called the Sea-Sounding Tathâgata—Kai-On-Nyōrai,—because his preaching of the Law sounds through the world like the sound of the sea. And this little image is especially a shiryō-yoké,[1]—which protects the living from the dead. This you must wear, in its covering, next to your body,—under the girdle. . . . Besides, I shall presently perform in the temple, a segaki-service[2] for the repose of the troubled spirit. . . . And here is a holy sutra, called Ubō-Darani-Kyō, or “Treasure-Raining Sutra:”[3] you must be
- ↑ From shiryō, a ghost, and yokeru, to exclude. The Japanese have two kinds of ghosts proper in their folklore: the spirits of the dead, shiryō; and the spirits of the living, ikiryō. A house or a person may be haunted by an ikiryō as well as by a shiryō.
- ↑ A special service,—accompanying offerings of food, etc., to those dead having no living relatives or friends to care for them,—is thus termed. In this case, however, the service would be of a particular and exceptional kind.
- ↑ The name would be more correctly written Uhō-Darani-Kyō. It is the Japanese pronunciation of the title of every short sutra translated out of Sanscrit into Chinese by the Indian priest Amoghayajra, probably during the
little images were often worn by samurai on the person. I was recently shown a miniature figure of Kwannon, in an iron case, which had been carried by an officer through the Satsuma war. He observed, with good reason, that it had probably saved his life; for it had stopped a bullet of which the dent was plainly visible.
