeath my mantle to Emmei of Dōgen-ji" (the name of a temple). Emmei, seeking his master year after year among forests and mountains, became himself a sen-nin. After Yōshō's disappearance, his father fell sick, and prayed fervently that he might once more see his favourite son. By and by, the voice of Yōshō was heard overhead, reciting the "Lotus of the Law," and promising that if flowers were offered and incense burned on the 18th of every month, his spirit would come, drawn by the perfume and the flame, to requite his father's love. This legend inspired imitation in all ages. Even now there are recluses living in hollow trees or rocky caverns among the forests and mountains of Ehime prefecture and of northern Tōsan-dō. They subsist on herbs and fruits, and hunters sometimes carry to country hamlets tales of strange beings appearing and disappearing so suddenly as to suggest supernatural powers. Doubtless out of such materials the myths of the sen-nin and probably of the tengu also, were originally constructed. The Japanese view the sen-nin (or rishi) with playful gravity. In the innumerable representations of these strange beings that are to be found among the works of celebrated painters or carvers in wood and ivory, a ray of laughter always
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